Tradition in evolution.

Magic Beans by Donna Kallner
When I was small, my dad would take the time while stacking bales to create a straw house worthy of any fairy tale. With borrowed tablecloths and blue-ribbon imaginations, my sister and I claimed a world where possibilities could grow faster than any magic bean. This is not the barn of my childhood. It's an historic sale barn in southeastern Iowa, near another piece of land that is dear to my heart. But even now, many years since I lived on a farm, I can see myself hosting a tea party in that round barn. The guest list would include all the people pictured in this piece: The younger selves of my sister and me, Mom and Grandma, and a boy in overalls and a straw hat who looks like my dad but might once have climbed a beanstalk.

Origins by Donna Kallner
A Maori folk tale tells of a war chief who saw fairies catching fish with nets instead of hooks and lines. One of the fairies fell into the bushes near where the chief was hidden. When the other fairies saw the man, they fled. In fleeing, they snagged their net in the bushes, ensnaring the fallen fairy. The chief seized her and her basket of netting tools, and took the fairy to his village. There, she taught the villagers how to make nets. In this piece, I imagined the empty home of an unintended emmigrant. Like that captured fairy, there are many of us who didn't plan to end up where we are. Our own origins become tangled up with the stories we tell to help make sense of the world. And there are two sides to every tale.

Click here to continue your tour of the show.