The Girl Who Started an Art Revolution

And forever changed Athena Falls, Iowa

According to the most recent census the population of Athena Falls, Iowa was 1,002. Everyone in town knew that the population had decreased since that census. Several old folks had died and quite a few teenagers moved away upon graduating from high school. And there were hardly any new babies born to replenish the numbers. And no one in their right mind moved to Athena Falls from elsewhere.

If you were to take a long leisurely drive through the Iowa countryside you would come across many small towns just like Athena Falls; some a little bigger, some a little smaller. One of the things most all of these towns have in common is the presence of grain silos. They are usually the town’s most prominent and tallest structures and can often be seen in the distance before ever entering the town.

Then, of course, there are the churches, their steeples poking above the tree tops but failing to reach the height of the grain silos. There would also be a school, a grocery store and a handful of local mom and pop businesses. And then there would be plenty of homes; many of which are low to middle income homes built forty to eighty years ago. The country towns are eerily similar, the biggest difference being the mascot of the local high school.