“Where? What? What’s a bosky?” I asked, the first time David pointed out a green bosky in the middle of a vast golden pasture. “A cluster of trees. A shaded glen,” he explains. “Oh, you mean like a copse?” I ask. “Yes. Like a copse,” he agrees.

I love learning new words. Words and their meanings are precious to me. This is what I learn about “bosky” when I check in with Wikipedia:
​
The term “bosky has roots in Middle English. Originally bosk, busk and bush were all variant spellings of a word meaning shrub. Bush is still familiar to the modern ear, and busk can still be heard in the dialects of a few places in northern Britain. Bosk, too, survived in English dialects. Although bosk disappeared from the written language, in the early seventeenth century bosk provided the root for the woodsy adjective bosky, which today is also used as a noun. By 1815 bosk (also spelled bosque) had reappeared in writing, but this time with the meaning a small wooded area."

Today when David and I point out a bosky on our drive-arounds, we’re calling attention to a small setting with a bouquet of trees or shrubs that look like miniature woods in a broader landscape.

When David and I blended our two households and our two gardens, we rushed to set up our new home before our wedding. Selectively we brought with us only as much as we had time to place. I brought my lamb’s ears, gifted to me by my artCentral intern, Maddie. The beginning of our monkey tree bosky came with David as part of his groom’s dowry—a single desiccated root hurriedly rescued and plucked from beneath a tangle of out-of-control morning glory vines. Both the lamb’s ears and the root miraculously survived and flourished, especially the monkey tree root.

When I tell you that we have a bosky of monkey trees in our front yard, just imagine a dense cluster of lush trees adorned with a canopy of fern-like leaves above sensuously curving trunks and limbs going every-which-way. They look quite exotic in the corner of our front yard back-dropped by our tall weathered wooden fence.

In truth, we’re not sure they’re really monkey trees. When I go online to learn more about their origins, the monkey tree images on Google look entirely different from the flourishing, fern-leafed monkey trees in our front yard. David calls his sister, Ginny, the original source of his first monkey trees. She tells us monkey tree is the common name always used and passed down through their generations, and that she’s been told they come from the sumac family. Sure enough, looking again online, I find photos of various sumac varieties, some very similar to the trees in our bosky. Some with the lovely yellow and golden colors just like those displayed by our monkey trees in the autumn.

Whatever their proper name we treasure the sweet, mystery trees in our beautiful bosky. In their uniqueness they remind me of the clusters of artCampers that will soon be appearing at artCentral for our eighteenth summer camp. Gathered together our campers are an undulating, mysterious mass of creative energy appearing each morning to be nurtured and nourished and encouraged to flourish. They will flourish, and they’ll all make golden treasures of art to carry home as happy reminders of a summer well spent.

Have you registered your artCamper-wanna-be? Classes are filling up quickly, but there’s still plenty of room for your artist-in-the making! Registration forms are available in Carthage at artCentral, Carthage Public Library, Cherry’s, The Deli, KOKA Gallery and The Palms. In Joplin you’ll find registration forms at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio.
​
You can also go online and download the registration forms from artCentral’s website: http://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2018.html.

Complete your artCamper’s registration and add your check for tuition, then drop them through the front door mail slot at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street, or in the mail to artCentral at POB 714 in Carthage.
​
This year’s new crop of artCampers is sure to be a most delightful bosky, arriving to animate Hyde House hill with their making of fun and art and friends. I’m super excited to see them—a brand new copse of creativity!

We speak of our intentions. David rings our Tibetan singing bowl, while I whisper our appreciations and requests. Embracing, we whisper, “Bon matin. Étonne moi!” (Good morning. Astonish me!) David returns to the kitchen to prep our first meal, while I move through my yoga asanas.​

Breakfast finished in bed or on the porch, now that we’re learning to make music together, we like to rise up singing:

“Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.”

"Morning Has Broken" is a popular and well-known hymn first published in 1931. The British children’s author Eleanor Farjeon wrote the words when asked to make a poem to fit the lovely tune of “Brunessan”, composed in the Scottish Islands.

The song appeared first in the USA in the Presbyterian Hymnbook (1955), but became well known only after Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) sang the hymn in 1971 on his triple platinum album, “Teaser and the Firecat”, with the familiar piano arrangement composed and performed by Rick Wakeman. As a result of that recording, since that time “Morning Has Broken” has been included in most hymnals.

Perhaps during artCamp I’ll sing this sweet tune with my artCampers as we gather on artCentral’s expansive porch to set our tone before every artCamp day. Taking place July 9th through 20th, each of our ten days runs from drop-off at 10:00 a.m. to pick-up at 3:00 p.m.

Every camper chooses a single class to attend throughout a day. At noon we take a break to enjoy our sack lunches and juices before spilling onto the lawns to stretch and play until 1:00 p.m., when campers go back to their classrooms to finish their projects.

As I mentioned in my last column, classes are filling up super fast! If you haven’t already registered you wanna-be artCamper be sure to do very, very soon. Registration forms are available in Carthage at artCentral, Carthage Public Library, Cherry’s, The Deli, KOKA Gallery and The Palms. In Joplin you’ll find registration forms at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. You can also go online and download the registration forms from artCentral’s website: http://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2018.html.

Here are just a few of the nineteen exciting classes offered in artCamp’s second week:
​
DUCT TAPE MESSENGER BAG with SARAH SERIO: With duct tape and cardboard and your imagination, you design and construct a talk-of-the-town, awesome, durable, one-of-a-kind bag to carry anything anywhere anytime!

WHIMSICAL SELF PORTRAIT with TERI Y. DIGGS: Why are you special? What makes you stand out from the crowd? What makes you light up and smile? Create a fun, mixed-media self-portrait using a variety of techniques and materials.

“BIG” GREEN SCULPTURES with SARAH SERIO: Take the challenge! Innovatively use ordinary, everyday objects and turn them into your own one-of-a-kind, mixed media masterpiece super sculpture.

WHIMSICAL WIND CHIMES with TERI Y. DIGGS: Assemble a colorfully beautiful set of hanging chimes with beads, strings and lots of pretty objects. These are great to make and to see and to hear!

MAGICAL MAGAZINE MOSAIC with TERI Y. DIGGS: Create a colorful, fun and unique art work with rolled, up-cycled magazine pages. Go abstract or patterned. The results are awesome. You’ll want to display your creation for all to see!

CREATE A UNIQUE FRAME with APRIL DAVIS-BRUNNER: With paint and sculpting, turn an ordinary frame into a work of art embellished with sparkling stones and super cool ornamental decorations.

A GLASS TREE NAMED MAGGIE with JANE McCAULLEY: Ages 9 and up, inspired by artCentral’s very own “Maggie the Magnolia”, make your own glass magnolia tree and a glass magnolia leaf wind chime and a leaf magnet, too.

DESIGN AND PAINT artCENTRAL’S NEW MURAL WALL with SANDRA CONRAD: Take one or both sessions of this two day class. Day One: Learn mural making basics. Conceive! Design! Sketch artCentral’s newest mural for the big wall outback. Day Two: Learn mural painting basics and paint a mural to last on artCentral’s wall that’s ready and waiting for your paints and brushes.

By the end of each artCamp day as artCampers gather to have snacks on the porch while holding their creations and waiting for their rides, their hearts will still be singing:

This summer’s artCamp is next on our always exciting agenda. As Joni Mitchell’s so poignantly penned:
 
“And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.”
 
Yes, at artCentral we’re caught in a circle game, and a very good game, indeed, going round and round through the seasons­—moving from winter’s annual Holiday Boutique to spring’s opening “Art Speaks” exhibition presented by the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition and to summer’s Annual Membership Exhibition. Now on to artCamp!
 
Our community supporters are enthusiastically answering our requests to help us get ready to purchase supplies and offer scholarships and fund teacher stipends. Generous grants have been received from The Carthage Community Foundation, The Helen S. Boylan Foundation and S&S Computers. More contributing support is anticipated.
 
This past week I had the privilege of talking with the Rotary Club of Carthage. Speaking of our work exploring creativity with our youth, I happily received on behalf of artCentral not only the club’s generous grant for artCamp, but also a generous honorarium which will go into artCentral’s Greenwood-Mathé Fund for Art and Artists.
 
Our artCampers are our community’s future art-making artists and visionaries. I love working with them and helping them in a digital-screen-free environment where they learn and discover and make art in the company of our staff of gifted teachers and interns. Every day my heart’s aflutter as artCamp registrations steadily flow into at our old fashioned, glass-windowed, combination-opened post office box and through our new vintage brass mail slot in artCentral’s cheerful green front door and in our pretty, summer green curbside mail box on East Thirteenth Street!
 
Classes are filling up super fast, so if you haven’t already registered you wanna-be artCamper be sure to do so pronto. Registration forms are available in Carthage at artCentral, Carthage Public Library, Cherry’s, The Deli, KOKA Gallery and The Palms. In Joplin you’ll find registration forms at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. You can also go online and download the registration forms from artCentral’s website: http://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2018.html.
 
Here’s a sampler of just a few of the twenty exciting classes offered in artCamp’s first week:
 
CREATE YOUR OWN ARTIST SMOCK with ALEXANDRA BURNSIDE (also offered the second week with SANDRA CONRAD): Scissor down and customize an adult-sized smock (donated by ESM Technology, LLC) with fabric paint, fabric markers, scraps of textiles and hand-stitched embroidery.
 
UPCYCLED DIORAMAS with KAHLIE JONES: artCampers use imaginations and ingenuity to think inside and outside the box! Color, glue and paint your way to making a unique 3D storytelling scene.
 
AMAZING ZEN-TANGLED LETTERING with TERI Y. DIGGS: Learn the best basics for creating zentangled artwork and turn your doodles into real art with patterns and lines you design. You can do this! The results are amazing!
 
LITTLE PEOPLE MADE WITH GLASS with JANE McCAULLEY: Ages 9 and up, make jointed glass Little People just like the legendary ones who reportedly live in residence in artCentral’s well house.
 
HIGH FLYING with SARAH SERIO: Learn the two ancient practices of relief printmaking and kite building. Print your own designs on the kite you build. Watch the class kites soar up, up, up! Then take yours home to soar some more!
 
PAINT ARTCENTRAL’S FAMOUS TREE PEOPLE with SANDRA CONRAD: Inspired by the legends and stories of artCentral’s wee visitors from downunder who supposedly travel up through a big hole beneath the white pine tree, learn drawing and painting techniques to create your own Druidic-like  character on canvas.
 
FLYING FOREST FRIENDS with APRIL DAVIS-BRUNNER: Learn to sketch your favorite butterfly or bird or squirrel. You can make them beautiful or funny and fun. Maybe make a wild woods pony with wings! Use acrylic paints to paint your wildlife masterpiece on canvas.
 
Oh, yes…
“And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.”
 
Give your artCampers the special opportunities of artCamp’s classes and offer them the joys of anticipating more creative experiences to come. Though your campers will grow up and won’t be able to return to this unique summer, at artCamp 2018 they’ll make art and memories they’ll look behind on again and again, as the painted ponies of their many seasons go round and round on their carousels of time.
 
 

David’s a generous partner in so many respects, especially with our tune-making. Though he’s been playing guitar and singing in myriad settings practically all his life, he consistently ups my confidence by encouraging me as though I’m already a pop star.

Until now, I’ve always been really intimidated by his musical gifts! Even when we’d try to sing along to familiar tunes on the radio, my voice would go all shaky and way, way off key!

In contrast, David’s just naturally at ease with music. Little by little following his example, I’m learning our song-making can be easy and fun, too. I don’t have to be nervous or afraid. Just have fun! After all, we’re doing what all creative artists do, we’re trying something new!

Our dueting came about quite by accident when not too long ago, I woke up with an old folk tune plucking at my heart strings. You know the one…“Hush Little Baby”, a traditional lullaby, probably written in the southern United States. The supposed origins suit me just fine, since my ancestral roots run deep in rich riverbeds and on the stony mountaintops of the Arkansas Ozarks.

I must have been singing quietly to myself that morning, when David joined in with his rich baritone. We’d hardly finished the last verse, and he’s excitedly declaring, “We have to sing this together! At artCentral’s picnic! Okay? And we can learn some other tunes, too!”

We do learn others. We borrow a microphone from our Joplin musician friend, Ed Minton. We plug the mic (mike) into David’s ancient, battered mini amp. For two weeks we practice and record on David’s ipad. By the evening of the picnic I know most of the words and hit a lot of the notes for our four selections: “Hush Little Baby”, Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game”, “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King and, for our encore, the aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera, “Porgy and Bess”—“Summertime”.

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy” at artCentral, because everyone pitches in to make the magic. McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation provided generous underwriting for this exhibition on view through July 29, 2018. Jurors Beth Simmons and Andy Thomas arrived early to do their tough work of choosing the recipients of awards from the stunning collection composed by thirty-six contributing artists; Judy Goff put final touches to her barbeque entrées and beans and her signature homemade strawberry shortcake; and in spite of temps in the 90’s hardy souls showed up in the midday sun to prep for the evening’s outdoor celebration.

Board members Jane Ballard (and husband Bobby), Jackie Boyer, Pat Goff and Lonnie Heckmaster set up and dressed tables, wiped down chairs, hooked up rotating fans and smudge-checked gallery woodwork, walls and doors. (The same crew did the breakdown at the picnic’s close with the additional help of artCentral member Casey Antle, prepitor David Greenwood-Mathé, board member Doug Osborne, friend Jeanine Poe and gallery docent Emily Rose.)

With welcome and abundant shade making a timely appearance and a lush breeze blowing over Hyde House hill, artist members, families, friends and guests arrived with luscious salads and desserts to share. On behalf of artCentral, Jackie and Alex Boyer accepted their five dollar dinner donations.

Oh, what a feast was had! After guests toured the house and the exhibit, David and I sang our songs. At last the time everyone was waiting for arrived—the announcement of the 2018 Annual Membership Exhibition awards!

GOLD went to Jim Bray for his masterfully made collage/watercolor, “Joplin Depot”.

Linda Teeter received SILVER for her atmospheric archival digital print, “Violin on San Luis” (New Orleans).

Both the BRONZE and UNDERWRITER awards went to Dustin Miller for his colorfully graphic, imaginative acrylic, “King of the Beasts.”

When asked to share their artistic reflections, with a humble voice Jim Bray extended his thanks and appreciation to the jurors for making their challenging choices from among so many outstanding works; Linda Teeter expressed her sincere appreciation to be exhibiting in the company of artCentral’s exceptionally talented community of artists; and offering encouragement to all artist members, Dustin Miller said, “Just keep making your art. I’ve submitted many entries to artCentral exhibits over many years, and this is my first time to receive an award!”

Yes! To all aspiring artists, keep making your art in summertime and in every season. “One of these days you’re gonna rise up singin’, spread your wings and take to the sky!”