By Ann Thomas for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Natural light floods through large windows lining nearly every wall of the Trappist Caskets production facility in northeast Iowa, wrapping it in view of New Melleray Abbey's 3,400 acres, 1,200 of which are abundant in timber.

The storage racks at Trappist Caskets, designed and fabricated by master welder Brother Dennis, stretch six caskets tall between the concrete floor and the rafters that span the length of the shipping bay. This area manages the ebb and flow of production and shipping. The goal is to keep them full at all times. Today, there are several vacancies-demand has been very high.

At first glance, the racks are overwhelming for their enormity, and the realization that each space represents an individual awaiting preparation for burial adds more gravity.

A wealth of midwestern natural resources, combined with the Trappist monks of New Melleray's need to financially support themselves through their own labor and maintain a life steeped in prayer, inspired its entry into casket manufacturing in 1999.

Each casket crafted by monks and employees at this facility in Peosta, Iowa, captures unrepeatable characteristics in walnut, oak, cherry or pine grain. But one casket on the shipping bay's floor this Tuesday stands out. Its design and far deeper red draw the eye quicker than all other cherry caskets in the shelving.

The lone casket served its owner first as a coffee table, its cherry wood aging in open air for 20 years. Rings left by glasses mark the lid's finish. With upholstering completed this morning, and its lid newly reinforced, this old cherry casket is on its way to the funeral home so as to serve the priest in death who purchased it. He will be buried in it within the next few days. Paul Pankowski, Production Manager for Trappist Caskets, notes it isn't uncommon for caskets to be purchased and turned into bookshelves, wine racks, and coffee tables, then for owners to eventually be buried in them.

The design for these have evolved since the cherry wood one was built. Recent interest in green burials necessitates biodegradable joinery and alternate handles, meaning designs continue to evolve.

Pankowski oversees all aspects of production on the circuitous workshop floor, and can identify by eye where boards moving their way through originated. He points out lighter tones that range through black walnut of Wisconsin and Missouri. Iowa's distinguishes itself from all others by richness of its depth, and the incomparable hardness of central Iowa's oak dulls blades quicker than any other wood. The whiteness and clarity of pine harvested from the monks' own land is easily recognizable in contrast to pine sourced from other areas.

For Brother Joseph, it's hard to believe the growth of this work. From the production facility's modest beginnings in the monks' barns to the far reaching ties maintained through prayer and memorial tree plantings for those buried in Trappist Caskets and their families-the span is remarkable.

Brother Joseph, who began in those barns in 2006 and continues to work in varied roles from woodworking to upholstering in the new facility completed in 2007, recalls how cramped and dusty the barns were. He stresses how critical the employment of nearby community members is now - to meet the high demand for their caskets and to ensure the monks' freedom to maintain the rhythm of monastic life.

The monks' concern for land stewardship led Brother Joseph to pursue the hire of their full-time forester, John Schroeder, six years ago. Schroeder is initiating large scale prairie restoration and reforestation projects which prioritize the needs of New Melleray Abbey's land and creeks lying on the cusp of Iowa's Driftless region. It is an area spared by the grinding weight of glaciers moving out of the midwest around 12,000 years ago. This land's delicate ecological balance and exceptionally rich soil are responsible for traits found in the trees that grow here.

Among the most grateful customers Trappist Caskets serves are parents who must bury their children. The monks offer these caskets free of charge. Funeral homes and hospitals are quick to connect families in these tragic circumstances to the monks. The Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule ensures that consumers are not limited to caskets offered by funeral homes for purchase and use, and anyone is free to contact Trappist Caskets, whose staff is always ready to guide families through meeting needs.

Trappist Caskets' employees can relate to this devastating experience. Production Manager Paul Pankowski and his wife lost a premature baby, and his first-hand knowledge infuses compassion in every step of the production process. His three-decade long experience within strict quality parameters of the custom kitchen cabinetry business prior to working at Trappist Caskets also informs his approach to all he does.

While the end goal of both industries is perfection, his purpose, as well as all who work at Trappist Caskets, is not to turn a profit, but rather offer an encounter with beauty and consolation during a time of grief.


Ann Thomas wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Chuy Renteria started dancing-specifically breaking-at the age of 14. A magazine editor and writer these days, Renteria still uses breaking to express his identity-and defiance, rebellion, and frustration with the other dancers.

"We're in conversation. We're having the equivalent of a heated argument on the dance floor," he says. The improvisational street dance is rooted in African American and Latino culture. It originated in New York City in 1980s, alongside a growing hip-hop scene.

Renteria dances to engage with the labels pasted onto him, both accurate and biased.

"When people see me walking down the street, they can't help but think A, B, C, right? So when I go to sleep and I wake up, I can't take that away," he says.

'This is Me'

Renteria grew up in West Liberty, Iowa, in the 80s and 90s-a time and place that has shaped who he is and where his art leads him.

The city is less than two square miles in size; inside is a historically majority Hispanic population.

"Growing up in West Liberty, I felt too Mexican for the white people and too white for the Mexican people. And that was always this constant [existence] between those spaces," Renteria says.

As young as nine years old, the first-generation Mexican-American remembers racial slurs being flung at him. People would say they hated him.

"And when I found dance, it transcended all of that," he says. "It's like, this is me."

Finding Meaning

Renteria shares: "Just by nature of my own identity, in the context of the social constructs around us, me existing becomes this political conversation point to folks."

But that politicization isn't as direct a translation in dance as, say, artforms that use words or visuals. The dialogue is more subtle.

"Dance and movement, and that sort of expression, is just as valid, and it's just as politically cognizant of the world. It just does it in this kind of abstraction. It doesn't have to be hitting you over the head," he says.

Renteria's 2021 memoir We Heard It When We Were Young, along with his more recent blog posts in Of Spanglish and Maximalism, grapple with his past, the now, and beyond.

What is identity? How does intergenerational trauma and racism impact who we are? The list goes on: "Did I have a good childhood? Am I a good person because-or in spite of-my upbringing? ... Is my town a good town? The town that I grew up in, the town as of now, is it a good place?" Renteria asks.

"I'm really interested in the questions that I don't know the answer to."


Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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By Anya Slepyan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

As the 2024 election approached, news channels and commentators once again revived a familiar narrative: the urban-rural divide. 

But Laura Zabel, executive director of Minnesota-based arts non-profit Springboard for the Arts, was more interested in urban-rural solidarity. 

“Going into an election year, we knew that there was going to be a lot of narrative that focused on ways we might be different, or ways that people assume we’re different,” Zabel said. “And we wanted to do something to not only counter that narrative, but to help people build real relationships and real solidarity across urban and rural places.” 

Stoking resentment between urban and rural communities serves to divide largely working-class constituencies that could gain more political power if they work together, Zabel said. Emphasizing what these communities have in common, across different geographies and demographics, can help counter that divide. But it’s not easy to overcome a narrative that is so deeply ingrained that many Americans take it for granted.

So Springboard for the Arts launched a new initiative, consisting of over 35 artists working on projects across Minnesota, Michigan, Kentucky, and Colorado that connect urban and rural communities. The installations include phone booths that connect communities in rural Northfield, Minnesota and Minneapolis, a culinary project that celebrates the fusion of a chef’s Southeast Asian roots and rural midwestern upbringing, and a Kentucky poetry slam honoring the renowned theorist and professor bell hooks.

The results, Zabel said, demonstrate “all of the different ways that we’re connected, and all of the different creative ways that we might reach out to one another and build that kind of understanding.” 

Using art projects to foster connection and understanding is effective, according to Zabel, because they leave room for nuance and complexity that is often flattened by media narratives. Creative projects can also help people approach new ideas with a more open mind, she said. 

“Art has a tremendous ability to build shared experience in ways that takes people outside of their comfort zone, or makes people more open to thinking of things in a different way,” Zabel said.

A project installed in two Minnesota elementary schools demonstrates the principles behind the projects. Artist David Hamlow worked with 2nd and 3rd graders in rural St. James and urban Minneapolis to design wall sculptures made of recycled materials. Each student was also given a yearbook photo of a participating student from the other school, and asked to incorporate that picture into the sculpture. The resulting walls of faces serve a purpose similar to pen pals, according to Zabel.

The youth-focused project also hopes to reach urban and rural children before they’ve internalized the harmful stereotypes these communities can apply to one another. 

Project installations by the initial class of 35 artists are ongoing, but Zabel hopes to expand the initiative further in coming years.

“I think that if we are able to build greater understanding and connection, and help people see a more complete picture of what it looks like to live in different contexts, we end up finding out that there is a lot of shared interest and shared hope for our future and our children,” Zabel said.


Anya Slepyan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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Sixty years ago this weekend, young activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, demanding their right to vote and changing history in the process. Today, another group of young people is using art to make their voices heard in Georgia.

A Boston-based arts group, beheard.world, has teamed up with Selma-area teens for "Selma Again," a production that blends dance, spoken word and music to shed light on the struggles the city still faces today.

Director and choreographer Anna Myer said the performance is about pushing forward, as well as looking back.

"The piece talks about real things that are happening and things that go to the heart," she said, "and it also talks about love and the only way forward is love and the only way to keep moving forward is if we do this together."

Myer said she first visited Selma years ago and was struck by how poverty and crime persist despite its historic significance. She and her husband, filmmaker Jay Paris, along with Selma natives, helped create a nonprofit initiative to blend nonviolence education, performing arts and storytelling for local youth.

It's part of the Selma Cross-Cultural Nonviolence and Performing Arts Academy, which was co-founded by Dallas County natives and civil rights veterans Charles Bonner and Viola Douglas, along with the Rev. Gary Crum of Elwood Christian Church. Through poetry and dance, teens confront modern challenges and honor past civil rights leaders.

Myer said this year's production highlights how today's youth can step into the legacy of activism left by the "foot soldiers" of the 1960s.

"In the performance in Atlanta, we're honoring civil rights veterans who are still alive - Andrew Young, and Charles Steele, and Faya Rose Sanders, and Lynda Blackmon Lowery," she added. "We're honoring them and we'll be also speaking their names in the piece."

"Selma Again" will be performed today (Fri., March 7) at Morehouse College's Ray Charles Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, and Sat., March 8, at Ellwood Christian Academy in Selma, as part of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

Myer emphasized the show's ultimate goal is to spark meaningful conversations, promote understanding and inspire action for lasting change.