David Ottenstein has taken some beautiful photos of Iowa barns and buildings. He visited Grinnell last Fall and I got a chance to talk to him about what he called "the aesthetics of loss". His term strikes at one of the fascinating paradoxes of living in Iowa: our decaying history surrounds us, and at times it is stunningly beautiful. Iowans seem to bear this loss stoically, almost as if it were an extension of their self-effacing, no frills nature. In Ottenstien's photographs the connection between Iowan art, environment, and psychology begs to be discussed.
So, I brought these photos up with Arion Thiboumery, a graduate student at Iowa State University focusing on revitalizing Iowa's small meat lockers. His first thoughts: "when I see these photos there is not an "aesthetic of loss" in terms of sadness, but rather of bearing. . . . There is real salvage in knowing what is here, what is left. The withered and cracked, the ruins in the "low spots and hilltops" on the verge of the oblivion, become all the more beautiful, because they have not been lost for good, yet. The rediscovery fills me with dreams and hope. Even if I do not know their exact use or meaning, or any of it at all, the motivation they bring to make new meaning stretches the limits of measure. Dreams have value, and what inspires us to dream in new ways likewise has value."
"To give you an example: the meat lockers project. Meat lockers are living relics of the past, most that have ever been are gone, but they are a viable means for future sustainability through decentralized production. Some of them are downright dirty and need work. Standards of sanitation have greatly improved in recent years. "Lockers," in many places, are conceived of as "that blood-stained shack where my grandma went to get her cow slaughtered." They need a make over. They need to let the past die so they can be reborn."