Art is all about heart. Having heart. Taking heart. Seeing and creating with heart. At artCentral we live and work, play and thrive with heart! 

emails, developed posts for social media and attended educational workshops to enhance our fundraising skills. 

With all my heart I thank Betsy for generously sharing her time, talents and skills during her board tenure. The board and I join together in wishing Betsy many happy pleasures in all her future endeavors in Carthage and beyond!
 
At the Heart of artCentral, creating and catalyzing events and exhibitions, is a dedicated, beautifully balanced board of directors that includes Jackie Boyer, Alexandra Burnside, Maddie Capps, Wendi Douglas, Kalee Hinspeter, Doug Osborn, Jason Shelfer and newest member Cheryl Church. Each month, for the love of art and artists, they gather at artCentral to guide the behind-the-scenes business of making our unique, hometown non-profit arts center a place of vibrant and exciting fine arts culture.
 
At artCentral’s recent Board and Annual Membership Meetings officers were elected for our 2022-2023 year. Doug Osborn is stepping up to serve as board president. Lori Marble will assume the responsibilities of our secretary, while Kalee Hinspeter continues in her role as treasurer.
 
At the Heart of artCentral are the generous artCentral Members and Community Supporters who continue stepping up and contributing to help artCentral bring grand art to our small town as we continue to help grow and expand our mission to support, share and teach fine arts in greater Carthage.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        At the Heart of artCentral is the Annual Membership Exhibition and Picnic when artCentral’s galleries showcase a host of artcentral artists and their tremendous talents. This year artCentral artists will present their richly diverse creative expressions in a broad spectrum of dimensions and subjects and media for your delight and celebration at the Opening Awards Picnic, June 3, 2022, Friday, 6:00–8:00 p.m. Make your $10.00 dinner reservations by email to artCentral@artcentralcarthage.org or by phone (417) 358-4404.
 
The Annual Membership Exhibition will continue through July 23, 2022, with viewing during weekend hours through June 24 and by appointment during July. More information can be found on artCentral’s website at artcentralcarthage.org.
 
At the Heart of artCentral is artCamp where uninhibited, lyrical children fill Hyde House with their love for art and their art-making laced with laughter. Yes! artCamp is coming for two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 11-15 and July 18-19, 2022! Curriculum and registration forms will be available soon at venues around Carthage and Joplin and at artCentral. They will also be available on the artCamp page at artcentralcarthage.org where you will find all the fun artCamp facts. With all our hearts we are eager for your budding artists to come and make art at artCentral!

​Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., are the last Weekend Gallery Hours for SIGNS & WONDERS. Please come see the creations my husband David and I made to celebrate the sacred we have found in our ordinary pleasures. There are many on exhibit—almost 100!
 
Have you seen “The Big Buddha”, painted on a giant tree trunk worn smooth before being rescued by David from rushing waters? Have you seen “Treesa”, painted on a bark-encrusted plank salvaged by our friend Jan from a pile of milled cast offs? Have you seen David’s appropriation of my favorite mini garden rake to serve as the tail for his giant “GARR”?
 
Have you seen the Wonders I have found in transforming common road signs into story-telling paintings? Have you seen my “Monk on a Mantle” sitting in quiet meditation before an amber field outside of Carthage? Have you seen my four black sheep in their mangers after a day of grazing the lawns around the Eiffel Tower?
 
Come see! Our SIGNS & WONDERS Exhibition remains on view through May 21.
 
Next up is artCentral’s ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION, opening with the AWARDS PICNIC on June 3, Friday, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Make your $10.00 dinner reservations early by email to artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org or call (417) 358-4404.

​David and I have our artful contributions ready! They are our best offerings.
 
Appearing as an inspired vision on his morning commute to his day job, David’s “Second Coming” is a painting in oil, 40”x20”. Rendered in broad strokes that seem to vibrate to the breath of the frame, his scarlet crested pileated woodpecker flies through the picture plane as though on a mission for the Spirits.
 
My “Ozarkian Cobbler’s Abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel” is composed of my gleanings from our sacred Sunday mornings made as my tribute to David’s courage and to the community of seekers with whom we gather at midday every Sunday.
 
Our Sundays begin with ringing our Tibetan singing bowl after we set our intentions. Finishing a mini morning feast we take to the woods for an up-and-down hike with our Aussie. David carries a shoulder bag to gather trash. Occasionally we collect deadwood—a branch or a root worth saving. I pick up shards strewn along the moss-lined path. Sometimes we find an unexpected treasure like a small, very empty discarded bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum.
 
One Sunday, ready to head home, we were detoured by a sign pointing to “Old Stuff for Sale”. Stopping and shopping there as our fifth anniversary gift to each other, I discovered the base for my “Abbaye”—a vintage cobbler’s stand made of a heavy hand hewn wood support topped with an iron shoe form.
 
My following Sunday studio afternoons were devoted to constructing my tribute to David and our new found friends. I used a weathered board from our old Chickie Palace as the base. With wood and copper wire and lichen I built a church high up on top of the shoe last. Tibetan prayer flags decorate the perimeter. Below, like an undulating sea, my collected shards of glass wave up and around the cobbler’s stand. The empty Captain Morgan bottle lies washed up on a cluster of rocks as though an old habit cast off and left behind by a commitment to sobriety.
 
David tells me my “Abbaye” looks like a lighthouse. Hearing this, I feel happy. I like thinking of art as a lighthouse—a beacon of solace and safety. A place that stands strong and serene even when life’s seas roil rough around us. A place like our Sunday community of seekers. A place like artCentral. I wish for all at least one lighthouse.
 
At artCentral, standing like a serene lighthouse—the cultural center of our hometown—you will find many beacons of inspiration shining in the 2022 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION, June 3 through July 17!  Come see!
 

Opening a new message lighting up my phone, I was pleased to find Cheryl Church asking to bring her graduating Carthage High School senior art students for a to view SIGNS & WONDERS. Since their class schedule did not jive with our regular weekend gallery hours, we made arrangements for a special appointment on a Thursday morning—their last day of art class with Mrs. Church.

​​Cheryl, like our artCentral board member Alexandra Burnside, is an artCentral artist; both are experienced and very popular artCamp teachers; and both in the last year have received the honor of being named by the Missouri Art Education Association as “Art Educators of the Year”—Cheryl as the high school level recipient and Alexandra in the elementary division. 

​Given Cheryl’s serious cred in the world of art education, I knew touring with Cheryl’s class was going to be another happy art adventure with eager young artists-in-the-making.
 
Arriving in an assortment of vehicles including a black-‘n’-white retired police car they stood in the parking lot waving hellos. Inside we exchanged names and had a photo op and the tour began. Briefly I told the story about how my husband David and I created SIGNS & WONDERS from inspirations gleaned and gathered over four years from various local walking excursions and Sunday morning country road drives paired with Sunday afternoons in our twinned studios. 

shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Besides the 98 works of SIGNS & WONDERS, Hyde House, as always, was a favorite feature of my guests!  The paintings of our benefactress Katherine Hyde were greatly admired as was her décor of a pink and green palette seen in the two bathrooms (one pink, one green) and in the kitchen along with the stove reminiscent of an Oldsmobile from the 50’s. All were worthy of close inspection. They even inspired selfie and group photos before the fluorescent lighted mid-century vanity mirror!
 
There is still time for you to drop by, take in all the art and the charming features of Hyde House and have your own photo ops! Two SIGNS & WONDERS weekends remain with viewing hours continuing on Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. through May 21.

siblings. A two-month old babe-in-arms came along for a first art outing.

Oh, how my heart at first sight loved them all and their bright eyes eagerly ready to see lots of art. We did.
 
Pausing on the porch we introduced ourselves. I told them my job as director-curator is to take care of Hyde House and all the art inside. We chatted a bit about the best ways to look at art and to take care of the art as we look. We agreed to walk about without bumping into display pedestals. We talked about not touching what we would see, no matter how tempting, since our fingers and hands might have oils and soil that might harm the art. We decided they could ask lots of questions, if they remembered to raise their hands so I could help them take turns one at a time.
 
Passing through artCentral’s green door of hospitality, we gathered in the foyer. Being rather homunculus, I climbed part way up the stairs so all my homunculus visitors could see me. “Are there any signs in here?” I asked. Lots of hands stretched out with fingers pointing at several artworks displayed around us.

My painted photo tableau of a long horn steer making funny faces created giggling responses before we moved on to see my painting made with the image of a leaping deer. Almost everyone said they had seen “be careful” road signs with leaping deers like the one in the painting.

The kids especially liked two of my tableaux of Lasyrenn as a puppy. In one she is hiding in pampas grass with a cat and a chicken while a donkey stands on her head. In another she is perched as a tiny “watch dog” (ha! ha!) on a barbed wire fence along a country road.

The homeschoolers were fascinated with my husband David’s art made from keepsakes he did not want to throw away—“Crazy Foot” with his worn out leather sandal and the tiny “Lost and Found” paper box with a mermaid on the front and buttons inside. Of course David’s “Dragon Inn”, a painted wooden shingle hanging from a weathered fence post, brought lots of discussion as we talked about how words and titles can often have double meanings.

​Just before we finished exploring the galleries of Hyde House, all the kids and moms loved the special privilege of seeing the studio attic as we concluded our art adventure. Do come and enjoy your own adventure! Weekend Gallery Hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. SIGNS & WONDERS remains on view through May 21.