AgArts hosted its first Local Wonders Dinner to raise money and fund an Iowa art project. The event took place at the MonteBello Bed and Breakfast Inn on Saturday night and featured live music and potluck dinner.

“It was a great success,” said Mary Swanders, Iowa Poet Laureate and ISU distinguished professor in residence. “Everybody said it was a great success here at the MonteBello Bed and Breakfast.”

The goal of the event was also to bring attention to the importance of preserving folk art and culture because of its necessity to Iowa life. The Montebello farm provided a picturesque sunset for the outdoor meal along with the soft folk music floating over the lively conversation.

“We try to intersect agriculture and art and kind of spice it up somehow because we’re in Iowa,” said master of ceremonies Xavier Cavazos, graduate student in English.

The evening also featured a reading from the book “Excellent Joy” by author Mike Rosmann.

“This is a good because the work of AgArts and words of Excellent Joy connect,” Rosmann said. “Its a wonderful organization. I met some people tonight, people with some thinking going on between their ears.”

There were six proposals presented that evening that spanned mediums from filmography, a writing workshop and even an Iowan Microbrewery tour. After dinner, artists were allotted three minutes to present their proposals. After that, attendees discussed and placed their votes. The project Apron Strings and Memories, by ISU graduate student Jeanie Freeman Kirkpatrick, was chosen to receive the donations from the evening.

Her project is an exhibition displaying the aprons of rural Iowan women, and to tell their stories and memories of their lives and housework to be featured at the Octagon studio in Ames.

“The majority of rural women would wear an apron when doing housework,” Kirkpatrick’s proposal said. “These aprons cannot talk, but the women who wear them can.”

There will be a call for aprons from, in and around Ames to be featured in the project. The grant will be used to pay shipping costs and expenses for the exhibit.