gets the slice of cake with the baked-in solo baby (understood to symbolize luck and prosperity) is supposed to announce, “I got the baby!” With so many babies on so many pretend king cakes at artCentral’s “Arti Gras” party, the jubilant refrain could be heard again and again around the galleries—“I got the baby!” “I got the baby!” “I got the baby!” “I got the baby!”—for there were enough babies for everyone to get at least one!

Mardi Gras—the inspiration for JRAC’s “Arti Gras”—is supposed to represent a farewell to the fat living and indulging preceding Lent. While nowadays the king cake is the most widely recognized symbol of pre-Lenten feasting, concealing a tiny treasure in a celebratory cake has long been a European pre-Lenten tradition.

​Legend has it that the first cakes were made in the shape of a ring and colorfully decorated to resemble a bejeweled crown. Today’s king cakes baked and sold at French bakeries in New Orleans originated in France and are believed to have been brought to NOLA from France in 1870.

Originally a bean or a trinket was used instead of a baby. The bean’s discovery commemorated the discovery of Jesus’ divinity by the Magi at the Epiphany (from the Greek word that means “to show”), when Jesus first showed himself to the three Wise Men and to the world. The finder of the bean or trinket was duly anointed king or queen to preside over the festivities, often with a consort of his or her choosing.

Harking to the practice of elevating faux festival royalty, on the "Arti Gras" reception table a regally cloaked fiber-made frog king (a birthday gift from my dear husband, David) was perched high up above all the babies seated on their mini cakes among the lavish spread of savories and sweets offered for feasting for the artists and patrons and guests filling Hyde House.

Like a magi-wanna-be reigning over artCentral’s evening arty party, the frog king sat splendidly outfitted with a gold crown, a gold-trimmed cloak and a sparkling gold scepter. In the frog king’s presence exciting news was announced including juror Judith Fowler’s selections of the artists and the art she found to be of exceptional merit and deserving of special recognition and cash awards. (Be sure to return to Art Notes next week when I’ll be name-dropping each talented award winner and each of their eye-popping award selections!)

In the mind of this curator, every multi-media “Arti Gras” art work on exhibit now through March 17, 2019, is a show-stopper deserving of recognition. Thanks to members of JRAC, Hyde House is simply bursting with talent turned out in delightful diversity—watercolor and oil; acrylic and encaustic; porcelain, clay and fiber; photography and pastel; and wood and fused glass! No wonder artCentral claims to offer “grand art in a small town”! Come see! Come see and prepared to be pleased and inspired and reminded that art and culture are alive and well in Carthage and Joplin and in the towns of all our art-rich neighbors.

I’ve been talking a lot lately with a group of visionary Carthaginians about the legacy of art we’ve been given. As we plan for the first ever Art.A.Fair Carthage to be held April 13, 2019, around the historic downtown square, we’re remembering that the very first origins of Carthage were built on art. When our native Carthage limestone, familiarly known as Carthage marble, was hewn from the earth, local and regional artists and craftsmen artfully, architecturally transformed the strength and beauty of nature as they created “the first grand art in our small town” seen today in the fine artistic homes and civic structures in which we live and work and play. As so poignantly stated by artCentral and JRAC artist, April Davis-Brunner, “You can’t spell Carthage (C“art”hage) without art!”

​Come see for yourself! Visit artCentral in elegant, historic Hyde House proudly standing for more than one hundred and thirty years on a foundation of enduring Carthage marble and creating a lovely space for celebrations that attract patrons from near and far—even a king and babies, too. For exhibition information visit www.artcarthage.com/events.

In our own big, old house David and I have two offices. Mine shares space with my studio, since choreographing artCentral and making my art are virtually inseparable. David’s office at the end of the hall currently sports a “do-not-enter” note hanging on the gate. He tells me all my birthday presents are in there, and I “better not look!”

I most certainly won’t look! No way am I going to spoil any of the surprises my dear husband puts together. The anticipation is just so much fun. Oh, how I do love my birthday and cards and packages and presents and all the falderal that comes with celebrating another year on planet earth.
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Lucky me! The unwrapping has already begun with a beautiful pair of colorful plaid gloves from Repurpose Boutique, because our Aussie puppy ate my old glove! Actually Lasyrenn only consumed the end of one thumb. She was hanging out with me in my studio/office while I was concentrating at my computer screen. Though my space looks like a toddler’s play room with puppy toys everywhere, Lasyrenn got bored with her usual favorites and went shopping. She happened to look in my open shoulder bag and scored big. She found my kibble-scented old gloves. (We use kibble as rewards when we’re gloved and hatted for outdoor morning puppy training in the cold).

At seventeen months old Lasyrenn’s still indulging her love for chewing on any and everything. If she’s alone and on her own too long, she’s sure to look for entertainment. Chewing is her favorite soothing pleasure.

We have a sweet heirloom chest that was decorated decades ago by David and his mom and sisters. Today this treasured cabinet has three intact legs. Lasyrenn’s been whittling down the fourth as though to become a chopstick variation. What’s a puppy lover to do? David’s sister suggested using Bitter Apple—the spray guaranteed to discourage unwanted munching—but Lasyrenn seems to think this stuff only adds seasoning to whatever she has between her teeth.

“What about chewing?” is a question to put on our list to ask Jessica when we meet for our puppy behavior consultation—part of our “welcome to the family package” at Central Pet Care. We need to finish filling out the questionnaire the clinic sent us to prepare for our session. For days the paper’s been waiting for our attention while sitting on David’s and my shared table between our two reading chairs.

These well-worn reading chairs are our nests, our sanctuaries, our happy places. We never seem to spend enough time serenely ensconced in them with a book or a New Yorker opened wide. You see, we’re both a bit old-fashioned. We both LOVE to read and we love hard copy texts to hold in our hands. We essentially don’t watch television. Having a large screen hidden in the music room armoire, we occasionally check in with PBS, but we’d almost always rather read.

With our day jobs taking up so many hours, sometimes our beloved evening reading times are given over to those domestic tasks that always need doing. Though we both share mending chores, the stitching together of the thumb on my glove fell to me while David plugged the draft around the front door then untangled the bamboo chimes that greet us entering the back door. They were a mess. He considered throwing them away, but I couldn’t bear to lose them, so there he sat in his reading chair string by string, knot by knot freeing up the chimes to swish and sing again in the wind. They’re restored and hanging back in place to greet our homecomings. Success!
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Success is mine, too, the evening reading times I’ve given to prep and send out artCentral’s “thank-you’s” to our new and renewing members. Are you a member? If not, treat yourself! Visit www.artcentralcarthage and click on JOIN or pick up a membership envelope in the information box by artCentral’s front steps and in businesses all around town. I’ll be sure to send you an appreciative “thank-you”, our quarterly newsletters and printed invitations to artCentral’s future, fabulous Artist Receptions.

I asked Andy to be artCentral’s evening presenter for the “Artist of the Year” award, because Andy has very, very special connections with our award recipient. I knew Andy’s comments would be perfect and poignant. I knew the award recipient’s response would be equally so, even if a little shocking. Placing my iPhone on the podium, I opened my voice memos app and word for word recorded their tearful and touching onstage conversation. With great pleasure I share their heartfelt moments with you.

Andy: “Tonight’s recipient has done a lot more for Carthage than I have. I’m going to tell a quick story. Back in 1975 I desperately needed a job and I wanted to pursue a job in art. Nobody believed I would find a job in the art world. I didn’t even think I would, but I was going to give it a try.

I was told to go visit with this man and I spent three hours with him. 1975! In an old farmhouse—cold and drafty. He was so enthusiastic, when I left that farmhouse two people in Jasper County believed I could be an artist.

He’s done so much for Carthage! His work has depicted farm life in America. Thousands and thousands of people from across America have come to Carthage to visit him. They still visit him. You can’t go out and visit without being interrupted by someone who wants to meet him. He is in my eyes the greatest artist I have ever known. He’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some great people.

And so I’ve done a special piece of artwork (that I hope you get a chance to come over and look at) to commemorate the great, the great!—Lowell Davis.”
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With four hundred people rising to their feet and clapping with waves of enthusiasm, Lowell Davis slowly stood from his seat beside his wife, the beautiful and wise Rose. Leaning lightly on his cane, accompanied by my husband, artCentral’s Prepitor, David Greenwood-Mathé, Lowell made his way down front, up the steps and onto the stage. Beckoned by Andy’s firmly insisting “You have to come up Lowell,” he stopped some distance back from the podium. With my hand placed in the center of his back and giving him a very gentle nudge forward, Lowell just stood planted there as tears coursed down his weathered cheeks and Academy Award winner’s music blared over the loud speakers. Competing applause continued until a surreal hush of expectant silence fell as though waiting and listening for words from this great Carthage treasure.

​Lowell: “Let me tell you a little story. When I got out of the Air Force I went to the Dallas-Fort worth area as an art director for a big ad agency.” His voice breaking with more tears, “Excuse me…for a big ad agency and after fifteen years I couldn’t stand the big city anymore,” more tears, “so I moved back to Carthage and Andy would come out and see me. And he’d ask me questions about art, and I’d try to answer them. But if I’d known then that he would turn out to be…” more tears coming, voice breaking, “a much better artist than me…” sobbing, “I would have broke his fingers!”

​Andy: “That is Lowell!” The crowd roars with laughter and rises again clapping madly as these two great men leave the stage together with Andy’s amazing painting between them.

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For more art world excitement come to Hyde House Friday, February 1, 2019, 6:00-8:00 p.m. for the free-to-the-public Opening Reception for “Arti Gras”, a blockbuster mixed media extravaganza presented by the talented artists of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition. Call (417) 358-4404 for more information.
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focused effort—effort that’s supported by new rituals of repetition.

​Knowing that our thoughts spring forth from the seeds of our feelings and emotions, Margaret Thatcher’s wisdom rings true: “Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become…habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character.”

Old, obsolete thoughts and patterns, habits and practices, like roadblocks, can hang up our efforts to move forward. Their familiarity can be seductive, alluring and intoxicating. They create distractions and diversions and detours. They build resistance. They cause us to lose our focus and wander off course and even turn backwards. So how do we stay the course to newness? We practice.

In the midst of his family, business and travel commitments, my son works with a personal trainer. Choosing this relationship keeps him accountable to show up, do the work, rest and repeat. The trainer says his January schedule is always tightly packed, because lots of folks sign up with new year’s resolutions and good intentions. Then comes February and one by one new clients start to fall away. Excuses are made. Diversions and distractions creep in. Old, lethargic patterns return.

Newness isn’t always easy. Newness requires transformation. Transformation comes and is sustained with time and ritual practice.

I’ve just finished reading a book that’s all about the practice of ritual, transformation, the invocation of inspiration and the beauty that rituals create. Daniel James Brown, the author of his exquisitely written “Boys in the Boat” has certainly practiced, and practiced well, his own rituals of researching, showing up at his desk and putting in hundreds of long hours crafting a complicated true tale into an inspiring adventure story—a textbook of hard work, tenacity and creative accomplishment.

In “The Boys in the Boat” Brown seamlessly interweaves the waft of personal challenges and the warp of the hard historical times stretching from the days of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl leading to the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Skillfully he tells the saga of nine young men—eight oarsmen and their coxswain—the sons of farmers and dock workers and lumberjacks, who overcome all manner of obstacles to attend the University of Washington, to train in Seattle’s sometimes harsh weather and waters and to develop into an American gold medal-winning long boat crew. Theirs is an intriguing tale of focus, tenacity and ritualistic practice raised to the level of an art form.

Among those influential in their success was the British shell building artisan George Yeoman Pocock who sagely counseled “rowing a race is an art, not a frantic scramble. Your thoughts must be directed to you and your own boat, always positive, never negative.” “It’s not hard work when the rhythm comes—that ‘swing’.” The young men listened. The young men practiced. The young men learned to swing, and they brought home the gold.

Pocock also said, “Just as a skilled rider is said to become part of his horse, the skilled oarsman must become part of his boat.” I remembered this when my husband David and I were recently out seeking beauty in the ordinary and enjoying our ritualistic Sunday walk with our puppies. Since our usual go-to destination, George Washington Carver Monument Park, is temporarily closed, we were following the Nature Conservancy trail along Shoal Creek in Joplin. This early January day was exceptionally mild. We encountered joggers and dog walkers and courting couples and families pushing strollers.

Then to our great surprise we saw approaching two men riding large, saddled mounts we took to be horses. They were not horses. They were two huge mules! Out loud we wondered, “How can this be? Mules are supposed to be stubborn and less than ideal rides.” These long-legged, long-eared elegant mules, one a lovely chestnut the other a blazoned-face paint, moved with grace and a steady gate. Their skilled riders were definitely parts of their ordinary creatures. Together they were travelling with the beauty and “swing” of oarsmen on their way to Olympic gold. They’d done their practice. They were starting this brand new year with big hooves clicking a swingingly beautiful mantra as they began to climb a high bluff to the panoramic vista waiting above.

talent—art works created by more than three dozen regional JRAC artists—from those internationally recognized to those emerging and just beginning to develop their artistic voices.

For these annual JRAC collective expressions of rich diversity planning begins with the exhibition theme chosen by JRAC’s board of directors. Though some artists really like to paint to theme and others not so much, always the JRAC exhibition comes together with an impressive collection of terrific creations. Recent unique themes, including “Art Speaks”, “Love Languages” and “Sparkle and Shine”, have given member artists plenty of opportunities to strut their best stuff.

This year’s cleverly titled “Arti Gras” theme is sure to tweak the imagination of every participating art maker who’s inclined to artistically riff on the energies and images associated with the once-a-year full-on fête we know as Mardi Gras. Come the end of January, with the help of our artCentral prepitor, my husband David Greenwood-Mathé, I expect to install yet another exciting JRAC extravaganza.

David and I already have our own “Arti Gras” submissions completed and ready to be hung. I’m pretty sure Andrew Batcheller’s painting is finished and framed and wired for display. In anticipation of artCentral’s January 27th delivery date, lots of JRAC artists are heads-down, doors-closed in their studios using these cold winter days to maximize and harness the heat of their arty energies for their “Arti Gras” offerings. We all know cash awards will be passed out for exceptional works. This awareness is always an excellent incentive to get our creative juices flowing!

As the inspiration for JRAC’s “Arti Gras”, Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”—the last day for eating indulgently before the setting aside of spirited foolishness and frivolity to take up preparations and fasting for the Lenten season. Mardi Gras has long been a part of our American winter tradition where carnival parades and parties and fancy masque balls are carried on to balance the spareness of the coming weeks.
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According to my online gleanings, two southern cities, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and their respective krewes and mystic societies, all lay territorial claim to our country’s first Mardi Gras origins in the early 1700’s. Of course my leanings are toward New Orleans beginnings, since my daughter, Audrey, did her fair share of Mardi Gras reveling in the ultimate party town of NOLA, where she took her degrees at Tulane.

In addition to small town “Arti Gras” partying with grand art at artCentral, if you’re looking for more carnival close to home, “Eureka Gras” is an Ozark Mountain resort town rendition of Mardi Gras happening in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Begun in 2006 as a "one car parade" conducted by New Orleanian Daniel Ellis following his move to Eureka Springs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, “Eureka Gras” is now run by a so-called "Krewe of Krazo" ("Ozark" spelled in reverse) and has grown into a month-long celebration with a nighttime parade on February 23rd and a daytime parade on March 2nd. Perhaps you’ll want to journey south to catch one or the other.

Mardi Gras accoutrements and symbols are many. For our “Arti Gras” exhibition motif I’ve chosen just a few—a head piece, a masque and beads—using the krewe colors of purple, green and gold/yellow dictated by the laws of heraldry and representing justice, faith and power. Many an artist uses some sort of mask for hiding one’s identity in the mystery of the creative act. The golden head piece perched atop the mask can be seen as a reveling jester’s hat or a crown symbolizing the baby to be found in the King Cake that will be served at our “Arti Gras” opening reception party. Beads, like the “throws” tossed from carnival floats, are for festively bedecking and connecting ourselves with our partying community of artistic practitioners and patrons.
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Yes, Mardi Gras, the inspiration for JRAC’s “Arti Gras” is a time to frolic and have fun, to cut loose and, as they say in the Big Easy, to “throw down”. Plan to get an early start on this season’s festive merriment! Mark your calendars now for a splendid artCentral “throw down” at JRAC’s “Arti Gras” opening 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Friday, February 1st. You’ll to be fully in-the-spirit and very ready when traditional Mardi Gras arrives on Tuesday, March 5th.

Eric tells me he’s been watching a Netflix series about a British painter and his process. The artist works in small, intimate formats and uses only five pigments. Eric is inspired by the challenge of working within limitations of size and color choices. He already has five small stretched canvases, five small frames and five tubes of paint laid out to begin a new series.
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I share one of my favorite Igor Stravinsky teachings: “My limitations are my freedom”, which Stravinsky fully states: “My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles….The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”

Eric relates how he’s been looking into the practices of some of the great impressionistic painters like Degas and Renoir. He’s been thinking about how they made more than just their famous paintings so familiar to us. How they also made simple sketches and line drawn studies. We talk about how the great artists valued the ordinary practices of drawing. That drawing for the likes of Leonardo de Vinci and Picasso was a ritual that preceded the grander beauty of their masterpieces.

I truly know the value of sketching and drawing. I do a lot of this ordinary, often mundane practice, before I begin any of my paintings. Drawing for me is a ritual that precedes whatever comes next artistically.
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I love telling Eric that, after fulfilling the tasks of our jobs and our long work weeks, my husband David and I are setting aside and dedicating our Sunday afternoons to drawing and painting in our twin studios. That we’re committed to creating new complimentary bodies of work and mounting a collaborative exhibition in 2020. That the exhibition is already titled “Signs and Wonders”. That the paintings we’re producing are all about finding and seeing and honoring beauty in the ordinary.

Weekly we’re reinforcing my belief that when you do something positive over and over, eventually the repetition will have her way with you. This is the value of ritual in painting or anything that matters. Ritual is about showing up and being present, fully present over and over, again and again. Rituals create spaces where inspiration can enter. Leonard Cohen says this so well, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

​Rituals create the cracks in our routine, ordinary, everyday living. Rituals create the spaces and invoke the opportunities for the light of inspiration to come through and get in.

Our weekly studio rituals actually begin early with our Sunday morning family outing, including our furries Chiquita and Lasyrenn. First we stop for coffee and brunch in Joplin, and then on we go for our weekly photo-taking walk-about at George Washington Carver Monument Park.

Over the weeks and weeks of our ritual Sunday outings, for reasons I can’t fathom, I’ve become enchanted with ordinary signs we see going to and fro. They’ve become my inspiration for artistic interpretation. I’m finding amazing potential for beauty in the ordinary traffic signage we encounter. I ask David to slow the car and pull over. I get out. I take photos, and when we get back home I paint beautiful stories made of these ordinary road side sightings.

David, in the meantime, back in his studio, is painting and finding beauty on big, old, ordinary pieces of rough wood. He’s completed a huge, serenely beautiful Buddha on a huge chunk of a tree trunk pulled from a river. He’s painted a fiercely beautiful gar rendered on a slab of wood given to him by our friend Jan Stuckey who has a knack for acquiring cast off timber perfect for making art. For his handsome gar, David convinced me that my ordinary, beloved, miniature girlie garden rake was the perfect adornment he needed to give his gar a tail.

All for the sake of creating beauty out of the ordinary, now I’m in need of a new or old ordinary miniature garden rake with a wooden handle, so I can turn my ordinary, wee spring garden into a work of beauty! Surely inspiration and a girlie garden rake will come.