TWO FRIENDS + SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS fundraising silent auction are waiting in the wings at artCentral! Mark your calendars now for the Opening Celebration on Friday, October 2, 2020, 6:00-8:00 p.m. Prepare to be amazed by a plethora of brand new art that will dazzle your eyes and please you immensely! Mark your calendars, too, to remember the Closing Celebration on December 5, 2020, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
 
For the festive season of celebrations just ahead artCentral has gathered two extraordinary collections for your holiday viewing and early shopping, your hopeful bidding and happy purchasing at Hyde House from October 2 through December 5, 2020. As artwork is being delivered, excitement and anticipation are wafting through the galleries.
 
In the meantime, the outdoor drive through SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR by Jason Shelfer is still enchanting visitors to the campus, while the 2020 MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION remains on display and waiting for your visit.  Awards recipients have been named. Come see for yourself at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage through September 19. Right and left, artworks are being chosen to take home at the exhibition’s close. Do not let your favorite get away! Weekend Gallery Hours are each Friday and Saturday from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. with CDC protocols being practiced. Face masks and social distancing are required for everyone entering Hyde House. Please help us keep each other safe and healthy and ready for the coming celebrations!
 
Both the Opening and Closing Celebrations will be held virtually via FACEBOOK LIVE on artCentral’s facebook page. As artCentral’s Executive Director-Curator with my husband David, artCentral’s Prepitor (art handler) we will be serving as your online tour guides, personal shoppers and auctioneers. Tune in October 2 for the Opening where you can get a close up of all the art in real time, ask questions, begin your bidding and make initial purchases while you meet some of the artists and special guests. Tune in at the end of the Exhibition and Auction on Saturday, December 5 to view the art, shop, purchase your 2 FRIENDS favorites and place your winning bids!
 
Who are the TWO FRIENDS about to be introduced at Hyde House? They are two life-long artists and long-time soul mates drawn together by their love for art making and for painting in oils. While Ina Niday and Mary Datum work in many sizes and paint many subjects, in their coming artCentral exhibition their creations will be mostly giftable, pocket-friendly intimate canvases along with a collection of Ina’s notecards and holiday decoratives. Many will be exquisite still lifes and landscapes, with a charming pet portrait or two from Mary. All will be displayed Parisian Salon style in the Chandelier and Members Galleries. Ina’s and Mary’s 2 FRIENDS is a genuine treasure trove to explore, and still there are many other works to tickle your fancy as well! The demi-creations in artCentral’s SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS will greet you in the foyer and front galleries when you first arrive!
 
For your selection the SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS fundraising silent auction showcases more than sixty 5”x 7” artworks created and donated by artCentral Artists. All proceeds are dedicated to artCentral’s work to support art and artists in our greater community.
 
Beginning October 2, you can view online all the art in TWO FRIENDS + SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS where you will be able to digitally make your purchases and place your early bids. Visit artCentral’s website at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/events.html and artCentral’s Facebook page at ArtCentralCarthage to see all the images in two photo albums.   
 
Quite possibly you will find artCentral to be your one-stop shopping venue to fulfill all your gifting on your holiday shopping list! To ensure you get your first choices, come early to Hyde House early or visit remotely from the comfort of your home or office. Make your selection and your payment to claim one or more of Ina’s and Mary’s beautiful 2 FRIENDS paintings. Bid often during the online SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS silent auction and at the finale! Thank you for supporting artCentral artists!
 
 With the board of directors and all the members and artists of artCentral, I do hope you will join us for the opening and grand finale at the conclusion of this most unusual year. Your participation will help us sustain artCentral’s crucial mission to promote the arts and artists that lift our spirits and soothe our souls every day and especially now as together we find our paths through challenging times.

​In these curious times fraught with uncertainties, good drama is happening at artCentral!
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Give Carthage Day on September 1, 2020, was an amazing production and a huge success benefiting artCentral and many other non-profits. Under the sponsorship of the Carthage Community Foundation and the leadership of Heather Collier, foundation coordinator, and with the generous giving of community supporters like yourself, funds were raised to help keep artCentral vital and program strong. I send out a special thank you to board president, Betsy Flanigan; board members Maddie Capps and Wendi Douglas; Brad Douglas, videographer extraordinaire; founding artCentral director Sandy Higgins; and former artCamper and now intern Brady Cloud for contributing their time and talents to help create our vigorous online campaign.

The curtain is up and visual dramatic arts are happening at Hyde House with the 2020 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION fully staged and waiting for your visit. Awards recipients have been named. Each is a show stopper! Come see for yourself at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage through September 19. Weekend Gallery Hours are each Friday and Saturday from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. CDC protocols are practiced at artCentral. Face masks and social distancing are required for everyone entering Hyde House. Please help us keep each other safe and healthy!

While we are still sheltering as much as possible, domestic drama occasionally unfolds in the home I share with my husband and family of furries and feathers—the old 1890’s house we affectionately call Paradise! A few days ago, before the rains came, the evening had grown quite late. After my artCentral day working remotely at the computer in my home office, I went outside to catch up on all the weed eating—edging our brick sidewalks, flower beds and along the curb and tiding up the puppy yard around our Aussie’s agility course.

Just as I finished my husband David arrived with a week’s supplies purchased at our local big box and waiting to be sanitized and put away as darkness descended. By the time we finished a quick dinner and our daily garden watering and I got upstairs to draw a bath and David went back out to collect eggs, the sun had long since set and the chickens had already gone to roost.
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I was ready, like the chickie babes, for a good night’s sleep. I waited for David to come back inside and report on their egg-laying successes. I waited some more. He seemed to take forever! When he finally came in, instead of eggs to show off, he brought a story filled with dramatic antics.

​I scooped up Coquette all sleepy and compliant. I put her down to nestle with the others. With all the girls safely inside, I double locked the door to the palace, and then I fetched the battery lantern and the long stick with the gripping tongs. When I came back and held the light high, I spied the intruder crouched down and pressed hard against the fence of the chicken yard. I had him cornered! But he bolted! Under the fence and up into the monkey tree he climbed, then down the other side of the fence and into the front yard. I chased after him. He got away! I don’t know where he is, but I’m going to catch him. I set the live trap—left the door open with an apple inside. Possums love apples. I will get this critter!”

David did get that critter! Carried that possum far, far away. Relocated our visitor way out in the country! Finally shutting our eyes, we rested well knowing our girls were safe. Of course, David is resetting the live trap in case any family or relations come snooping about in these curious times of uncertainties!
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Good drama continues happening at artCentral while we are keeping everyone healthy and safe at Hyde House! Though critter drama may still be lurking in Paradise, with a little extra vigilance we feel confident we can keep our girls secure and safe, too!

This is a terrific time for celebration of artCentral! We are so blessed and fortunate to have our very own hometown arts center! Please lend your support to keep artCentral vital. Make your online donation on GIVE CARTHAGE DAY, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, or anytime at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/give-4art-fund.html. Every gift makes a difference! No gift is too small.

On a summery day the silvery burst on the lawn’s green grass grabs your attention before you ever turn up the drive toward Hyde House. Like a magnificent firework of sparkling lines exuberantly exploding outward, Jason Shelfer’s newest installation for his outdoor SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR exhibition is a celebration supreme! The arrival of this and two more of his recent creations is perfect serendipity, for this is indeed a time for celebration!

The 2020 Annual Membership Exhibition is open in Hyde House and waiting to awe you from the moment you walk through artCentral’s green door of hospitality. Oh, do come soon! Throughout this elegant, foursquare American farmhouse, walls and pedestals and shelves are filled with fifty wondrous artworks by some of our region’s most gifted artists. They will lift you up and make you laugh; confound you and inspire you; cause you to speculate and to hunger for answers; soothe you and make you wish for more. All artworks in the Membership Exhibition are available for purchase.

The generous underwriter for this fine collection is McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation for which artCental is immensely grateful. The Jurors for this exceptional exhibition are Beth Simmons, Director of McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation, and Reita Walker Miller, award-winning artist from Little Rock, Arkansas. They have selected four outstanding works to be awarded Underwriter, Gold, Silver and Bronze cash prizes for excellence. Additionally two Honorable Mentions have been named.

Juror Reita Walker Miller writes, “I found the 50 entries to be diverse in media, subject matter and technical ability. I applaud each artist for their creativity and their willingness to share their work with their community and beyond. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in artCentral’s mission to serve your community through art and artists. The urge to create is strong in many of us, and to have a community that supports art and artists is vital to cultural enrichment for everyone.” Yes! This is a time for celebration with the announcement of these gifted, award-receiving artists, their artworks and comments offered by the Jurors:
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UNDERWRITER: Andrew Batcheller, “The Sermon of the Dictator on the Mount (We Don't Deserve Love)”, Oil on Linen, 49”x74”: Expansive and intimate, too. Like a story told to be understood, yet mysterious and intriguing. Who or what is the black bunny? The complex composition is balanced like a diptych fully unfolded. The application of almost garish pigments is masterful.

GOLD: Dan McWilliams, “Last Dance”, Oil, 16”x20”: Strong composition and use of light compels the viewer to move through each section of this painting. The artist’s expert use of color sets the mood. A high level of technical ability reinforces the theme throughout.

SILVER: Mary L. Parks, “CALM COOL CONNECTED”, Acrylic and Mixed Media, 11”x14”: The choice of colors and consistent application add to the overall calm of this work. The simple framing does not distract from the movement within the artwork.
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BRONZE: Dustin Miller, “Joe’s Baby”, Charcoal, 22”x27”: The scale and simplicity of composition and presentation add strength to an already strong subject. Technical ability is very evident and the urge to over emphasize detail was resisted. The resulting understated drawing is serene and powerful.

HONORABLE MENTION: Linda Teeter, “Spirit + Sphere + Balance”, Archival Print, 26”x32”: Beautiful and simple, straightforward with expert lighting and presentation. Less is more.

HONORABLE MENTION: Jordy Vulpine, “Spirit of Michelle”, Charcoal, 9”x12”: The viewer is challenged to interpret the narrative through the individual objects. An intriguing idea and composition that could be developed more on a larger scale.

You may virtually preview and review all the artworks in the exhibit by visiting artCentral’s website at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/2020-annual-membership-exhibition-21-aug-19-sep.html. Also, on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/?ref=page_internal
you will find the entire exhibit’s fine art showcased in a photo album.
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This is definitely a time for celebration! Hyde House and the Annual Membership Exhibition are open and waiting for your visit at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage from August 21 through September 19 with Weekend Gallery Hours each Friday and Saturday from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. CDC protocols are practiced at artCentral. Face masks and social distancing are required for everyone entering Hyde House. Please help us keep each other safe and healthy!

Recognizing this collection is exceptional, David and I wanted to make this installation our best ever. For four evenings, after David returned from his day job, we headed over to the gallery to work late. Getting Hyde House ready for your visits we prepped walls and swept floors and polished window panes. Mostly we considered and discussed and stood back to view possible arrangements and combinations as we hung art to create conversations of texture and color and harmony. The results are very pleasing. You must come see for yourself!

Each time I leave Hyde House and return I am filled with warm feelings of satisfaction and pride for artCentral’s 2020 Annual Membership Exhibition is elegant and provocative, inspiring and fun, beautiful and revelatory, quiet and well-spoken and filled with positive energy—all made and brought to us by the great talents that live and move among us. We are blessed to be in the company of these remarkable creative spirits:

Jane Ballard, Joan Banks, Andrew W. Batcheller, Eric Beezley, Karolee Blanchard, Diana Bray, Jim Bray, Maddie Capps, Landon Cawyer and Stephanie Cawyer;

April Davis-Brunner, Alice Lynn Greenwood-Mathé, David Greenwood-Mathé, Al Gritten, Carol Hammerbacher, Cindy Head, Steve Head, Barbara Hicklin, Nina Johnston and Janice Kinman;

Helen Kunze, Philip Ledbetter, Christina Lorenzen, Lori Marble, Koral Martin, Jesse McCormick, Dan McWilliams, Nicole Meyer-Foresman, Connie Miller and Dianne Miller;

Dustin Miller, Jim Miller, Margie Moss, Janice Myers, Mary L. Parks, Sandra Parrill, Tyla Raredon, Debbie Reed, Rich Reed and Donna Roberts;

Emily Rose, Brenda M. Sageng, Debbie Southard, Kerry Sturgis, Linda Teeter, Dan Trogdon, Jordy Vulpine, Elizabeth Wallsmith, Lora Waring and Bonnie Young.

Two distinguished Jurors have stepped up to the difficult tasks of selecting recipients to receive cash awards for the outstanding works of art. The Underwriter Award will be given by Beth Simmons, Director of the McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation, patron of artists, an avid collector of art and a longtime supporter of artCentral.

Reita Walker Miller of Little Rock, Arkansas, will name recipients of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards. Reita is a member of American Watercolor Society, New York; National Watercolor Society, California; Watercolor USA Honor Society, Missouri; and Mid-Southern Watercolorists, Arkansas. A painter for over forty years, her work is in over three hundred private, corporate and museum collections including the Arkansas Arts Center, Springfield Arts Museum (Missouri), Arts and Science Museum (Pine Bluff, Arkansas), Hendrix College and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital permanent collection.

You may virtually preview and review all the artworks in the exhibit by visiting artCentral’s website at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/2020-annual-membership-exhibition-21-aug-19-sep.html.

Also, on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/?ref=page_internal you will find the entire exhibit’s fine art showcased in a photo album.

This Annual Membership Exhibition will be open and waiting for your real time visit beginning at noon on Friday, August 21, 2020, at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage. The exhibition continues August 21 through September 19 with Weekend Gallery Hours each Friday and Saturday from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.

I will be at Hyde House to greet you every Friday. Volunteer gallery docents will be present on Saturdays. We are all eager to welcome you to artCentral and to assist you in any way we can to enjoy artCentral’s home in elegant, historic Hyde House as you discover the outstanding art on display here.

CDC protocols are practiced at artcentral. Face masks and social distancing are required for everyone entering Hyde House. Please help us keep each other safe and healthy!
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All artworks in the Membership Exhibition are available for purchase beginning at noon, Friday, August 21. Please support artCentral's Member Artists! Make your choice and secure your selection by contacting me, Alice Lynn Greenwood-Mathé, Exhibition Curator, at (417) 358-4404 or artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org.

​Older Naked Lady beauties have been at home at artCentral for quite some time. Annually they magically appear in the circular flower bed beside the back patio. This month they are providing a lovely setting for the Heron—one of the sixteen works installed in Jason Shelfer’s SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR exhibition underwritten by Schmidt CPAS & Advisors.

Board Member and exhibiting artist Jason Shelfer tells us: “Each year my Mom asks me what I want for Christmas, and I try to make my responses an equal mix of constructive and audacious.

The sewing machine Christmas launched my textile creations...and these sculptures are the result of my Lincoln Arc Welder Christmas. Once I had begun creating pieces from the objects I had on hand (and displaying them in my yard), friends began to give me metal. I could not do most of these without my dear friends slash patrons, particularly, the Ball Family! They have opened up their farm to be artistically plundered on numerous occasions.”

Do come on over to 1110 East Thirteenth Street and see for yourself the art made of Jason’s foraging. Admission is free!

When you arrive at artCentral the first sculpture you will view is Red I-Beams. Entering the campus and traveling counterclockwise around the circular drive, stop at the front porch stairs and pick up a site map from the red-topped information box.

In the island’s center you will find Thorax, A Tempest of Wheels, Alea iacta est (The die has been cast), Pyramidal Duo and Interstitial. Off to the right is the Heron knee deep in Naked Ladies then the ethereal blue Celeste Chairs. The mash up of Bike Lanes stands before the Great Wall. Continuing around next come Window Screens #1, Orange Steel Tube, Tractor Parts, Window Screens #2, Gray Mobius Wire, The Angelus by Millet via Dali and Cerchi per Nostro Circolo (Circles for Our Circle).

Sculptural Spectacular is a fine example of artCentral’s mission to offer grand art in our small town. All of artCentral’s exhibitions and events at Hyde House and through community outreach programs are made possible with the support of art lovers like you. Please show you gratitude for all that artCentral gives to enrich the quality of life and culture in greater Carthage.
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September 1 is Give Carthage Day sponsored by the Carthage Community Foundation. This is a perfect opportunity to make your donation to artCentral’s Give4Art! Fund. Your contributions make a difference! I can just imagine all artCentral’s Naked Ladies standing even taller and more beautiful as they nod their appreciation in your direction!

In addition to being a talented artist, Reita is known as an educator and encourager of others whether in watercolors or other forms of art.  She helped establish the art program at the Central Arkansas Library System during her tenure on staff there. She was also a founding member of Little Rock’s Arts+Culture Commission. Reita’s artwork is in numerous collections. The Arkansas Arts Center has three of her pieces in the Center’s permanent collection.
 
Mark your calendar today and plan to attend artCentral’s 2020 Annual Membership Exhibition, August 21 through September 19, 2020, at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage. Gallery hours will be on Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/2020-annual-membership-exhibition-21-aug-19-sep.html.

​On a recent warm summer evening, before beginning our nightly ritual of hand watering our gardens, into our little artCentral-green car we loaded—my husband David and me and our two puppies, Chiquita and Lasyrenn. Making a quick curbside dinner pick up at The Carthage Deli on the Square, we headed east beneath amazing banks of billowing clouds that seemed to grow more beautiful beyond every curve in the road.

Arriving at our destination—a favorite place to relax and unwind and where a portion of the original Route 66 pavement runs along Spring River—we circled Kellogg Lake twice looking for the perfect location to spread our rug and picnic on the grass with a view of the water.

As we made our first go-around, in front of the lakeside stone pavilion a very large flock of Canadian geese completely blocked our passage. We waited patiently amused as we watched them decide to slowly go waddling and flip-flopping their way up the steep embankment and out of our path while sporting their gleaming white face masks like chin straps. When just a few stragglers hung behind and voiced indecision about joining the others, the entire consortium turned around and blithely ambled back over the road in the other direction. Our dinner appetites ripening, we watched and waited some more.

On our second go-around, passing the boat ramp we saw quite a few folks comfortable in assorted lawn chairs. Quietly bantering back and forth, surrounded by coolers and tackle boxes, they sat with fishing poles at the ready to make their evening catches.

One large family had come to unload for an evening excursion over the lake’s calm surface. Their flatbed truck filled with sleek crafts looked like a colorful bouquet of pointed flowers. With paddles like leaves sticking out here and there in every direction, one by one they launched and began quietly slicing the water—a family flotilla of kayaks—mother and father and an assortment of boys in varying sizes, each and every one wearing life vests and baseball caps.

​Finally we settled in the peaceful quiet beneath shade trees on the far shore away from the activity of anglers and paddlers. Sharing our sandwich and chips and cool cucumber water we watched the graceful fountain spraying misty plumes high and wide not far from the markers commemorating Charles A. (Lex) Kellogg and Mary E. Kellogg who donated the land for the lake and E. M. “Uke” Haughawout who contributed foresight, planning and direction for Kellogg Lake’s creation in the mid 1950’s.

Seeming to arrive out of nowhere, thoroughly enjoying the splashing and laughing of horseplay, boy members of the family flotilla chopped their way into the placid waters just before us, calling up images of other hatted paddlers moving a bit more languidly through the waters of the Yerres river across the ocean in France.

​French boaters like those pictured in Périssoires sur l'Yerres (Boating on the Yerres) were a favorite subject of the realist and impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. As described online: "The three boats—sporty, kayak-like craft—glide on a stream that opens in a wedge shape. The tilt of the riverbank exaggerates the downhill flow of the water. The geometry of the painting, a rough wedge expanding from the top right to the lower left, promotes the sense of downward, leftward flow. The lead boat cuts an arrowhead of light into the shadow cast by the large tree.” This painting is one of the earliest and largest of the seven boating scenes that Caillebotte completed between 1877 and 1878 at his family's estate along the Yerres River.

Perhaps you will be inspired to don a summer hat and take a spin around Kellogg Lake where you can enjoy the dancing fountain, boat, picnic, fish, hike, play Frisbee, cloud and bird watch and conjure images of other flotillas out for summer pleasures while enjoying the gifts of Mother Nature’s waters.

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For a summery outing right in town be sure to visit the JASON SHELFER | SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR— the free drive-through exhibition now on view at artCentral, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage.

​I have painted mermaid images for as long as I can remember. I once painted a 1970 Chevy with a mermaid swimming down one side and her companion merman swimming over the opposite doors. The first gift I gave to David was my painting of a Haitian mermaid.

David has collected mermaids for decades, especially gathering them during his Navy years as a sailor circling the globe. We now have these treasures scattered all over our house—resting on table tops and nestled in planters, swimming on walls and perched on the tops of picture frames.

Searching the web, I have learned that mermaids have been swimming through worldwide cultures for a very long time. The first known mermaid stories “appeared in Assyria around 1000 BC. The goddess Atargatis, mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, loved a mortal (a shepherd) and unintentionally killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine beauty.”

“On 9 January 1493, Christopher Columbus observed something he had before seen on the coasts of Africa…mermaids. In his journal he described the encounter with three mermaids that elevated themselves above the surface of the sea.”

Mermaid sightings by sailors and Christopher Columbus, too, when they weren't made up, were “most likely manatees, dugongs or Steller's sea cows (which became extinct by the 1760s due to over-hunting). Manatees—the creatures once believed to be mermaids—are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces and paddle-like tails. Indeed, manatees and dugongs are both known to rise out of the sea like the alluring sirens of Greek myth, occasionally performing ‘tail stands’ in shallow water.”

“Thousands of miles from the seas Columbus sailed, the dugong—found in the Pacific Ocean—had been living in legend for centuries. In 1959, 3,000-year-old cave drawings depicting dugongs—the word translates to "lady of the sea" in the Malay language—were discovered inside Malaysia's Tambun Cave.”

With such an alluring heritage and our love for creatures of her mystique, how could we resist bringing home this over-painted lady of the sea? We were not sure where she would land, but we  agreed that, before we placed her in our gardens, we needed to rid her of her over-done bold colors.

On the shelves of our local hardware store we found a user-friendly, non-toxic but still effective paint removal gel. For two weeks, yearning to reveal the concrete beauty of our mermaid’s sweet face, delicate hands and curvaceous form, I kept stripping her down, layer by layer. Even when the swarming mosquitoes seemed ferociously intent on torturing me, I held my course and continued removing our mermaid’s suffocating impasto pigments.

​Finally, our lovely lady stood bare and beautiful swimming with her two companions atop splashing concrete waves still slightly tinted with hints of the thick blues that had once weighed them down. 

​Now from the street you can see them atop the incline rising up to our house. Above a sea of mossy green they charmingly beckon us to admire their restored dignity and their rescued mystical essence. 

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For many more magical sightings be sure to visit the JASON SHELFER | SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR—the free drive-through exhibition now on view at artCentral, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage!

Here in Carthage the towering mimosa tree on my street and all the other lovely mimosas blooming this time of year throughout our town are descendants of Albizia julibrissin, the Persian silk tree or pink silk tree—a species of tree in the family Fabaceae, native to southwestern and eastern Asia. The genus is named after the Italian nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi, who introduced the exotic tree to Europe in the mid-18th century.

The magically intoxicating mimosa blossoms decorating our neighbor’s giant tree were like hundreds of perfumed ornaments placed and arranged just so in a hairdo woven with strands of fern-like foliage above dozens of scented adornments fallen down over the walk and grassy lawn.
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The mimosa perfume lingering long in my mind and my imagination appeared to go before and follow us all the way to and around the park and back home to a lovely cup of tea that seemed to be infused with the same Mimosa scent.

That morning’s surreal meandering set my mind to pondering the wonders of magic realism—that style of fiction and literary genre that paints a realistic view of the modern world while also adding magical elements. Magical Realism is familiar to us in literary and film classics in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy—“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez; “Beloved” by Toni Morrison; “The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende; “Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel; and the “Harry Potter” novels by J. K. Rowling.
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Well-known artists who are considered strong followers and practitioners of Magic Realism art include Italian painters Felice Casorati, Giorgio de Chirico and Gian Paolo Dulbecco; German Alexander Kanoldt; Latin American Marcela Donoso; American Paul Cadmus, Joseph Cornell, Edward Hopper, Syd Baker and Colleen Browing; Armenian Gayane Khachaturian; Swiss Ricco Wassmer; Dutch Carel Willink; Belgian René Magritte and Mexican Frida Kahlo de Rivera.

​For a very real and magical outing be sure to visit the JASON SHELFER | SCULPTURAL SPECTACULAR— the free drive-through exhibition now on view at artCentral, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage!
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