Mystery solved: mosaic map donated to EV History Center was crafted at VA Hospital

The ink wasn’t even dry on the story in The Hometown Current about the English Valleys History Center’s mysterious mosaic when information finally came to light about its origins. The artwork had been donated to the EVHC in North English in 2021 by the Iowa City VFW, but its new caretakers had no idea who’d created it, when or why.

Before the story appeared in the Current, it was posted to the Southeastiowaunion.com, where it was seen by a woman with connections to North English and the English Valleys schools, where Scott Romine, vice president of the EVHC, taught for many years. From her, Romine received a link to a clipping from the Iowa City Press-Citizen dated May 16, 1974, explaining in detail about the piece’s origins.

The mosaic had been created by patients and staff in the mental health services department of the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Iowa City. It was begun in 1973 and completed in 1974.

The Press-Citizen article stated, “In July, 1973, the need for a long-term project which would satisfy varied, yet specific, therapeutic goals became evident to members of the occupational therapy staff. As a result, a unique 5- by 10-foot mosaic tile project was conceived: a project, which while meeting therapeutic needs, is evolving into a colorful art work, hospital officials note.”

Known as The Iowa Project, the mosaic features “scenes of significance depicting the historical, industrial and educational areas of life in Iowa.” Iowa’s state Capitol building; Iowa’s state motto, “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain”; the state bird, a gold finch; and state flower, the wild rose, are all represented.

Other pictured highlights include pioneers in covered wagons, Effigy Mounds, Native Americans, Herbert Hoover and the Little Brown Church at Nashua. A red tulip represents the annual Pella Tulip Festival and a boat with unfurled sails makes note of Okoboji and the Iowa Great Lakes region. The state’s industries are depicted by a farmer with his farm, a steer, a hog, corn plants, grain mills and a washing machine.

“Some of the images remain a mystery,” Romine admits. “But the longer you look at it, the more things you see.”

Per the Press-Citizen article, 81 patients worked 876 hours to create the finished product. It was crafted from more than 48,000 individual pieces of hand-cut ceramic tile and was assembled in six different sections.

The resulting creation was striking in scope and incredibly heavy to move. It arrived at the EVHC on a flatbed truck.

“It is so heavy, it takes about five hefty souls to move it,” noted EVHC president Dave Jackson.

Creating this piece allowed groups of patients to work together. At the time, it was noted this offered “several general therapeutic gains.” These included “opportunities for developing verbal social skills, offer stimulation for healthy group cohesiveness, offer ego building and personal gratifications, offer acceptable sublimation for aggressive feelings and offer total structure for selected patients, as well as minimal structure for others with creativity according to hospital officials.”

The article went on to state, “’Only patients whose therapeutic goals can be positively met by pursuing one of the processes involved in the Iowa Project are assigned to work on it . . . Many other individual craft and art projects have also been undertaken in the occupational therapy clinic during this time,’ a hospital official commented.”

“This symbolizes work done in the 1970s by the Veterans Affairs Hospital to work with returning vets, many with PTSD, to bring them back into Iowa,” notes EVHC Dave Jackson. “It’s a testament to mental health and occupational therapy. The VA was really ahead of its time.”

The history center planned to keep the piece in spite of not knowing anything about it and those plans haven’t changed. The center was gifted the artwork in December of 2021. It was initially displayed at the VA Hospital, Iowa City, but was moved to the Iowa City VFW when the VA underwent remodeling. When the VFW began a remodeling project of its own, Steve Miller, formerly of Kinross and the quartermaster for the VFW, contacted Romine to see if the EVHC would be interested in adding it to their collection.

Additional EVHC news

The EVHC was a recent recipient of an $11,175 donation from 100+ Who Care of Iowa County and also received a $12,982.29 grant from the Iowa County Community Foundation. The funding will be used as the center creates a new display area directed at honoring military veterans and also to pay for fire safety improvements to its building at 108 North Main St., North English.

Comments: Melinda.Wichmann@southeastiowaunion.com