The Annual Arts & Culture Gala took place on Tuesday, November 11th, 2025, at ICON Art Gallery, 58 N. Main Street, Fairfield, IA. Doors opened at 7 pm, welcoming members of the community for an evening celebrating local creativity and culture.
The event featured civic leaders discussing upcoming arts and cultural initiatives for 2026, a live musical performance by a local artist, Lore, and an open mic segment for community announcements about upcoming events and services.
Highlights of the evening included the presentation of the 2025 Cultural Trust Fund Mini-Grant Awards, with 12 mini-grants awarded to support creative projects that enrich Fairfield and Jefferson County. In addition, the 2025 Cultural Contribution nominations were announced, recognizing individuals and organizations who have made significant contributions to the community’s cultural landscape.
The celebration brought together artists, civic leaders, and community members in a joyful evening of recognition, inspiration, and connection.
Jenny Sammons
Threads of Ancestry
Threads of Ancestry: A Portrait Series & Community Artist Talk is a community-oriented art initiative that celebrates heritage and identity through vibrant portraiture. The project will consist of a new series of portraits inspired by the diverse cultural lineages present in Jefferson County. The final works will be exhibited locally and accompanied by a free public artist talk where I’ll share the stories, symbols, and inspiration behind the art, inviting reflection and dialogue from attendees. Possible venues include the Fairfield Colab and the Fairfield Public Library.
Werner Elmker
Video/Photo Documentation of Fairfield
The grant funds will be used to partly compensate photographer and video producer Werner Elmker for all his work documenting Fairfield life with high quality photography and video and helping us show the world what a great place Fairfield is.
Fairfield Productions
Documentary Film
We are filming several re-enactments for our film about the history of artists and musicians and their influence on the growth of Jefferson County, Iowa. We need funding for musicians and dancers, as well as costs associated with the shooting of the re-enactment.
Guy Harvey
Streets of Fairfield Photography Exhibit
The exhibit consists of approximately 25 photographs taken between 2022 and 2025 in Fairfield. Photographic styles include; candid street photography, documentary photography, and urban scenic photography. The medium is digital photography printed on photographic paper. The exhibit will take place in May and June at the Fairfield Colab.
1st Fridays ArtWalk of Fairfield Inc.
ArtWalk and Community Events
Fairfield First Fridays events have been ongoing for 24 years. We host 11 monthly events, six movies in the park events and the two day Holiday Trade Fair event in December. All of our events are free and open to anyone.
These events are an economic driver to our downtown and enrich the lives of those who live in our community and those who visit.
Each month, the Art Walk celebrates creativity, culture and community and supports the arts in all forms, bringing diverse groups together to express their creativity and passion for the arts. Whether you enjoy touring art galleries, tasting incredible foods, watching wonderful performances, every 1st Friday fills the air with magic and fun for all.
Fairfield Art Association
Arts Education
As we head into our 60th Anniversary, the FAA is kicking up its Art Education Program with an “Arts Academy”. This program supports local artists as instructors as well as bringing art education & culture to all ages in SE Iowa.
An increase in classes started last year and we want to continue to grow the program. For adults a variety of media is offered with classes in Oil Painting, Watercolor, Collage, Drawing, Printmaking and more planned. A class for seniors to explore multi-media takes place twice monthly through out the year, and our Summer Art Camp is always full, with over a dozen children 6-12 yrs now meeting every other Monday to work with another art teacher.
Our recent Printmaking Class was so successful it spun off a full exhibit in our Main Gallery of works produced and now a second class is scheduled. We are looking at adding several more methods of printmaking to our class lineup.
Golden Magnolia Sanctuary
Sound Bath Concerts
A group of musicians have started a new tradition of Sound Bath Concerts at Golden Magnolia Sanctuary in Fairfield, Iowa. The first concert was presented in November of 2023 and since then several concerts haven been produced. The plan is to have one concert per month, featuring mainly acoustic music that has a soothing and healing influence on the audience. The concerts also feature a beautiful candlelit atmosphere, and are open to the public on a donation basis of ‘Pay What You May’.
Dr. Richard Beall
World Fair Field International Festival
The grant supported our third World FairField International Festival on Sunday, November 16th, on the MIU and Maharishi School campus.
The event featured displays representing over 30 countries, world music performances, and a “passport” for children, who collected flag stickers at each country table. Many of the displays and several local restaurants offered a wide variety of international cuisine.
The event drew hundreds of representatives, performers, and audience members, showcasing our multicultural community and providing our Jefferson County neighbors with meaningful exposure to the diversity infused in our local environment.
The Thirsty Word
Public Readings and Live performances of Original Literary Work
January 2026 celebrates the sixth anniversary of the Thirsty Word reading series, not only serving as an invaluable outlet for area creative writers to share new and favorite original literary works—from poetry to essays to screenplays—but as a rich and rewarding experience for audience members who pack the place every month, thirsty for well-crafted stories and poetry read aloud by their community members.
Since January 2020, The Thirsty Word has been providing monthly public readings and live performances of original literary work in an inclusive, affordable format.
The event has enjoyed participation from hundreds of Jefferson County residents (estimated at 780 annually) as well as regional guest writers and audience members from Iowa City, North Liberty, Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Washington, Burlington, Pella, and Grinnell. An alliance with the Fairfield Public Library and its in-house Write-On writing group has further enhanced attendance of Thirsty Word events.
Charles Borden
Creating an eBook version of a Fairfield History Book
My project is to create and publish an eBook version of A FAIR FIELD by Susan Fulton Welty, which is a 463 page complete historical of Fairfield, Iowa from the first explorations west of the Mississippi River by French explorers until the book’s publication in 1968. A second edition was published in 1974.
The Fairfield Public Library has several copies of both editions. The Second Edition would be used for this project since follow up editions usually have corrections from the previous.
Excerpt from the book’s cover:
“A FAIR FIELD has as its theme the development of a small midwestern community in Jefferson County, Iowa, from Indian times to the present: This development is shown through historical discussions of the land itself, the people who lived on it and from it, the early fairs to promote better agriculture, including the first State Fair in Iowa, schools, churches, the first public library in Iowa, the bitterness between Copperheads and Unionists during the Civil War, the Agassiz Club and the nature-appreciation groups which followed, medical practice, Parsons College, first golf club west of the Mississippi, business, industry, and civic celebrations. “Each aspect of change, progress or set”.
Fairfield Muse
Live Music Events
For over 23 years, Café Paradiso owners Steve Giacomini and Meret Amick, and award winning musician and sound engineer Tim Britton have been donating their resources in service to a steady stream of carefully curated local and internationally acclaimed musicians approximately once a week in an intimate setting with pristine sound, with an average attendance of 40 and a current capacity of 75.
Many cite Paradiso as their favorite venue to play. A free open mic is held every Wednesday night, drawing performers from hundreds of miles away, as well as an Irish music session Sunday afternoons. The cafe also hosts The Thirsty Word writers’ reading night every third Thursday of the month to capacity audiences. A labor of love, the café has never been in a position to carry the cost of these performances, which consistently lose money for them, while the artists generously accept far less than they deserve.
Writing Artists and Craft Support
Live Performance of Coop: A Story Of A Conscientious Objector
We are sponsoring the drama COOP: A STORY OF A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR to be performed in Fairfield in April 2026. Written and produced by Mary Swander, award-winning playwright, author and Poet Laureate of Iowa from 2009-2019, it portrays true stories of Amish men who suffered persecution during World War I and World War II for their belief in nonviolence.
Because it depicts unknown historical events that impacted Kalona, Iowa, a community just north of Fairfield, it is valuable to anyone who treasures our collective Iowa culture and heritage. In addition, the main characters portray courage in standing up for their convictions and forgiveness in the face of mistreatment—strong themes that resonate today.
The play will be of interest to Fairfield’s historic, artistic and educational communities, while supporting under-resourced artists, organizations, and creative communities while manifesting new and inventive models to present/nurture/launch arts and culture in Fairfield and southeastern Iowa.
Fairfield Cultural Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting arts, culture, history, and creative expression in the Cultural & Entertainment District in Fairfield, Iowa.
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