Just before I moved to Carthage, I was poised to jump the pond to Paris—to spend some years living and painting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Voilà! Life has presented me with a marvelous surprise—a detour to Middle America and this sweet Camelot we call Carthage. Though I may not stand beneath the Eiffel Tower for now, every day I get to look up and see the enchanting turrets of our beautiful Courthouse artfully hand-crafted decades ago from native Carthage stone.

My unexpected adventure among you is no shabby consolation to my anticipated dreamtime abroad. Day by day I'm falling more and more deeply in love with the art and aesthetics that are at the heart of Carthage. What a privilege for me to serve you and our neighbors as together we strive to enhance the quality of our shared life in southwest Missouri. I love the work I do at artCentral.

What a pleasure to curate an exhibition as fine as “Arti Gras” now showing in the galleries of artCentral. Featuring three dozen members of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition, the closing weekend is fast approaching. Come visit on Friday and Saturday, from noon to 5:00 p.m., March 15 and 16, 2019. On Sunday many of the works will be packed to move out to artCentral satellite galleries while patrons appear and carry away the art they’ve purchased.

Membership is the bedrock of artCentral’s success and vitality. Membership matters! Please renew or become a first time annual member and enjoy your many membership benefits including visits with real artists; use of the lending library and pottery studio; walks on our lovely campus and along the murals on the Great Wall; classes and workshops; plus quarterly newsletters and invitations to receptions, exhibitions and events.

Call me at (417) 358-4404 or email artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org or go online to www.artcentralcarthage.org and click on JOIN. Select the membership category that suits you best from an annual Student Membership at $20.00 to an Artist or Individual Membership at $25.00 to a Family Membership at $40.00 to a Patron or a Benefactor or a Sustainer or a member of the Director-Curator’s Guild.

​​Memberships are also available for businesses, professionals and organizations. Every membership dollar you invest in artCentral makes a difference! With your help, we’re able to increase our outreach as we sustain and grow our work for the greater good. Art matters! 
 
Art tells the story of our human experience. Art speaks where words are unable to explain. Art connects us to our past and brings truth and beauty to our present. Art prepares us and leads us toward our future.  Art is an essential component in any healthy, vibrant community, especially Carthage. You can't spell Carthage without "art"! 

Carthage has a history grown on a strong foundation of art. The elegant, native stone homes and public buildings we enjoy today were conceived and built decades ago by visionary artists and artisans. Set in nature’s splendidly colorful changing seasons and a friendly, welcoming community, these works of art are the lasting assets that make Carthage such a magical, appealing place to live and work and raise a family. The presence of artCentral makes Carthage ever better.

At summer artCamp for kids we cultivate young minds to explore, while we encourage young talents to grow; we give meaningful summer employment to artists and art teachers; and we train interns to take first steps toward careers in art education and leadership.
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Through our free-to-the-public opening receptions and rotating exhibitions we provide abundant, local gallery opportunities for artists to exhibit and to be recognized and celebrated for their successes that inspire us all to lives of heightened awareness and satisfaction.

In the park we always admire one of Carthage’s most famous citizens, Marlin Perkins—Director of the New York Zoological Gardens in Buffalo, chief zoologist for Edmund Hillary's 1960 expedition to Mt. Everest and a pioneering television personality with his wildlife documentaries. Artists Bob Tommey and Bill Snow have honored Marlin Perkins in a monumentally sculpted bronze crouching above the park’s spreading, lush lawn. 

More alluring lawns and other easy, art-inspiring walks are to be found just outside Carthage. Enjoying the misty sprays rising high above the embankments, sometimes we take a turn around Kellogg Lake or beside the Spring River meandering past. Here we find ducks and geese flying in and hanging out, fisher people wetting their hooks from boats and banks, picnickers gathered at old cement tables and energetic Frisbee golfers playing the course.
 
Further west in Joplin when we chose a Sunday walk following a stretch along Shoal Creek running through Wildcat Glades, we shared the path with two friendly riders on very big mules. A few weeks later we hiked the gently hilly terrain of the Frisco Trail following Baker’s Branch where we saw well-gnawed, beautifully textured tree trunks—the workmanship of beavers diligently trimming their teeth high above the bluff-lined creekside. By the time of our return a Sunday later the crafty wood-workers had completed the felling of the tree we saw standing just the week before.

Near Diamond, Missouri, is our favorite of all our Sunday walks—discovered when our friends B and K, dedicated outdoor adventurers, responded to our question, “Do you know of nearby pretty walks with water and interesting sights where we can take our puppies?” “Oh, yes!” was their enthusiastic response, George Washington Carver Monument Park. You’ll find everything you’re looking for there!” We have!
 
As we wind our way out of Joplin over Reinmiller or Kodiak roads “ou-ing” and “ah-ing” at all the pastoral pleasures we survey, our excitement grows before we ever enter the wood-gated grounds. The level of exuberant barking indicates the puppies, Chiquita and Lasyrenn, think the pasture full of long horns and the garden full of goats are the best sights seen before we stop, disembark and begin to follow the paved park trail along stacked stone walls leading down into the woods.
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​We’ve learned in the introduction to the park’s website (https://www.nps.gov/gwca/index.html), George Washington Carver was “Not Just The Peanut Man. The young child known as the ‘Plant Doctor' tended his secret garden while observing the day-to-day operations of a 19th century farm. Nature and nurture ultimately influenced George on his quest for education to becoming a renowned agricultural scientist, educator, and humanitarian.” He was also a gifted artist. In his own words Carver wrote of his art as a way to lift “souls beyond the sordid things of life, and give them a glimpse of the creator who shapes and fashions all our destinations”. Our souls are lifted each time we visit George Washington Carver Monument Park!

The son of two slaves, George Washington Carver was born on the Moses and Susan Carver farm outside Diamond Grove (now known as Diamond), Missouri, near the close of the Civil War. George and his mother Mary were kidnapped and carried south to Arkansas. Though the whereabouts and fate of his mother were never discovered, George was found and brought back to the Carver home where the Carvers raised and cared for George and his brother James. George, a frail child, did not have the strength or stamina for field work and instead helped his “Aunt Susan” around the family cabin while she taught him the basics of reading and writing.

As a very young boy George knew he wanted to be an artist. A lover of the natural world, he’d often wander in woods surrounding the Carver cabin. While tending his little garden hidden in the underbrush, he found and cultivated plants to make his own paints and dyes. Observing the trees and flowers he loved, he taught himself to paint. He practiced his passion and developed his artistic skills and painted throughout his lifetime. Famously best known today for his accomplishments in education and science, George Washington Carver was a true renaissance man. In 1941 “Time” magazine named George Washington Carver a “Black Leonardo.”

George Washington Carver wrote, “As a child I had an inordinate desire for knowledge.” In time he was permitted to walk the eight miles to the Neosho Colored School in Neosho, Missouri. From there he made his way to Fort Scott, Kansas, where he cooked for a wealthy family to pay for his board, clothes and school privileges. He eventually finished high school in Minneapolis, Kansas, then entered a business college in Kansas City. Still thirsting for greater knowledge George Washington Carver sought admission to Highland College in Highland, Kansas. Refused because of his color, he traveled to western Kansas where he saw the subject of his famous “Yucca and Cactus” painting that went to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

​Drifting to Winterset, Iowa, as head cook in a large hotel George Washington Carver met patrons who insisted he attend an art school. He enrolled in Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, where he did laundry for others, crocheted all his own hose, mittens et cetera and in his words “lived on prayer, beef suet and corn meal, and quite often being without the suet and meal.” At Simpson his art teacher recognized Carver's talent for painting flowers and plants. She encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College (now Iowa State University) in Ames.

In 1891 Carver was the first black student at Iowa State. His work at the experimental station in plant pathology and mycology first gained him national recognition and respect as a botanist. George Washington Carver received a Bachelor of Agriculture in 1894 and his Master of Agriculture degree in 1896. While in graduate school he taught as the first black faculty member at Iowa State.

At Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) from 1896 for forty-seven years George Washington Carver taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy) and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency. George Washington Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism.

From 1915 to 1923, George Washington Carver concentrated on researching and experimenting with new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, pecans and other crops. This work and especially his speaking to a national conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920 and in testimony before Congress in 1921 brought him increasing renown. In these years, he became one of the most well-known African Americans of his era, though he always knew himself to be “an orphan child of a race that’s considered inferior”.

Rising from enslavement, George Washington Carver was confronted with segregation and racial prejudice throughout his life, yet time and again his resilience triumphed over adversity. His inquisitive mind, love of nature, simplistic life style, love of God and “I can” attitude left a legacy at which we still marvel. George Washington Carver’s birthplace, set in the natural world that inspired his artistry, is a sacred treasure quietly waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. Visit soon, especially on the day of “Art in the Park”, April 20, 2019.
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Shared with appreciation for information found at www.nps.gov\gwca and online.

We send out an appreciative “Thank You!” to Juror Judith Fowler, Professor Emeritus, Missouri State University, for spending an afternoon doing the tough work of selecting the award recipients in this extraordinary exhibition. She brought admirable credentials and qualitifications to her job at artCentral.

Judith taught in higher education for more than forty years, retiring from teaching and beginning full time studio work in 2014. She formerly was Art Education Coordinator and Studio Professor at Missouri State University in Springfield, where she taught Drawing, Art Education, and Watercolor. For 20 years (1970-1990) while raising four children, Judith taught Printmaking and Drawing at MSSU in Joplin. When they began higher education studies at various locations, Judith began teaching in Springfield at DRURY and MSU.

Judith and her husband Jon Fowler operate a Barn Studio and Cottage in Carthage called Rocky Hill, where they have two horses and an odd assortment of barn cats. They also maintain a large pottery studio and painting workshop at their family home in Joplin. Judith recently published a hardbound illustrated journal and is working on a second book featuring twenty egg tempera paintings.

As a professor in art education at MSU, Judith traveled all over the country giving presentations for NAEA (National Art Education Association), including overseas presentations for InSEA (International Society for Education in Art) in Australia and other countries. Judith has worked at the Santa Raparata printmaking workshop in Florence, Italy; has traveled to Paris and England several times; and has visited the Scandinavian countries with her husband Jon. During her long studio art and teaching career, Judith has juried many professional and amateur art competitions throughout the Midwest Region. What a privilege to have Judith Fowler add naming “Arti Gras” winners to her curriculum vitae.

JRAC artists and their works chosen to receive recognition included:

Honorable Mentions:

Jim Bray – “Bourbon Street”, a jazzy 2D large, painterly mixed media collage including portraits in miniature.
Diana Bray – “Arty Gras”, a 2D bluesy mixed media collage with vivid splashes of complementary colors.
Steve Head – “Calico & Concrete”, a 2D photograph with a plethora of textures and a sleek black cat.
Jane McCaulley – “Tree of Life”, a 3D standing glass work enriched with brilliant green.
Connie Miller – “Fiesta Siesta”, a 2D acrylic painting boasting a potted plant and a potted cat in eye-popping
colors.
Michael Steddum – “Old Fence Row”, an intimate 2D oil with a dog on the hunt, a pheasant on the rise and grass you can almost hear whispering in a breeze.

Third Place recognitions went to:

Steve Doerr – “Shield of Faith”, a 3D turned wood and inlaid wall mount inspired by the scripture of
Ephesians 6:16.
Margie Moss – “Redbud”, a 2D oil in vibrant, expressionistic pinks dancing over a vivid blue sky on a square canvas.

Second Place selections included:

David Greenwood-Mathé – “Later”, a 3D installation comprised of a ukulele adorned washboard and a side
chair, both colorfully painted, with a pair of two-tone alligator shoes placed beneath.
Jodie Sutton – “Broken Halos”, a quiet 2D cloudscape rendered in layers of encaustic adeptly applied.

First Place awards with ribbons and cash envelopes went to:
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Melody Knowles – “Road Warrior” – a 3D male and female figure of clay and found wood and metals with a headdress of juju including slender, spiraled wires and tiny light bulbs.
Andrew Batcheller – “The Tender Raven that Toils in Her Heart” – a large (50”x”38”) 2D oil on linen exquisitely painted with the artist’s meticulous attention to detail and surprise.

Best of Show was recognized with an award of a ribbon and a cash envelope presented to:

April Davis-Brunner – “Krazy Koi”, inspired by the artist’s visits to the waters of the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer, her joyful, larger-than-life 2D oil painting is brimful with brightly shimmering, undulating koi fishes appearing to swim right off the picture’s plane.

Oh, what a splendid “Arti Gras” opening night! What perfectly placed awards for grand art in our small town!

Come see for yourself through March 17, 2019 during weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays, 1:00-5:00 p.m.

You’ll be inspired! You’ll be pleased! Your heart and your life will be more joy filled!