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In the 1989 traditional Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner walks by means of a cornfield in Iowa and hears the whisper, “If you build it, he will come.” In response, he builds a baseball subject in the course of a corn subject, drawing some unlikely guests, simply because the voice foretold. 30 years later, this whispered imaginative and prescient of Iowa and cornfields has kind of caught within the cultural lexicon.
Thus, one of the vital widespread responses once you inform somebody you’re from Des Moines, Iowa, is: “Do you live in a cornfield?” The Iowa capital has lengthy been thought-about a type of mid-size, Midwestern darkish horse cities, the place you get it in the event you dwell there, however surprise why anybody would dwell there in the event you don’t. However, this 20-minute metropolis — that means, you will get just about wherever inside a 20-minute drive — is now drawing guests from all around the world and contributing to tradition in an totally new approach.
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More particularly, it is drawing a plethora of skaters. Skateboarders are coming to the Midwest in droves, and Iowans themselves are feeling cooler than ever, as a result of as of 2021, Des Moines is home to the biggest public skatepark within the U.S., Lauridsen Skatepark. The cornfield has been changed by a skatepark and the baseball gamers have been changed by skaters, however the Iowan imaginative and prescient stays the identical: in the event you construct it, they’ll come.
Across the road from Wells Fargo Arena and throughout the Des Moines River from the golden state capital constructing, the brand new skatepark has formed the geography of downtown Des Moines — in addition to the neighborhood. Spanning 88,000 sq. ft, Lauridsen has offered a location for competitions like Dew Tour, a 2021 Olympic qualifier, and has grow to be a hub for locals. It’s a spot the place hometown skateboarding crews like Subsect Kids come collectively and a spot for seasoned skaters to join and movie movies.
[Subsect Kids / Photo by Joe Crimmings]
In the identical approach the park modified the panorama of downtown, the folks within the longstanding skateboarding neighborhood have irrevocably modified the tradition of Des Moines. There are these throughout the counter on the East Village skate store, those sliding down the Lauridsen bowl on a summer time night time, those holding kids’s palms as they be taught methods for the very first time. Beyond the brand new park, what’s on the coronary heart of the Des Moines skateboarding scene is the folks.
Kevin Jones, the proprietor of a skate store known as Subsect, is aware of this. The Des Moines native explains that the precise purpose he is stayed there is due to “the people” and the rising skate scene (and the straightforward, 20-minute drives, in fact).
Subsect sits in Des Moines’ East Village, throughout the river and simply south of Lauridsen. that means it is a skate-able distance from the park. While the grandiose park is new, skateboarding discovered a home in Des Moines lengthy earlier than its arrival: Subsect has existed for 25 years and has been on this downtown location for over a decade. Jones has been concerned with the store for the reason that starting, however 4 years in the past he and his spouse took over the possession. Like any skate store, Subsect sells boards, wheels, footwear, attire, stickers, and extra. But what the store is actually offering is neighborhood. Subsect is a gathering place, a protected house, a spot to meet different skaters who take pleasure in the identical factor. In reality, when a gaggle of youngsters determined to kind their very own skateboarding group — their very own collective to follow and learn the way to skate collectively — they affectionately known as it Subsect Kids.
[Subsect / Photo by Estorie]
While skateboarding historically has felt unattainably cool, Subsect has created an approachable house that defies these stereotypes, and this sentiment is not remoted to the store. Skateboarding’s historical past of being dominated by cis-men is being challenged by many within the overarching Des Moines scene who’re engaged on altering that dynamic for the longer term.
Ana Caculovic, for example, is a skater who’s been an integral a part of the scene for years. She grew up skating along with her three brothers at Des Moines’ older, smaller skate park, Walker Johnston. The now-25-year-old saved honing her abilities, and prior to the pandemic, Ana was even touring the Midwest. Even so, Des Moines has been her homebase for the final 20 years. And similar to Jones, she’s stayed in Des Moines and caught with skateboarding.
To her, it is in contrast to another sport — or another feeling, for that matter. She says, “With skateboarding, you don’t have a coach telling you, ‘Hey, go throw yourself down those set of stairs 50 times.’ It’s just a mental game. It’s just yourself and your board, and it feels so good when you do it.”
[Ana Caculovic / Photo by Ashley McLain]
The city reflects that energy. The growth of skating in Des Moines isn’t because an outside force declared it a strategic location. All the growth was because people inside the community saw the need and chose to push through. It wasn’t easy to get to this moment, though. While Ana had been waiting for the park since middle school, Kevin had been advocating for the space for 20 years. Though every few strides forward would be met with a political or logistical roadblock, he kept talking about the dream to anyone who would listen. After two decades of advocating, suddenly things shifted.
“I think what changed is guys my age that maybe skated and didn’t stick with it were now finally sitting in those meetings that we were asking for money,” Jones says. “All of a sudden, someone sitting on the other side of the table goes, ‘Well, I used to skate, I loved it, and look where I am now.’.” Eventually, the long-standing dream started becoming reality. By April 2018, 2.4 million dollars were raised and ground was broken in October 2018. By May 2021, the park was open.
The skatepark wasn’t the only change in Des Moines’ skateboarding community. About a decade ago when Caculovic began skating, there weren’t many other girls skating. Now, she’s no longer the only girl at the skatepark, and a new wave of young skaters have joined. “When these little youngsters see me now, they’re like, ‘You’re that lady! You’re Ana who skates!’” she says. “We’ve acquired the Subsect Kids skate crew [now] — these youngsters are rippers. When I used to be skating once I was 12, I didn’t have that.”
Subsect Kids is a weekly meetup that evolved out of a need for this sort of community. Alyssa Bowers, despite not being a skater herself, saw the need and started the group. Although her husband is a skater, her 8-year-old daughter wanted to learn on her own and was excited by the prospect of Lauridsen when it opened. Eventually, they started inviting other kids to join them without any plan to start a group — and now they meet every Thursday, Bowers explains. There’s not a skill level qualification to join and there’s not a formal teacher. Sometimes Jones or Caculovic or other more experienced skaters will show up and offer pointers, but often the kids simply try new tricks and learn together, teaching each other. Some weeks, as many as 30 kids between the ages of 5 and 13 show up. Just like Subsect, the Thursday morning space belongs to anyone who is willing to show up.
The Des Moines skateboarding community is good at this — creating spaces without qualification to show up and be and learn and grow. 23-year-old local skater and videographer Connor Barrett explains this, saying, “There’s enough people [in Des Moines] that’s it’s not a small town, but I go to the park and there’s not many people who aren’t like, ‘What’s up CB?’” In a city the size of Des Moines, you can slow down enough to be known by others in the community — and to learn how to get really fast at skating.
[Subsect Kids / Photo by Joe Crimmings]
Local non-profit Skate DSM is another group that has created safe spaces to learn and engage. While their two-fold purpose is to grow and support the skateboarding community, what they’re really doing is breaking down barriers to entry. After forming in late 2018, the group realized there was a need in the community that they could fulfill.
Skate DSM president Norm Sterzenbach explains, “There are places to take kids to teach them gymnastics and teams [to join], but when parents would come to the skateshop and buy their kid a skateboard, there wasn’t any place to take them. It’s not authentic to the history of skateboarding to have classes, but we knew that there needed to be some sort of middle ground to give kids an opportunity to try skateboarding in a safe environment, particularly with the new park.” Skate DSM began hosting clinics as an introduction to skateboarding for curious kids in the community to visit the skatepark, try it out, and meet other people. While Subsect Kids is a meetup, these clinics are structured more like classes, with specific learning goals, and taught by more advanced skaters, so when kids return to the park, they’re met with familiar faces.
Last year, Skate DSM also launched the Get On Board Project to help aspiring skaters who might not have the means get the proper equipment to skate. In 2022 alone, they donated 469 boards and helmets to kids across the Des Moines Metro area and have already received a grant to assist in continuing the mission in 2023.
That’s just one example of how the environment of the Des Moines skateboarding community is welcoming; while other skate scenes might feel cliquey or exclusionary, Des Moines is different. Barrett notices the difference, saying, “No one is like, ‘These people can’t [skate] here.’ We’ll all end up meshing.”
This collaborative surroundings has served him properly, as he’s filmed a wide range of skaters — lots of whom ended up on his newest mission, respecTapes. After taking pictures for a yr and a half and going by means of 4 cameras, six fisheye lenses, and numerous rolls of tape, he really simply premiered the movie at an occasion at Subsect. Meaning, there’s house within the scene for collaboration and creating in a number of mediums, not simply on a board.
[Subsect Kids / Photo by Joe Crimmings]
Beyond collaboration and creation, the Des Moines skateboarding scene is additionally contributing to the bigger neighborhood by means of the Des Moines Streetstyle Open, a contest based by Skate DSM in 2021. It’s an open competitors, that means anybody can enter, and provides an alternative for native skaters to compete alongside skaters from all around the area. Rather than being held solely on the skatepark, the two-and-a-half-day competitors has places throughout the Des Moines metro space, encouraging guests to not solely skate, however discover the world and genuinely join with one another.
“It’s a good scene,” Caculovic says. “In the skate community, nobody is tearing you down. Nobody is telling you, ‘You can’t do that.’ It’s just like all encouragement.” And despite touring the Midwest and experiencing other skate communities, she is always drawn back and still feels as if the Des Moines scene is “where I’m supposed to be.”
Three a long time after Field of Dreams, Iowa is nonetheless constructing and drawing thrilling folks in. And now as a substitute of being recognized for cornfields and baseball motion pictures, Iowa is changing into referred to as a nationwide skateboarding hub — one which’s home to filmmakers and skate outlets, skate communities and non-profits, and, clearly, the subsequent technology of skaters.
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