dsmWeekly - April 23, 2025

By Dan Ray

Des Moines songwriter Abbie Sawyer’s second solo release, “Persimmon,” focuses on grief, but it isn’t sad. It’s a cathartic, patient and even hopeful meditation on the time it takes to heal.

In the three years since she dropped her first solo project, “Love Is a Flood,” Sawyer lost several members of her family. She had heard it takes a full year to move past the initial grief period, so she waited. Well, kind of. She also wrote an album.

“Thinking of like, ‘OK, a year, a year, a year.’ What does it mean to grieve for a year?” she said. “And what power does that have, to wait for four seasons of nature's influence on you?”

You can hear that influence throughout the album. “Persimmon” oscillates between intimate, wintry tracks like the aptly titled “January” and more upbeat, springy songs like the title track.

While persimmons are Sawyer’s favorite fruit, “Persimmon” doesn’t actually have anything to do with that. The song’s first verse is about Sawyer’s husband, the second is about her daughter and the third is about her son. When she first played the song for her husband, she said, "we both started sobbing, realizing how grateful we were just to be together, to have our kids and our family in the midst of knowing nothing lasts.”

Instead of going into the studio, Sawyer recruited xBk’s Gabe Scheid to help her engineer, mix and co-produce the album right in her living room. She wanted the recordings to capture the same intimacy she felt when she wrote them. “ What I was trying to reach for are the things beyond" sensory comforts, she said. “So I needed all the other tactile things in place so I wouldn't focus on them. I could go beyond that.”

One thing Sawyer didn’t expect was how much the recording became a community project. So Sawyer and Scheid could get the perfect take, neighbors graciously rearranged their noisy spring gardening schedules. Scheid set up a makeshift workstation on Sawyer’s dining room table. Even Mother Nature got in on it: If you listen closely, you can hear birds chirping at the end of “Empty Drawer.” Ultimately, the process created a more complete picture of the humanity and real world Sawyer wanted to convey.

“This album is very special and personal to me, but the reason I'm sharing it as a public work is I hope it brings a sense of comfort, a sense of wonder and a sense of hope to people going through inevitable human experiences,” she said.

For the biggest deep breath and tallest glass of hope, I recommend “Sunken Sailor,” “January” and “Going Back to Markdale.”

“Persimmon” is available for purchase and on streaming platforms Friday, April 25. If you'd like to hear it live, check out the album release shows on May 3 at Trumpet Blossom in Iowa City or May 9 at the Temple Theater here in Des Moines.

Jared Oaks is directs music for Ballet West in Salt Lake City. (Photo courtesy of Ballet Des Moines)

BEST BET

At the ballet, Romeo and Juliet and Jared

Question: O Romeo, Romeo! Where art thou?

Answer: At 7 p.m. Saturday, he’ll be at Stephens Auditorium in Ames. Ballet Des Moines retells the classic Shakespeare story of star-crossed lovers, with fresh choreography and guest conductor Jared Oaks.

Oaks is the music director for Ballet West in Salt Lake and has racked up a number of notable accomplishments, including credits with the Houston Ballet and the 2023 world premiere of a project with acclaimed pianist Deon Nielson. Oaks is also an advocate for overlooked music in his role as the co-director the Composer Discovery Initiative, which he helped create.

On Saturday, he'll be the pit boss — in the orchestra pit — for Ballet Des Moines' new take on the tragic love story, set to the famous score by Sergei Prokofiev. Find tickets and details online.

The Week Ahead

Drake Relays, through Saturday, Drake Stadium. Watch current and potential Olympians, collegiate athletes and high schoolers compete in various track and field events on the Blue Oval. And take your raincoat, just in case.

Allegra Hernandez, 7 p.m. Friday, Temple Theater. The local singer and guitarist takes a turn in the new Made in the Midwest series from Des Moines Performing Arts.

Maria Bamford, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Hoyt Sherman Place. Catch a laugh from the comedian who stars in the Netflix show "Lady Dynamite" and three stand-up specials.

Des Moines Symphony, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Des Moines Civic Center. The orchestra plays music based on tunes Masashi Hamauzu and Nobuo Uematsu wrote for the “Final Fantasy” video games.

Earth Day celebration, noon-3 p.m. Sunday, Brenton Arboretum. Enjoy ice cream from Baan Vaan and stroll around the arboretum to celebrate Mother Nature.

"My Own Stranger," 7 p.m. Monday, the Bank at the Little Book. The Iowa Stage Theatre Company begins its 2025 Scriptease Season, a playwriting and script-reading initiative, with a show about the influential poet Anne Sexton.

Students of the stage: The Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation will present the annual Project S.T.A.G.E. (Students, Teachers, Artists: Generating Excellence) Festival on May 7, in partnership with the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Initiative and six Title 1 North Des Moines schools. The festival will feature six Broadway Junior performances from students at Cattell, Findley, Madison, Moulton and Oak Park elementary schools, as well as Harding Middle School. The event is free and open to the public.

By Hailey Evans

Amee Ellis is no stranger to Midwest scenery. She grew up all over it, in Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska. Her parents are from Iowa, and she decided early on it was the last place in the world she would ever live. She spent time in Georgia, New Mexico and Oregon before meeting her husband who was from — you guessed it — the very flyover state she had tried to avoid.

Her rekindled love for photography coincided with her reintroduction to Iowa. She and her husband moved to Des Moines to be closer to his family, and it was a quest of rooting herself in her new home that prompted her to build a darkroom and reconnect with the art form she studied at Columbia College Chicago.

The photo series she calls “This Place in My Hands” came from a similar inspiration. “Making these pictures has been my way of exploring and discovering this place,” she said. “I came back to the Midwest as an adult with fresh eyeballs, willing to see things I couldn’t see when I was young.”

Ellis traveled all over the state shooting on film. Through the Iowa Prairie Network, she met farmers, ranchers, botanists, conservationists and others who guided her over the rivers and through the woods — literally, she took a lot of hikes through woods. Most of Ellis’ work is landscape photography, but in this series, viewers can spot people (or even just their shadows) interacting with their spaces.

“The people here are deep in landscape, in and of the places they inhabit,” Ellis wrote about the series. “They look closely, listen for what their eyes cannot see and discover magic in found things. They are students, teachers, biologists, naturalists, artists, writers, hunters, foragers, farmers, storytellers and tree whisperers. They are all caretakers. … When I hold this place, attentively and with care, I can feel its life buzzing, beating and vibrating along with my own. It feels ancient and sacred and worthy of protection.”

Ellis said the project wouldn’t have been possible without support from a grant from the Iowa Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. She hopes to continue the series as she connects with more people who, like her, call this land their home.

See more of Ellis' photos in the current edition of dsm magazine.