MANKATO magazine
MArch 2013 • VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3 PUBLISHER EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
PHOTOGRAPHERS PAGE DESIGNER
James P. Santori Joe Spear Tanner Kent Nell Musolf Pete Steiner Jean Lunquist Marie Wood Ann Fee Sarah Zenk Blossom
John Cross Pat Christman Christina Sankey
ADVERTISING MANAGER
David Habrat
ADVERTISING Sales
Karla Marshall
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT
Barb Wass
ADVERTISING DESIGNERS
Sue Hammar Christina Sankey
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Denise Zernechel
Mankato Magazine is published monthly at 418 South Second St., Mankato, MN., 56001. To subscribe, call 1-800-657-4662 or 507-625-4451. $19.95 for 12 issues. For editorial inquiries, call Tanner Kent at 344-6354, or e-mail tkent@mankatofreepress.com. For advertising, call 344-6336, or e-mail kmarshall@mankatofreepress.com.
6 • MArch 2013 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
From The Editor
By Joe Spear
Home colors our sense of self
T
he home improvement store parking lots in March are probably not a precise economic indicator for the Mankato region — but they at least give one a sense that dozens of denizens have awoken from their winter hiatus and have accepted the inevitability of spousal suggestions to attack the to-do list. Hence, we have another appropriate theme for our magazine with the aim of helping the spirit-is-willing, flesh-is-weak humble homeowner often haunted by the ghost of Tim Allen. Owning a home is still considered a major part of the American dream. But that is usually a function of economic circumstances or anticipated mobility. Once people are settled, they usually aim to buy a home. We associate a certain amount of freedom with owning a home but know that like all freedoms, it can extract a price. Homes can be as much expense as they are investments. Even when the housing market tumbles, home buying seems to always come back. The idea of home ownership has never really gone out of vogue in America. People also have emotional connections to their homes. The place they grew up. The tire swing hanging from the oak tree. The Thanksgiving touch football game traditions in the big backyard. We can find home ownership on the second rung of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy — the famous pyramid used to describe the American psychologist’s theory of innate human needs. “Property” is how Maslow describes this need on the second tier, but the way home ownership has evolved in modern American, it’s reasonable to suggest it is closer to the top tier of “selfactualization.” This is no more evident than in this month’s feature on interior decorating. Says interior decorator Katie Kaczmarek: “Thinking of colors with all of your senses is very important. I try to encourage people to look around at the environment and see what makes them who they are.” We become where we live. We tie our identity to that home, to its colors, among other things. Why else would we labor over Pantone’s appropriate colors for each season. A feature in this month’s magazine tells us: The “Pantone View
Home + Interiors” book showcases nine color palettes for 2013 from muted palettes to rainbow inspired colors “for bolder statements.” So about February we begin scanning home improvement magazines, and near the first day of spring we’ve checked out the home and builders show (this year March 22-24 at Verizon Center). You can’t talk about home without talking home furnishings, though our foray this month into that topic veers a bit into the unusual and nostalgic. It seems a staple of many a junior high student’s bedroom in the Mankato area includes the iconic foot pillow, adopted into high school home economics classrooms in Mankato decades ago. “Big Foot” numbers reach into the thousands, by an estimate of Pat Potzler, a former Mankato area schools teacher. “I think I helped make 6,000 of them. I counted them once,” Potzler says. “It’s a pillow, and it has the outline of a foot.” The 29-inch long Big Foot pillow first appeared in Mankato schools in the early 1970s and has remained a favorite “Home Ec” project since. Dakota Meadows teacher Lynda Mead tried to do away with the project one year deciding she wanted to change up the curriculum a bit. She found out the hell hath no furry like that aimed at one who would remove the Big Foot pillow project. There was such an uproar, the project was back and it remains in production today. So whether it’s Pantone’s latest muted palette or Mankato’s foot pillow, our identities are tied to our homes. M Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at 344-6382 or jspear@mankatofreepress.com.