Rooted in the American Midwest, Heartland merges the surreal with the everyday in a new series of paintings created in the artist's family garage amid the central Iowa landscape where Schaeuble lives and works. The exhibition takes its title from the term "heartland," first coined by British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder to describe the fertile core of central Eurasia-believed, by him, to be the key to global dominance.
There's something pretty charming about the Midwest's relationship with soda. Maybe it's the long winters that make people reach for anything fizzy and cheerful, or perhaps it's the region's talent for taking ordinary things like cheese curds or county fairs and turning them into cultural touchstones. Soda is no exception. In the Midwest, fizzy drinks aren't just refreshments; they're tiny time capsules of community pride, quirky nostalgia, and a very particular kind of regional stubbornness that insists, "No, actually, our version is better."
While the decision initially felt right, I entered months of self-doubt and indecisiveness. In retrospect, it's obvious to me that my lack of clarity was social media-fueled - after all, it can make life feel like a competition over who can look the coolest and most successful. My own desires felt clouded by what I saw through small, digital windows.
According to Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, "Affordable Midwest markets and well-located Northeast markets continue to see strong buyer demand relative to the rest of the country."