While I continue artCentral’s work from my home studio/office, my husband David and I are still sticking to our morning schedule. We rise at 4:44 a.m. to do our daily coffee/meditation/ringing of our Tibetan singing bowl/breakfast rituals in order for him to ride his motorcycle, go through the sanitation lines and be at his station before 8:30.

David’s day job is working in a food production line at Ajinomoto just down the road from Carthage. He, like so many others in our essential service industries, is continuing to show up for the benefit of all of us. From behind the scenes, David and his colleagues work in teams producing products that help keep grocery stores stocked, so we can find what we need when we venture out for supplies.

“Be sure to tell David ‘thank’ you for going to work every day!” was the message spoken by two Arkansas friends who called this week. Adding my own “thank you”, I immediately messaged David, so he would find our appreciation on his first break of the morning.

In these exceptional times, when many of us have become hyper alert to the importance of sanitizing measures, Ajinomoto has been way ahead of this curve with strict protocols and procedures that keep their food production safe. Definitely, a silver lining! I am truly impressed with their “no exceptions” standards, and with their proactively stepping these up—doubling their sanitizing efforts and implementing social distancing among their employees. Daily they set the bar very high for all of us as we learn the practices we all must follow to stay healthy and safe and to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud of David for choosing to work for a company with the integrity of Ajinomoto.

I also respect David for his effort to provide maximum protection for our family by naming himself as our designated runner. He is another of my silver linings! While I still venture out to take Lasyrenn, our Aussie, for her morning training walks in Central Park, David is the one who makes the food runs to restock our home supplies. He takes extra care to socially distance himself in public spaces, wearing protective gloves when he gathers supplies off shelves or fills our van with fuel. He puts his clothing directly into the washing machine as soon as he gets home. We both wash our hands lots and lots!

Across our country folks everywhere are getting creative. My son lives in Seattle, one of corona’s first epicenters, where effective facemasks have long since been unavailable for purchase. He tells me that his neighborhood has formed a group of those with sewing skills. In their individual homes they are collaboratively making highly effective “arty” facemasks that meet the highest standards for healthy protection.

On the East Coast both my daughter and son-in-law both working their long professional days while sheltering in place with their girls of six and one. Their school system was one of the first in the nation to shut down and send the students home. For six-year-old first-grader, Sophie, Mom Audrey quickly created a daytime schedule set up in half hour and one hour segments.

As the days flow one into the next, I am thankful for yet another silver lining. Audrey has engaged me in virtual homeschooling support. This is a splendid opportunity for Sophie and me to spend an hour or so on FaceTime doing the lesson her mother has set up for us.

The first day we went over all the ingredients that she prepared for her online group cooking class. She mentioned the applesauce to be used in her brownies was not her favorite food ingredient. The second day I got to teach Sophie’s art lesson about drawing and painting a fish following the inspiration of the artist Paul Klee.
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These precious shared creative experiences are definitely upsides to this very curious time we are all experiencing!

​Stay home, if you can. Stay safe! Stay well! Look for your own silver linings.
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“There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” (Leonard Cohen).
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For new artCentral developments and announcements and more silver linings, please visit www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/ and www.artcentralcarthage.org/events.html.

​In our present times calling for our best efforts on behalf of the greatest good, artCentral is fully committed to making responsible choices for the well-being of our artists, patrons and guests. We want to take every measure possible to keep you and your loved ones safe and healthy. As venues across our country are making day by day decisions in keeping with CDC guidelines and protocols, artCentral will be CLOSED until further notice.

​Philip Ledbetter’s PAINT in MOTION solo exhibition is postponed.  This showcase of the exciting motion paintings made by this innovative artist was scheduled to fill the galleries of Hyde House, April 3 through May 17, 2020. For now, all of artCentral’s plans and preparations for PAINT in MOTION are postponed and put on hold. 

Since we must delay this exceptional offering, I am thankful for the graciousness and professionalism of Philip Ledbetter. He has agreed to keep in reserve all of his original works scheduled to be debuted April 3. Looking ahead to the spring of 2021, we anticipate the joy of another spring in which to exhibit PAINT in MOTION.

The passion and commitment Philip Ledbetter gives to his art-making are evident in the outstanding body of work he has spent more than a year preparing for his artCentral exhibition unveiling. We all share in his disappointment with the necessity of postponing his 2020 Opening and Exhibition.

The words of Artist Phil Ledbetter, written in his Artist Statement, tell you best of his deep love for and his commitment to his art-making.

“I am a painter and photographer. My mission is to present subjects in a new and interesting way, to entertain, and to bring attention to the beautiful things around us that we pass by and take for granted, every day.

I have been greatly influenced by Andy Warhol, Wassily Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock, to name a few.  Like Pollock, I use only latex paint, however, the latex paint of today is greatly improved over the paint that was produced in 1940’s and 50’s. The colors are easier to work with, more vibrant, and they are longer lasting than the latex paint of long ago.

My subjects are frequently influenced by nature, especially the sun and the ocean, but not always. Sometimes people, and even architecture, find their way into my work.

After I choose a subject, or abstract idea, I set out all of the colors I want to include, then, I use an instrument like a paintbrush, pipe cleaner or wooden stick to dip into the color, then drip the paint onto a canvas that is lying flat on the ground or table. 

Typically, the paint is dripped onto the canvas, but sometimes it is tossed or even thrown.  The paint is actually in motion when contacting the canvas, hence the term “motion painting”. This tends to contribute the impression of movement and/or energy to the work.  

Ordinarily, creating artistic painting is done with great precision, but this is not necessarily true with motion painting. Motion painting, in my opinion, allows a greater range and breadth of actual physical expression. 

My work is unusual, and I really like that my art strays from the norm. I learn new techniques with each painting, and I love to experiment with colors. I enjoy producing paintings that create a mood, or especially, one that gives the observer a lot to view. 

My greatest hope is that you are thoroughly entertained by what you see. Thank you so much for coming out to see my exhibit. Your presence means the world to me. Sincerely, Philip Ledbetter.”

We do hope you will join us in looking ahead to another spring—the fresh beginning of a new spring—when the walls of Hyde House will bloom with PAINT in MOTION!
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In the meantime please follow artCentral for new developments and announcements at www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/ and at www.artcentralcarthage.org/events.html.

​In my own Paradise, the home I share with my husband David and our dear Furries and Feathers, spring has us up and celebrating well before the break of day. Our weekday rising rituals include our morning meal enjoyed in bed. While David is downstairs in the kitchen preparing breakfast to carry up, our Aussie puppy and I do our morning yoga routine. First, before I begin moving through my asana poses, we choose a sound track. Lasyrenn bows in “adho”, then stretches out for her massage blissfully relaxed by our gentle music streaming from my tablet, creating an Impressionistic atmosphere of tranquility.

​The term “Impressionism" is a philosophical and aesthetic description borrowed from the French painting after Claude Monet's "Impression, Sunrise". Impressionism was a movement embraced by many artists and composers in Western classical music, mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their compositions focus on creating moods and emotions. Composers were labeled Impressionists by analogy to the Impressionist painters whose techniques included starkly contrasting colors (timbre) and the effect of light on an object, blurry foreground and background and the flattening of perspective to urge the observer to focus his attention on the overall impression.

Perhaps in this new season of your own life you will feel compelled to celebrate the artistry of our beautiful Carthage spring in the company of composers and painters like Debussy and Monet. The magic of our modern technology makes meeting up with them so easy. Turn on a sound system. Pop in a disc or choose a stream. Listen to your favorites. Open a book from your coffee table collection or check out a volume from artCentral’s Lending Library. Curl up in a comfy chair beside a favorite window. Journey through the delights the Impressionists have to offer.
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Or…put in your earbuds, plug them into your phone, tune to an Impressionist composer and step outside. Take a walk through the wonder of Mother Nature’s creation and know we are being remarkably blessed by the artistry of Mother’s Nature's spring in the making.

Inside the gallery walls are in radiant bloom for a final weekend of the spectacular HEART and SOUL exhibition featuring inspiring creations made by 42 artists of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition. Do step out and come visit HEART and SOUL and our beautiful Hyde House neighborhood! Weekend gallery hours are Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m. and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org online.

While my husband, David, artCentral’s prepitor (art handler), and I are well into preparations for artCentral’s coming spring exhibition—PAINT in MOTION presented by Philip Ledbetter—we are happily enjoying Mother Nature’s changes in our own beautiful neighborhood on Sycamore Street.

Gleeful birdsong is growing more vibrant with each dawn. Green shoots are rising up in flower beds and on lawns everywhere. Our hearts are full with the gifts of this season freely flowing to us. Indeed a surprise gift came via mail from our local video store. The printed card offered a “free dvd rental” and pictured several movies—one a movie we missed and really wanted to see in a theater while the holidays had us twirling with no time to squeeze in a feature.

David picked up the gift disc on his way home from work. After a quick bowl of soup and mugs of his extra frothy homemade cappuccino, we cuddled up together in our big, cushioned watching chair for our dinner-and-a-movie-night in Paradise. “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” began. We sat enchanted as we watched this artful film conveyed with atmospheric cinematography and masterfully crafted sets including a toy town rendered in miniature.

As the promo goes for this lyrical movie, Lloyd Vogel (movingly played by Matthew Rhys) is an investigative journalist who prides himself on tough assignments. He receives and grudgingly takes on an assignment to profile Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers (exquisitely portrayed by Tom Hanks). Since Vogel does not believe that anyone can have such a good nature, he approaches the interview carrying adversarial skepticism. With each encounter they share, Roger's empathy, kindness and decency soon chips away at Vogel's jaded outlook on life, forcing the reporter to reconcile with his own painful past.

Cinema critic Anthony Lane writes in a New Yorker magazine review that Hank’s performance leaves us all, “not just consoled by Rogers but curious about what drove him”. Lane tells us that “in addition to being the host, the composer and the puppeteer on his own show, from 1968 to 2001, Mr. Rogers was a Presbyterian minister, and, thanks to Hanks, the business of dressing for his TV set [changing into a sweater and indoor shoes] begins to resemble a secular robing, as if we were in a vestry rather than in a television studio.”

Another New Yorker writer, Richard Brody, observes, “Throughout the movie, Rogers offers…words of wisdom and insight, revealing himself to be not merely the host of a children’s show but a sort of freelance activist clergyman whose main pulpit is the show but whose concern is society at large….The melancholy [thread] of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is that of a world out of whack—and of its dramatization of an unabated sense of responsibility to do whatever one can to help put things aright.”
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This gem of a film, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, could aptly be subtitled, “Mr. Rogers for Adults” as Tom Hanks adeptly plays Fred Rogers offering each of us the sage wisdom of an experienced, unruffled teacher. Perhaps you will want to add this treasure to your watch list or maybe enjoy a second viewing as each new beautiful day in your neighborhood unfolds for your pleasure.

Collaborating with Father Steve around art is always pleasant, always satisfying. As rector of Grace Episcopal Church, he has commissioned me to paint “La Pietà” (The Pity) to be displayed as a companion to the “Madonna and Child” which I painted some years ago.

For this particular commission Facebook has been a beneficial format for sharing the painting’s unfolding with Father Steve, our Facebook friends and members of the Grace Church parish. He came to offer his responses for what he had previewed on Facebook.
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Of course, my artist husband, David, whose home studio is just across the hall from my own, is always the first to see new developments at the end of my studio sessions. I do value David’s thoughtful responses that validate my progress. Since we have both learned the value of honoring each other’s creative boundaries, we each refrain from giving unsolicited criticism or advice. I especially appreciate his observations that cause me to know he “gets” what my art-making is all about—all about storytelling.

Recently contemplating “La Pietà”, David commented, “This painting looks like a stained glass window”. Indeed! Like most all of my paintings, “La Pietà” is a mosaic of motifs that tell a story created with bold linear definition and rich colors. The motifs in “La Pietà”—the images of the mourning Mary and the crucified Christ, the simple haloes that crown each and the passage from the Scriptures—are assembled like the elements of a leaded, stained glass window offering clues for viewers like you to see and read as a story.

Storytelling through art has been a tradition in many churches. Art in churches told the Bible’s stories in times before the advent of printing and the rise of literacy. When scriptures were unreadable to the vast majority of believers, church storytelling art could be found on the capitals of columns and in colorful windows and throughout sacred spaces large and small.

On the afternoon of Father Steve’s visit to my own sanctuary, up the stairs we climbed, past walls filled with paintings David and I have already made for our collaborative exhibit, “Signs and Wonders”, to be presented at artCentral in months to come.

“La Pietà” was waiting, serenely cloaked in a gauzy drape strewn with embroidered spring flowers. Father Steve nodded, and I slipped away the covering. My patron stood silently—smiling. “I love Mary’s eyes,” he said, then went on to offer his other appreciations. “I am very pleased,” he concluded, and he asked for one modest addition. “Do you think we can have a bit more gray in Mary’s hair?”

​As our studio visit drew to a close, we moved back down the stairs to the front porch. We said our good-byes. Father Steve was off to his next appointment, and I felt the same regret I always experience when one of our art chats comes to an end, and I am left wanting yet another of his studio visits and another artful conversation.
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I returned to my easel and squeezed fresh pigment onto my palette. I picked up a favorite brush to continue with my storytelling, and I reflected on all the wonderful stories now being told on the walls of Hyde House—stories made in other studios by the amazingly talented artists of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition—the stories of HEART & SOUL.

Do come enjoy the storytelling of artCentral's HEART & SOUL exhibition on view through March 15, 2020! Weekend gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00-5:00 p.m. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org online.

​Won’t you take the leap and come soon to see “Froggy” and all the awesome works created by the talented artists now exhibiting in artCentral’s HEART & SOUL exhibition presented by JRAC? Through March 15, 2020, this enchanting collection can be found throughout the galleries of artCentral’s elegant and serene Hyde House. 

How perfect to have a leaping frog to remind us that we have already made the leap into 2020, our brand new decade launched by a leap year.

Leap year! Why do a leap year and an extra day, February 29th, happen?

According to the online Mother Nature Network: 

“Leap year is all about circling the sun! It takes the Earth about 365.242189 days—or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds—to circle once around the sun. However, the Gregorian calendar we rely on has only 365 days, so if we didn't add an extra day to our shortest month about every four years, we would lose almost six hours every year. After a century, our calendar would be off by about 24 days.

Julius Caesar introduced the first leap year around 46 B.C., but his Julian calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by four would be a leap year. That created too many leap years, but the math wasn't tweaked until Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar more than 1,500 years later.

Technically, leap year is not every four years. Caesar's concept wasn't bad, but his math was a little off; the extra day every four years was too much of a correction. As a result, there's a leap year every year that is divisible by four, but to qualify, century years (those that end in 00) must also be divisible by 400. So, the year 2000 was a leap year, but the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not.

According to an old tradition, a woman may propose to a man on leap day February 29th. The custom has been attributed to various historical figures including St. Bridget, who is said to have complained to St. Patrick that women had to wait too long for their suitor to pop the question. The obliging Patrick supposedly gave women one day to propose.

There are other traditions that put a price on a man’s saying "no." In Denmark, a man refusing a woman's February 29th proposal must give her a dozen pairs of gloves. In Finland, an uninterested gentleman must give his spurned suitor enough fabric to make a skirt.

One in five engaged couples in Greece avoid tying the knot in a leap year, because they believe leap years are bad luck.

People born on leap day are often called "leaplings" or "leapers". Most of them don't wait every four years to celebrate their birthdays, but instead blow out the candles on February 28th or March 1st. According to History.com, about 4.1 million people around the world have been born on February 29th, and the chances of having a leap birthday are one in 1,461.

According to Guinness World Records, the only verified example of a family producing three consecutive generations born on February 29th belongs to the Keoghs of Ireland. Peter Anthony Keogh was born in Ireland in 1940. His son, Peter Eric, was born in the U.K. on leap day in 1964, and his granddaughter Bethany Wealth was born on February 29th in the U.K. in 1996.”

Whether you are an authentic art-loving "leapling" or "leaper" or anyone else who loves art, don’t wait until February 29th to take the leap to artCentral’s lovely Hyde House and the terrific exhibition, HEART & SOUL! Weekend gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00-5:00 p.m. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org.

“Froggy Goes a Courtin’” is on the wall waiting for your visit!

Thankfully my bumpy times and down days are few and far between, but I have had enough to learn that watching an uplifting, well-made story can soothe me back toward joy.

“Sweet Land,” an auspicious film debut given to us by writer-director Ali Selim begins with the quote, “Let us hope that we are all preceded in the world by a love story.”

According to a New York Times review written by Jeannette Catsoulis on October 18, 2006, the day of the movie’s Manhattan opening:

"There’s a tartness at the center of “Sweet Land,” Ali Selim’s unabashedly sentimental tale of a mail-order bride and the community that eventually comes to accept her.

Unfolding primarily in flashbacks to 1920 Minnesota, the movie follows a strong-willed German immigrant named Inge (Elizabeth Reaser) as she arrives to marry Olaf (Tim Guinee), a farmer she has never seen.
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Less than thrilled to have a German—and a Socialist—infiltrate his Norwegian flock, the local minister (John Heard) refuses to perform the marriage. As the locals follow his lead and ostracize the bewildered Inge, we’re reminded that anti-immigrant sentiment is hardly new in America.

Yet “Sweet Land” never condemns, showing instead how basic decency prevails when survival depends on cooperation.

The film’s guileless, heartfelt style veers perilously close to corniness at times, but the superb cast (including an unusually restrained Alan Cumming as Olaf’s alarmingly fertile best friend) dares you to mock.
Inspired by the Minnesota writer Will Weaver’s short story “A Gravestone Made of Wheat,” “Sweet Land” celebrates a gutsy, old-fashioned sort of love, one born of backbreaking work and shared difficulties.
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[The German born and educated] Inge brings Keats and music into Olaf’s plain existence. In return, he offers her the land, which Mr. Selim lovingly presents in scene after scene of glorious 35-millimeter images, until the endless wheat fields and magnificent skyline seem reason enough to endure."

“Reason enough to endure.” This is that time of year when many of us are experiencing the need to endure—the so-slow end of winter, an unexpected unpleasantry, a bumpy time or a dream, like spring, delayed in morphing into reality. For me caring hearts and art make the enduring easier, and so I seek out the warmth of my husband’s embrace and the company of uplifting friends and companions. I watch love stories painted on film. I read images on a lovely new set of salon cards. I look again and again at the amazing HEART & SOUL exhibition brought to artCentral by the wonderfully talented artists of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition.

Through March 15, 2020, as we eagerly await the advent of spring’s green, you too can view this heart-warming, soul-inspiring collection found throughout the galleries of our elegant and serene Hyde House. Weekend gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00-5:00 p.m. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org online.
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In HEART & SOUL there is art that tells us of love stories. Perhaps these will cause you to “hope that we are all preceded in the world by a love story”, and you will come to remember that a love story beginning is very true for you.

​I love the passion for art that surrounds me living with my artist husband, David, in our art-filled old house. I love our art-centric families and the budding young artist we see in our granddaughter, Sophie.

I love Carthage! I love artCentral—our hometown non-profit arts center. I love my job serving as Executive Director-Curator for artCentral. I love our board members and our artists and our art-loving patrons and guests. I love our teachers and interns and kids who come to artCamp.
 
I love our Hyde House exhibitions—especially HEART & SOUL now on display! For February and March, the HEART & SOUL art of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition (JRAC) is filling the galleries of Hyde House, upstairs and down.
 
I love the privilege of meeting Susan Adams, the juror tapped by JRAC to select award winners in this fine HEART & SOUL exhibition. Susan currently serves as the Interim Executive Director of Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin. With twinkling eyes, to artCentral she brings a beautiful smile and an uplifting grace that enhance her depth of expertise gained through her diverse experiences.
 
Originally from Ridgewood, New Jersey, with sojourns in Texas and Florida, Susan came to Missouri in 1987 and married her husband, Randy Adams. They have been members and loved Spiva for many years. Living out in the country, as Missouri Master Naturalists and Master Gardeners, they love being outdoors with their wild German Shorthair Pointer pup, Kitzel.
 
We are so pleased to have Susan's visit to Hyde House and artCentral’s HEART & SOUL Exhibition. Her impressive professional and philanthrophic curricula vitae tells us she loves our community. 
 
Former Executive Director of Joplin Workshops, Inc.
Former Director of Human Resources and Environmental Health & Safety for Able
                            Manufacturing, LLC      
2013 Joplin Influential Women
2013 Missouri LEAD Award Nominee (Society for Human Resources Management)
2012 National STEP Award Honoree for women in manufacturing
2012 Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education “Breaking Traditions”
                            Employer of the Year

Currently serving:
Vision Joplin 2022, Co-Chair, Arts & Culture Committee
Connect 2 Culture, Board Member
ONE Joplin, Steering Committee
Joplin Centennial Celebrations Commission Member

Formerly serving:
Spiva Center for the Arts (2013-2019), Board Member & Secretary
Tri-State Health Care Coalition, Chair
Workforce Investment Board, Chair Elect
Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, Board Chair (2010-2011)
 
With a happy heart I say, “Thank you!” to Susan Adams for selecting the award recipients in JRAC’s inspiring HEART & SOUL Exhibition.

For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org online.

​​A gourmet buffet was catered by The Red Onion for guests gathered around tables bedecked with wintry elegance by Bloom Boutique. Throughout the evening, ripples of uplifting words and happy laughter intertwined with waves of vibrant applause giving voice to a community expressing appreciation for those who lead and inspire us.

On an overcast January afternoon, Dan McWilliams had greeted my artist husband David and me in the chilly, unheated front room of his Studio One Eleven gallery in Jasper, Missouri. Wearing a hoody over a t-shirt and jeans, he explained that on wintry days when the sun is out the western exposure makes the gallery wonderfully warm and toasty. (On other days dressing in layers is advised.) We kept on our coats and hats and gloves.

David and I know Dan’s art through his participation in artCentral’s membership exhibitions. We have enjoyed discovering his paintings at Cherry’s Art Emporium on the Carthage square and on the walls when we have made a pilgrimage to Golden City for a piece of gooseberry pie at Cookie’s. He also shows at the Hawthorn Gallery in downtown Springfield.

A Missouri native son, Dan was born in Sheldon, Missouri, in 1956, and when in the fourth grade moved to Jasper with his family. He studied art at MSSU. More than once he has left Jasper, meandered and returned to his deep Jasper roots. He used his drafting degree to work in the manufacturing industry as a designer and writer. He took career detours, wandered and finally returned home to his heart. In 2000 Dan quit his day job. He opened a pizzeria and painted murals on the wall. His artistic talent was recognized and admired. Dan quit making pizzas and blissfully fell full time into his heart’s desire to paint.
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Dan’s oil paintings can be understood as impressionistic realism. They call our attention to the beauty in ordinary scenes of life—those scenes we often overlook. The magic in his brushes is the way he uses the contrasts of light and shadow to celebrate what he wants us to see. He is in good company with Edward Hopper, the creator of “Night Hawks”. With confidently animated strokes Dan can paint water that seems to move and twinkle. With gentle brushing his waters appear to rest in serene and glassy stillness.
Dan is always looking to find a new angle for seeing an old subject or an ordinary object—a child’s doll or a couple of cows or a line of yellow school buses parked in a shed or a hound dog resting with a pair of old cowboy boots.

Broadening the span and the vitality of the Carthage arts community, Dan works quietly and modestly in his studio. Without fanfare he is creating and contributing light and illumination that reaches far beyond Carthage and his own mid-American small town. He is well on the way to achieving the fame and recognition that have come to artCentral artists Lowell Davis and Andy Thomas. He will be another homegrown artist who puts our hometown on the worldwide map.
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To recognize the well-deserving Dan McWilliams as the 2019 Artist of the Year is a great honor. Congratulations, Dan!

Of course my husband David and I will be present—he as artCentral’s prepitor (art handler) who with me creates the magic of each exhibition installation—me as artCentral’s hostess-director-curator. We make a good team aligned in the service of art—the art of others and our own art, also. As members of JRAC David and I both have works in this exhibition currently on artCentral’s gallery walls.

Being out on the town and celebrating art, we’ll count this HEART & SOUL evening as our customary “Friday date night”. We both cherish our date nights as those special occasions when we take a break from day jobs and chores and puppy training to spend time sharing hours together in satisfying pleasure. An evening celebrating art among art lovers and creators, like a “dinner and a movie night” certainly fills this niche, especially when we add our own twist.

Recently, late on a wintry Friday afternoon, David called from his work place and asked, “What do you want to do tonight?” When I pitched “dinner and a movie”, he was all in. We looked online but could not find a nearby theater showing a movie that tweaked our interests. Next best choice: “dinner and a movie” at home…in bed. No need to bundle up and go out into the night to travel on slick roads while the temps were falling below freezing. Instead, while I carried my laptop to our bedroom, set up a “free” movie to stream and turned on our faux wood stove, David popped popcorn to bring upstairs on a big tray filled with peanut butter, apples, chocolate and bubbly cucumber water.

Our movie choice was excellent—a perfectly cast, exquisitely poignant 2006 sleeper neither of us had seen before. Weeks later we’re still talking about “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School”, which the online notes describe as “a heartfelt, nostalgic and gently humorous story about a chance encounter in which one man’s dreams become another man’s destiny”.

Our staying in date night was so, so happily satisfying! Our going out to artCentral and the HEART & SOUL opening will be just as pleasing. We think our peer artists of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition are awesome and the stories they tell in their creations are as moving and meaningful as the story told in “Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing & Charm School”.

2020 is JRAC’s tenth anniversary! Besides the work of the JRAC artists we’ve come to know and love, we will have art by a few fresh new faces in JRAC’s membership. They are excited to be exhibiting with us for the very first time at artCentral.

The Joplin Regional Artists Coalition is a not-for-profit group founded in 2010. JRAC’s mission is to promote, strengthen and advocate for the visual arts and artists, art enthusiasts and patrons of the visual arts and to network visual artists to more effectively engage in cultural, economic and educational artistic activity within the Joplin region. Many Carthage artists are active members of JRAC.
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Come see what all the talented JRAC artists have created with HEART & SOUL for our pleasure! Come and be pleased! Come find your favorites. Choose one or more for your own HEART & SOUL collection.