JOSH BODDEN FOR DSM MAGAZINE / January 21, 2025 by jami milne

Many things can be described as a “fresh delivery” over the years when it comes to Ballet Des Moines. The past five years have been nothing short of monumental change, with each stage of newness somehow upstaging the last.

With the addition of Josh Bodden as Rehearsal Director at the beginning of the 24-25 season, I couldn’t help but plant the seed that his story should be told as both bold and beautiful. An incredible 23-year career in the dance industry, including positions at Miami City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Cincinnati Ballet, and 10 years as a dancer with Kansas City Ballet, and taking a leap of faith in his next chapter with Ballet Des Moines.

After a creative call with dsm Magazine (thank you for trusting me, Annabel) I knew my next call was to none other than THE Maya Boettcher of Wildflower fame. From there, it was just one U-haul, a handful of the best buckets of flowers and the three of us sweating it out at the Wildflower warehouse and voilà: Fresh Delivery.

Read the full Jan/Feb 2025 issue of dsm Magazine here.

I'm aware ... / September 22, 2022 by jami milne

There’s a thief in the Nut Factory. It’s an inside job, she concluded.

There’s a ________ in the _________

What does the expression fox in a henhouse mean?

Fox in the henhouse (plural foxes in the henhouse or foxes in henhouses) (idiomatic, figuratively)

A predator loose among the prey

Who let the fox in the henhouse?

What does chicken in the hen house mean?

The only male in an all-female environment

MrsBadExample, six years ago wrote:

It seems like military jargon to me. "A personal message to our friends. The rabbit has lost it's* watch. The taxi has arrived. The fox is in the henhouse. The dog is barking."

My dogs are barking is a phrase that simply means my feet hurt.
In this case, the word dogs means feet and the word barking means hurts.

And then I cried. / June 13, 2022 by jami milne

The intention was that these armadillos would be manipulated upon creation. When planning out the project more than eight months ago, I envisioned armadillos that were pulled apart as part of the production. To best ensure the work would translate the feeling of hardship, of vulnerability on display, I knew I’d need to damage the work before it was complete.

The first object I made in the collection from the first mold I purchased, was a porcelain rabbit. I couldn’t believe it when it came out nearly perfect. I set it in the spot where afternoon sun streams into my studio so it could dry.

The next set of creatures to test my casting skills prior to heading into the classroom would be a set of birds. Small enough that all three could fit in your hand, these porcelain birds seemed almost sweet: one with its wings outstretch, one burrowing its beak down and to the side as if bashful, the other looking innocently straightforward. I held him between two fingers with my thumb on his little bird belly, and crushed him.

And then I cried. It felt like harm.

I’d retell this story to Dara Green, the Central Academy Pottery Instructor (and in my opinion, one of the most amazing creative women to ever have in your corner) and we both agreed the classroom intention had to change. While the grant proposal I wrote called for manipulated armadillo volvations, it couldn’t be intentional. I couldn’t ask students to willingly destroy our creations because in doing so, we’d lose ourselves or confuse ourselves with those that are doing the harm.

Days later I’d begin my three weeks with the Central Academy potters, walking all six periods and over 140 students through why I was there, what I’d learned in the preceding weeks, what it feels like to be pulled apart and how we’d, instead, be making a collection of creatures that would be perfect however they came to be. Nothing would be cast aside.

As the days progressed, we’d pour and discuss and open our molds and be astonished — at the work that worked and the work that didn’t. I overheard two students, one choosing to pour a snail and the other, its shell, talking about how maybe the shell could represent all of the pressure society puts on him. And that maybe his shell could be made of salt to express what it’s like to be constantly carrying all that weight, his refuge but inevitably harming him.

My conceptual heart squealed. They were merging ideas of exoskeletons and emotions and replacing society with salt. They were getting it.

When the mold was opened 90 minutes later, we’d find the shell had unexplainably caved in on itself.

And then I cried. But it felt like joy.

You’ll be able to see the caved in snail shell, bruised bunnies, cracked armadillos and dozens of other fragile works placed on a pedestal this Thursday evening on the third floor at Mainframe Studios.

Under Pressure / June 2, 2022 by jami milne

Under Pressure began as a dozen open tabs on my laptop, all of them having to do with the three-banded armadillo, the only species of armadillo that can roll itself into a ball for protection. One of only two armadillo species able to do so, I couldn’t allow myself to close those tabs, ever. The idea of this volvation, a defense mechanism deployed when threatened, fascinated me. Never before had I felt so curious (so envious?) of this behavior, this ability to quite literally shut everything out.

The southern three-banded armadillo volvation.

There have been seasons of my life in which I’ve felt this way — earliest memories of family hardship, certainly a majority of junior high, bouts of bad decisions into and well-passed college and then most recently, the coronavirus pandemic.

I don’t need to recount this for anyone; we were all there and to some degree, still in it. The physical oddity of this time which consisted of learning how to make homemade masks, going for walks in what felt like a ghost town, wearing bandanas over our faces while pulling children in a wagon, unsure of what was in the air, crossing the street each time we saw another person figuring out how to walk outside, too. We went weeks without seeing loved ones. Some of us would never see them again.

The emotional toll of working through a pandemic however, was perhaps the hardest to understand. Because you weren’t necessarily allowed to work through it alone. While trying to process how to keep loved one’s safe, in addition to ourselves, came the added pressure of being told what you were doing was wrong. Or that how you felt wasn’t justified, wasn’t right. You were trying your best but your best was wrong, by someone else’s standards. You were (are) trying to protect yourself but not how someone else believed you should be. It’s as if, you were being pried out of your defense mechanism(s) by the seams, going from a feeling of safety to a feeling of vulnerability.

Therein began the convergence of tabs and thoughts and emotional unrest. Just as I’d used origami to represent Syrian refugees and helium balloons to heartbreakingly depict school shootings, what material would best represent the delicate nature of self-protection being tugged at by society? My answer: ceramic armadillos.

Under Pressure opens on Thursday, June 16 at Mainframe Studios.

There's a dead baby bunny waiting to be buried / May 24, 2022 by jami milne

He’s so small he can’t open his eyes, but when I pick him up to hold him, knowing all googled research says this isn’t best for him, he nuzzles into my palm looking for milk.

He’ll die in mere hours but I want to believe my warm palm will make a difference.

I bring out a seven year old’s bamboo sock, hoping to shield his tiny body from the cold earth and rough red mulch. My mother-in-law pulls into the driveway to find me late for a meeting, holding him and a sock in my palm, a shallow soy sauce bowl full of water and hope, set beside us while I wept. It’s raining out, and I place both him and the sock farther inside the flower bush for refuge.

He’ll die in mere hours but I want to believe my warm palm will make a difference.

The kids come home from school, damp from walking around the pond in the rain without an umbrella, inquisitive about the pile of cotton/fleece/bamboo blend socks now piled under the flower bush with a shallow soy sauce bowl full of water and hope nearby.

I explain, that the cat we continue to care for who continues to kill things, may have hurt a baby bunny, so small he can’t open his eyes, might be dying under the flower bush. But I held him in my palm with hope the size of a soy sauce bowl and with tears in my eyes and the fresh feeling of baby bunny nuzzle looking for mothers milk on the flesh of my thumb, who might feel as if the fleece blend socks he’s wrapped in is his mother hugging him and so he might be okay after all.

My daughter weeps and runs inside to grab an umbrella to place above the bush, to keep him from the pouring rain. She walked home from school, around the pond, wearing a fleece sweatshirt and no umbrella, damp and drenched and happy. She’s now damp and drenched and full of despair.

He’ll die in mere hours but I want to believe the warm palm and the soy sauce bowl of hope and the fleece blend socks and the umbrella over the flower bush will make a difference.

I’ll go to a meeting, dreaming up quick dreams of clouds and florescent lights and talking of breath and death and armadillos, distracted at the fact that there’s a dead bunny waiting to be buried when I get home.

I’ll get home to race inside the house to get the soccer shoes and soccer bag and shoes on to get to practice while two kids and I run outside to beat the rain and peek under the flower bush to see the bunny is gone. Hope the size of soy sauce bowls and seven year old eye sockets beam that he’s made it. He’s finally safe. “Can you google if a Mother Bunny knows how to find a dying baby in the rain?” Yes, I say, full of hope. And I’ll turn back toward the abandoned fleece blend socks with a small smile on my face knowing my warm palm made the difference when I glance six inches to the south to see there’s a baby bunny waiting to be buried.

At least 18 children are dead after a shooting at a Texas elementary school today. There are no socks, no soy sauce bowls full of hope, only tweets of thoughts and prayers but no action because guns outweigh baby bodies and baby bunnies who are waiting to be buried.

And so it begins (even when off to a sluggish start) / May 12, 2022 by jami milne

Last November I was awarded a grant in support of advancing arts and culture in Iowa through the Iowa Arts Council/Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts.¹ If you know nothing about your state’s grant application process, look now!

The process can be grueling², which is to say, it takes thought and time — two things that sometimes feel as if they come by short supply. I had been grateful to an artist friend and current Iowa Artist Fellow Brittany Brooke Crow, for reminding me of the deadline. After searching notebook scribbles and open Google tabs, I had my idea — a project in response to the coronavirus pandemic and an exploration of vulnerability.

The funny thing about plans is, the good ones never go according to plan. And while I had intended work that would begin much earlier and with much more ease, next week begins the start of something truly magical.

*Margaux in the studio, Tuesday, May 6, 2022. Mainframe Studios No. 449.*

The project, although only partially funded during a time period where funding was requested and required in all corners of the world, will make its debut in Des Moines next month. Stay tuned for process, progress and details on how you can be involved.

¹ Funding for the program was provided by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 through an appropriation to the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, for the state partnership agreement with Iowa Arts Council.

² It should be noted, if you think an application says you have 2,000 words to describe it, maybe check again to ensure it’s not 2,000 characters. So much alliteration left on the cutting room floor.

Seven: Without Fear or Favor / May 11, 2022 by jami milne

I’ve been sitting on that phrase awhile. Without fear or favor. It has rolled around in my mouth like a Luden’s Wild Cherry Lozenge¹ — soothing yet insignificant as a cure. I first heard it on NPR during the confirmation hearings of the Honorable (now Supreme Court Judge!) Ketanji Brown Jackson:

"I decide cases from a neutral posture," Jackson said. "I evaluate the facts and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.

Without fear or favor stayed with me as I drove north on 2nd Avenue toward I-235 upon hearing it in the car, well over one month ago. It stayed with me as I picked you and your brother up from school. Presumably when I made dinner, when we practiced spelling words or watched a “calming show”² after dinner, and when we walked up to brush your teeth, turned on the Encanto Soundtrack³ and read a few books before bed.

It stuck with me when I sat in the Atlanta airport sipping impromptu Sauvignon Blanc with Lisa-Marie. It stuck with me in a lonely and/or haunted hotel room in New Orleans and it remains with me as a quote on one of my (roughly 17⁴) open Google tabs.

It sticks with me today.

Earlier this week I joked in a text “sweet margaux carries the burden of being both particular and undecided (the cruelest gift she inherited from me).” It wasn’t entirely true — I often times marvel at your ability to be certain: strawberry milk when given the choice, Sam A. always, and soft socks or no socks. But for a somewhat lighthearted second, this unintended gifting makes me think of the three fairies in Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty: Flora grants her the gift of beauty, Fauna grants her the gift of song and Merryweather lessens the curse Maleficient bestows upon her.

Imagine a story instead, where the good fairy’s gift is not beauty, but an offering of bold fearlessness. Or a red fairy whose wand doesn’t sparkle with song, but choices made without granting favor. Imagine a storyline in which ________________.⁵

Today, on your seventh birthday, a day full of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, a second place ribbon in faux state fair grape stomping after school, last minute mini chicken pot pies and a cookies and cream ice cream cake, I wish for you no less than one million things. I wish you’ll always feel the love and support your father and I have for you. I wish your bond with your brothers strengthens without end. I wish your kind empathetic heart only grows stronger in its empathy and its kindness. I wish your creativity remains as unmatched as your sense of adventure, that you’ll choose curiosity over certainty and that you continue to find the words to stand up for yourself. I wish for you that you’ll write your own story, slay your own dragons and decide your own fate.

But mostly, I wish you a lifetime of making decisions made without fear or favor. At seven and always.

Happy Birthday to my sweet, strong, seven year old girl.

Misc. Addendums:

¹ Fact: Luden’s Wild Cherry Lozenges are sold on candystore.com, alongside Lemon Drops and Life Savers Candies. They’re that ineffective. Also oddly expensive.

² This can include but is not limited to: nature shows, cooking shows or Bluey.

³ Dear Readers: We’ve switched to Mary Poppins. No longer do we talk about Bruno, no, no, no.

⁴ Current count: 21. Upon publish, 20.

⁵ We all need different things. Some of us can even express what it is — without fear or favor.

Blackberry Pie / February 14, 2022 by jami milne

I never, once, saw my grandmother cry.

No tears but I do remember seeing

multi-colored bruises in shades of the galaxy.

Purples, blues and blacks,

bruises from which varicose veins carried blue blood

toward island-sized splotches as if to say

I am here and I’ve worked hard and I am bruised because of it

do you see me now?

When I close my eyes

I see my grandmother on her hands and knees

scrubbing olive-colored carpet with the fancy swirls,

which meets up with unfinished floorboards housing hoards of dead flies.

A Cool Whip bucket of soapy water and a bristle brush

on two palms with Palmolive and two bruised knees asking

no one for help as if it was hers alone to clean,

no one asked if they could help because

the floor belongs to no one until it’s time to sweep

or mop or suck or scrub and then it belongs to her.

My grandmother had porcelain colored skin,

not smooth like glass but hardened by double shifts and

sinks full of fish yet to scale

because no one eats if generations of women

don’t work to work to work to work to

plate to plate to plate to plate what’s setting before you.

My grandmother said

slacks and shears and skeins and

here, have another slice of blackberry pie.

To say there is an infestation would be inaccurate but the stink bugs are everywhere. / January 4, 2022 by jami milne

To say there is an infestation¹ would be inaccurate but the stink bugs are everywhere.

Kingdom: Animalia

The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) is an insect in the family Pentatomidae, native to Eastern Asian regions (China, Japan, Korea, etc). In the fall of ‘98, it was first collected in Allentown, Pennsylvania, roughly six hours from my birthplace (Erie) and the same year I turned 18 (‘98). Both of these facts, my birthplace and my high school graduation year, have nothing to do with the fact that the stink bugs are everywhere.

Phylum: Arthropoda

Research of the bug will provide you with five sets of “quotation marks” within the first sentence of a wikipedia entry² which one can’t read without the feeling of air quotes and eye rolls and that’s the thing about stink bugs. If you aren’t annoyed by their look or their sound or their potential for smell, you're skeptical of the research from the get go.

Family: Pentatomidae

There’s one on the windowsill and one on the orange in the fruit bowl. One is on the ginger root that will be sliced momentarily for the broth. I’ll pretend to open the door in which to discard the halyomorpha halys but I'll instead return to place him in the fruit bowl because it’s freezing outside and no one is eating the oranges.

Genus: Halyomorpha

There’s one in the refrigerator and to be honest, when I first saw him he may have been alive. But I felt he was safest there, so I left him by the plastic container of strawberries. I certainly had to have known he had no chance of exiting the refrigerator, but he had no more or less chance of survival outside of it. Death by dog or cat or husband are all certain, as much as I regret saying so.

Order: Hemiptera

Research will tell you that the stink bug can also be referred to as a shield bug and I’m both sad and resentful. Neither words are accurate but the finite line between stink and shield feels unfortunate if not, let’s be honest, determined by a man for which I feel sad and resentful. Imagine shielding yourself from sudden death, protecting your bloodline from impending doom or even being savvy enough to find safety across oceans and through seasons only to be given the label stink instead of shield.

Class: Insecta

I’ve seen none in the bedroom or bathroom, rarely any in the dining room but certainly always in the kitchen. I’m the only one of our family of four whom, upon seeing one, says nothing, mostly for their preservation. Margaux, age 6, will squeal, in a pitch of self-defense that she’s surely its prey. Finn, age 12, will attempt a rescue mission, although all will be unsure if he’s rescuing the stink bug or himself. My husband, name and age withheld, will reliably either collect the specimen in his hand and shake it with vigor, resembling my father in his insect superiority and valor, or flick him into the opening of the garbage disposal. I write this with what must surely be read as a sense of normality or ambivalence but I assure you I feel wounded in the latter. But not enough to stop it.

Species: H. halys, but by all means call them a stink bug.³

1 “During the 181-day study period 26,205 adult brown marmorated stink bugs were collected inside the home.” - Douglas B. Inkley, Journal of Entomological Science Vol. 47, Issue 2 (Apr 2012), pg(s) 125-130

2 The name "Pentatomidae" is from the Greek pente meaning "five" and tomos meaning "section", and refers to the five segments of their antennae. Pentatomids are generally called "shield bugs" in English, or "stink bugs'' in American English.

3 Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Arthropoda, Family: Pentatomidae, Genus: Halyomorpha, Order: Hemiptera, Class: Insecta, Species: H. halys

The Ticonderoga No. 2 is reliable and I am not. / November 27, 2021 by jami milne

Birds are not meant to be held / November 15, 2021 by jami milne

*Image by the incomparable* *Michelle Gardella*

A bird flew in the house and no one was alarmed. The doors were left open and the supposed hope was that it would fly back out the way it came in, but both the bird and I knew this was the end.

It would flit from the fiddle leaf fig to the exposed beams of the wall, searching for both refuge and escape. I realize now these are my words and not the bird’s. We were searching for both refuge and escape.

I found the bird on top of a beam, or a cavity found on top of the wall, unintended to meet the ceiling and also unintended to be the resting place of a bird. It was caught, on cobwebs or perhaps old speaker wires, but the bird was not upright and the movements of its chest appeared to be in the perilous pause between trying to find breath and trying to let go, of breath or of life or of the past or of the will to live.

I carried it in a small towel to the porch outside, through the open doors it flew in. Birds are light, nearly weightless. When was the last time you held a bird? A bird is not meant to be held.

I set it in a shadowy spot on the wooden planks and came inside. Fresh air is always good for the soul, I thought. I realize now these are my thoughts and not the bird’s.

From the corner of my eye I saw the bird move and I ran back toward it with the sense of awe and wonder instilled with the sense of regained life. But there was little life left. The bird moved because the wind blew it from where I placed it.

Because a bird is light, nearly weightless.

A bird is not meant to be held.

Actias luna / August 29, 2021 by jami milne

There is a chance the moth is still alive in its cocoon and I’m dumbfounded. It’s been more than sixty days of being in its enclosure. Maybe longer. It is no longer vibrating but I’m no longer picking it up and holding it in my hands to see if it’s vibrating so it has either lost its will to keep going and finish what it started or I have lost my will to keep going and finish what I started.

Much like the dying and or dead plants in the planters and the pots and my garden and the garbage, I do nothing but think about doing something and doing nothing. I feel nothing but guilt and also I feel nothing.

My fingers pace in step with my mind, as I search desperately for a sign of life or hope online. The results arrive before even hitting enter and I’m reminded of the imaginary and literal weight placed on mothers and time and the inability to last. How long does insinuates not forever and I’m suddenly sad over something that isn’t necessarily mine but that I’ve kept in an empty, plastic, lidless, pretzel bin as if that’s enough to sustain potential life.

The results are as telling as the search, with websites named pest-wiki, moth-prevention and even animals dot mom dot com all promising to answer “how long does a moth stay in a cocoon” while also managing to insult the ask just by their domain name.

I remember my son saying he was told by his wilderness camp leaders that it was possibly a luna moth so my research becomes more specific on the Actias luna and its time spent in a cocoon.

The urban ecology center dot org gives me hope because dot org feels credible and shares that “the days spent in the pupal phase depend on environmental conditions. Under normal weather conditions, the pupal phase can take around 2 weeks. During winter seasons the pupa may enter a state of dormancy and can take up to 9 months for it to come out of the cocoon as an adult Luna moth.” It is not the winter season but maybe it feels that way on the inside. In fact, I’m certain it feels that way on the inside.

(I also realize that I’m not sure I care or perhaps it makes no difference to me. I will keep the cocoon in its jar behind the sink waiting for it to have meaning like I do the wine corks and popsicle stick crafts and old photos and old memories and old relationships that are either dormant or already dead. They are useless but I can’t or don’t let them go because where do you place something when it’s no longer of use to you but it once was and still has emotion wrapped inside it?)

I don’t need to keep reading because the option of knowing I have upwards of six months of hope retained should be enough, but I do. My desperation over life becomes my desperation over death, as I learn the moth will live less than seven days as its final adult Luna moth stage. The moth will emerge with no mouth, no digestive system, no way of sustaining itself.

Perhaps that’s why it’s staying in the cocoon.

Maybe it’s not winter.

Maybe the unknown and uncertainty of the empty, plastic, lidless, pretzel bin is better than the alternative:

the end.

The Magic at Mainframe / July 26, 2021 by jami milne

The third stop of the Des Moines Partnership’s Summer Startup Tour merged the tech world with the art world and was a good reminder we all share the same world.

My past career called them pirates and disruptors but in this life they’re referred to as entrepreneurs: those creators who believe so deeply in what they’re meant to make that there’s no other option than to bring it to life. As an artist, I know this feeling in my core — proof that we’re made of the same stuff.

Whether it’s an app that scales and the infrastructure required to iterate toward what’s next or it’s the world’s next best composer crafting his score for a new ballet, this is how the magic happens. We get in and out of our comfort zones. We listen to both the voices within and those we’ve never been open to before. We bring in the inputs to make the outputs beautiful, better, smarter. We shuffle and share, find the connective tissue in connecting and every once in a while, we get out of our own bubble and agree to learn about someone else’s.

One more stop on the tour. Register by Tuesday.

UNTITLED MAGIC / July 15, 2021 by jami milne

*from an upcoming photo essay for Ballet Des Moines*

Summer Startup Tour July 2021 / July 13, 2021 by jami milne

To say the startup world is full of stories is no surprise to anyone. When I popped into Gravitate for portraits last week, setting up shop for the first of four stops on the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s Summer Startup Tour, I eagerly snapped shots through candid conversation.

The stories ranged between those who have made it and those who hope to soon, those who want to create the next best thing and those who already have. Be it young bloods or been-around-the-block, each small snippet of a story I captured through a few minutes of conversing, foundationally included the same thing: belief.

From tennis apps to LA Lakers influencers, the sharing of a pie crust recipe to the financial stability of shapeware, from the gift of a cold beer after a long bike ride, the pop of inspiration from a rainbow bowtie and the mecca created by Mwirotsi, there wasn’t one person who gathered that day, who didn’t believe in what they were there to create.

I might not always think I fit in with the startup crowd until I get there. And then I realize that every person in that room believes in you because you showed up. Because without belief — in ourselves or in something else, what else do we got?

I hope to see you on Thursday. Because I believe in you.

Honky Tonk Angel / June 25, 2021 by jami milne

Shot for the incomparable Whiskey Vixen in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Center at ISU / May 5, 2021 by jami milne

Graduation is such a unique time in one’s life, navigating what comes next so shortly after navigating what comes next. Most of us left home to begin a collegiate career and would spend the next four years trying to find ourselves.

The Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success envisions an inclusive Iowa State University free of oppression in all forms, where socially-just practice inspires community engagement, leadership, and equity.

I was honored to spend time with the beautiful humans The Center at ISU serves. Although just a snapshot of the graduates can be found below, one thing is certain: this is the future. And the future looks good.