ARTCAMP INTERNS ARE IMPORTANT!      ​

I can’t imagine trying to stage artCamp without volunteer interns! Interns are important!

What am I to do? Some of my best interns have taken full time summer jobs and won’t be available for artCamp.

Help! I need more interns to make this year’s artCamp run smoothly and well. Last year artCamp had eleven interns. Today we have only four. My teachers need your support!

Will you please step up and say you’ll help? Will you give a day or two or more to have a lot of fun assisting an artCamp teacher, while encouraging our young aspiring artists as they explore and create in the world of art at artCentral?​Please call me today at (417) 358-4404 to say you want to help make our 2019 artCamp another grand success. You can make a difference!

artCentral’s artCamp for youth, ages 8 to 14, is happening Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019! For two weeks our beautiful, historic Hyde House galleries and our Pottery House are transmogrified into teaching classrooms. A typical day looks like this for you as a volunteer intern:

• Sack Lunch - Bring one. Juice boxes are available for 50 cents
• Dress Code - Cool, appropriately modest, art intern attire
• Cell Phones - Silenced and not used in front of campers (Campers don’t get to keep or carry theirs)
• 9:00 a.m. Coffee’s ready! Arrival and classroom preparation
• 9:45 a.m. Porch time with campers
• 10:00 a.m. Morning class session begins
• Noon Lunch with campers and lawn play with teacher and intern supervision
• 1:00 p.m. Afternoon class session begins
• 2:45 p.m. Snacks for campers in the kitchen
• 3:00 p.m. Campers depart. Teachers and interns tidy and prepare classrooms for the next morning
• 4:00 p.m. Finish up and head home.

Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is packed with forty imaginative creature-centric classes in a multitude of media from clay to fiber, paper to paint, glass to recycles and more. You can find them all listed with details on artCentral’s website at www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019.html. Check out the choices and let me know your preferences. I’ll try to match your interning time with your favorites. No special skills are required. Just bring your interest in art and the desire to make a difference helping boys and girls have fun, positive experiences in a nurturing environment where they can discover their talents.
 
The boys and girls that come to artCamp are amazing. They choose to come. They beg to come. They pester their parents to let them come. One returning young artCamp fellow negotiated with his mom to let him earn half his two week tuition by doing extra family chores. She agreed. He succeeded and he’s registered to learn and create for the two special weeks he looked forward to all through the school year.
 
Guided and supported by their teachers and interns artCampers have fun and make new friends while making lots of truly amazing art to display at the closing exhibition then take home as their own uniquely created treasures. These artCampers grow before our very eyes as they extend kindness and support to each other. The older ones help the younger ones and the younger ones find older artCampers as role models to learn from and emulate.
 
Interns are essential to facilitating artCamp’s positive, uplifting opportunities for growth and discovery. This year I have only four interns signed up so far. Justus Cunningham is a student still in school. A Carthage High School graduate, artist Aurelia Burr is newly returned to Missouri following a one year gig as an au pair for two children in Australia.
 
Jackie Boyer, a retired interior designer, serves on or presides over several philanthropic boards in Carthage. Originally from Georgia, she’s a long time member of artCentral’s board of directors, just finishing her term as artCentral’s board president. Her grandson, Cook Hudson, comes to artCamp all the way from Columbia, Missouri.
 
Bev Sturgis, a career retired aerospace engineer, is an Oklahoma farm girl and avid master gardener dedicated to keeping organic seed lines safe. She is an outdoor enthusiast and dedicated biker and an emerging artist in various media.
 
Justus, Aurelia, Jackie and Bev are my key 2019 artCamp volunteer intern-magic-makers so far. They are terrifically valued and appreciated for sharing their precious summer days mentoring our delightful artCampers! Please, please give me a call or email me at artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org and add your energy to this terrific intern team.
 
Again I send out a most sincere “Thank You!” to the community supporters of artCamp. Their contributions make artCamp possible. This year’s generous artCamp donors include the Helen S. Boylan Foundation, the Carthage Council on the Arts, Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio, the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation, Leggett & Platt, Inc., the Rotary Club of Carthage, S&S Computers and Walmart.

Walk through the summery green front door of artCentral at Hyde House, and what do you see? There is lovely natural light pouring in through the expansive, undraped windows. There are the simple, arts-and-crafts white staircase rungs marching up to the second floor.

Enter this historic four square farmhouse at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage and you see the welcoming foyer filled with selections from artCentral’s Annual Membership Exhibition on view in June (during weekend gallery hours Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m.) and through July by appointment.

Throughout all the galleries downstairs and upstairs the vibrant works of forty-three artCentral artists are waiting for your viewing pleasure. You can preview the entire exhibition in the photo album on artCentral’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/. Take a look online then come delight and marvel at the wealth of talent shining through all the wondrous works of art in this exceptionally strong collection.

When you do arrive, before you leave the foyer to wander through the house exhibition, pause to take in the wondrous art created by artCamp’s instructors. Yes, they’ve created delightful samples of their class projects and these are all on display. They are fun! They are colorful! They are creative inspirations for all the aspiring young artists, ages 8-14, who will become artCampers during artCamp’s two weeks, July 8-12 and July 15-19, 2019, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

You can register your artCamper at Hyde House. Curriculum and registration forms may also be picked up at Carthage venues including Cherry's Art Emporium, the Carthage Public Library, KOKA Art Gallery, Mother Road Coffee, the Palms Massage and Day Spa and the Carthage Deli and in Joplin at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. Forms for artCamp are also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

Here is a look at the choices for all Week Two Classes:

MONDAY, July 15:
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PAINT BABY ANIMALS with April Davis-Brunner - Draw and acrylic paint your favorite baby. Bring a photo, if you want to.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL FANTASTIC BEASTS with Teri Y. Diggs – Create your own magical creatures with backstories and magical powers.
AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS with Cheryl Church - Learn about the art of the Aborigines and use sticks to dot paint aboriginal motifs.
THOR’S HAMMER with Sarah Serio - Are you a worthy creature to forge and lift Thor’s Hammer made big and strong from recycles?

TUESDAY, July 16:

I LOVE♥MANY KINDS OF ANIMALS! with Alexandra Burnside - Make a paper menagerie using lots of paper hearts and glitter, too!
PICTURE FRAMES with April Davis-Brunner - Use pretty embellishments to decorate a frame for your favorite pet photo.
FEATHER YOUR POCKET PURSE with Teri Y. Diggs - Upcycle a denim jeans pocket as a unique bag with embellishments.
FLY AWAY WITH GLASS BIRDS (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley – Make a glass tree full of birds & a stand up bird!

WEDNESDAY, July 17:

PAPIER MACHE PIGGY BANKS with Alexandra Burnside - On a balloon mache your piggy fat and fun! Paint a face. Add a tail and ears.
AFRICAN TINGA TINGA with Cheryl Church - Learn Tinga history as you draw and vibrantly paint African Tinga animals.
PAINT WINGED FLYING FRIENDS with April Davis-Brunner - Using acrylics, paint a favorite—butterfly, eagle, owl—your choice on canvas.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL WIZARD WARES with Teri Y. Diggs – In this School of Wizardry you create quills, wands, parchment and butterbeer!

THURSDAY, July 18:

PAPER MOSAIC ANIMALS with Alexandra Burnside - Colorfully paint papers and cut them into shapes you assemble into animals!
PRETTY FLOWER POTS with April Davis-Brunner - Attach a pet photo and paint and decorate a pot then plant a posie.
ADVANCED ZENTANGLE with Teri Y. Diggs - With gobs and oodles of tangles and doodles you create unique animals.
FRIENDLY GLASS BUGS (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley – Use different glasses and techniques to make a butterfly, a jar of lightning bugs and a dragonfly.

FRIDAY, July 19:
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DOTTED DARLINGS with Alexandra Burnside - Draw and acrylic dot paint enchanting animal friends.
CREATE YOUR OWN JEWELRY with April Davis-Brunner - Sculpt beads and flowers and more for bracelets or earrings or a necklace!
RESIST ANIMALS! with Cheryl Church - Create several projects with resist painting techniques on tiles and paper.
CUSTOM ARMOR with Sarah Serio - Be prepared! Custom design your very own unique arm bracers and shields.

In their chosen classes, 2019 artCampers will experience the delight and satisfaction of creating individual art projects to keep and take home. Additionally, they will have an opportunity to exhibit their creations at the end of the last day of 2019 artCamp. An artCamper Exhibition and Reception will be held at Hyde House, Friday evening, July 19 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served. Family and friends are invited to celebrate the artCamper creations while they meet artCamp’s 2019 teachers and interns in artCentral’s Main Galleries.

To the community supporters of artCentral’s nineteenth artCamp we send out an appreciative “Thank You!” Their help makes possible the two weeks of summer magic beginning very soon at artCentral! This year’s generous artCamp donors include the Helen S. Boylan Foundation, the Carthage Council on the Arts, Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio, the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation, Leggett & Platt, Inc., the Rotary Club of Carthage, S&S Computers and Walmart.

The artCamp teachers have delivered their class sample projects. They are all really awesome and fun! So many great ideas are on display. All are created with an amazing variety of media and imagination. You can see them at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage, during weekend gallery hours Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Come view these cool creations and register your artCamper soon!

Curriculum and registration forms may be picked up at artCentral and at Carthage venues including Cherry's Art Emporium, the Carthage Public Library, KOKA Art Gallery, Mother Road Coffee, The Palms Massage and Day Spa and the Carthage Deli and in Joplin at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. Forms for artCamp are also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

When you are at artCentral to pick up or drop off your artCamper registration be sure to take in the 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition which will be on view through all of June, during weekend gallery hours, as well as through artCamp. Viewing in July will be by appointment. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org.

Yes, during artCamp’s two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019, artCentral’s aspiring young artists, ages 8-14, will be surrounded by great art made by the accomplished artists of Carthage as well as talented artists from neighboring towns.

Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is our very best ever. Four unique classes are offered for each artCamp day. Here is a look at the choices for all Week One Classes:

MONDAY, July 8:
ANI-MUGS with Alexandra Burnside - Create a clay animal mug masterpiece using hand building techniques.
GOURDS OF FUN with Cheryl Church - Learn to create farm animals out of Sculptey clay and gourds. 
AMAZING ANIMAL HABITAT DIORAMA with Anne-Marie Gailey - Draw and paint! Sculpt and construct! Waterfalls and mountains and forests!
WATERCOLOR PAINTING with Tom Jones - Get the paper wet. Add exciting splashes of color for a sunflower and a ladybug, too!

TUESDAY, July 9:
PILLOW PETS with Alexandra Burnside - Draw and sew and stuff your special fabric animal or imaginary creature.
CLAY HOMES FOR WINGED FRIENDS with Cheryl Church - Learn hand building techniques as you create a clay bird house.
CHARCOAL PORTRAITS with Tom Jones - Humans are creatures, too! Have fun with this slightly messy medium!
BARNYARD ANIMALS IN GLASS (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley make a glass rooster+cow+pig+maybe more!

WEDNESDAY, July 10:
CLAY PINCH POTS with Cheryl Church - Learning cool techniques, you make clay whistles and flutes and even drums!
COLORFUL STONE PAINTING with Teri Y. Diggs - Learn simple steps and layouts for stone painting your favorite critters.
3D MODEL TREE HOUSE with Anne-Marie Gailey - Design and build a unique model tree house for viewing nature and animals.
WATERCOLOR ABSTRACTS with Tom Jones - Learn fun and super cool techniques and tips for abstract beauty and backgrounds.

THURSDAY, July 11:
NATURAL 3D BUILT ENVIRONMENT with Deb Bentlage - Collaboratively construct a mixed media natural habitat on photo canvas.
SCULPT BABY ANIMALS with April Davis-Brunner - Shape, sculpt and create your favorite babies.
COLORED TISSUE PAINTING and COLLAGE with Tom Jones - All creatures are possible to create with colorful tissue painting!
UNDER SEA GLASS CREATURES (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley - Make glass jelly fish, starfish and more!

FRIDAY, July 12:
LACEY AND PRETTY ZENTANGLE with Teri Y. Diggs - Learn Zentangle drawing and create beautiful butterfly wing designs. 
JAPANESE SHADOW THEATER with Anne-Marie Gailey - Learn about unique Japanese creatures. Build a theater. Make jewelry, too!
ACRYLIC ABSTRACTIONS and POURS with Tom Jones - Explore new and unique acrylic techniques!
ACTION FIGURE DIORAMA with Sarah Serio - Create an animal filled adventure world for your action figures to roam.

​Yes, Week One at artCamp is packed with an awesome array of innovative creative opportunities and sure-to-be favorites for every artCamper. Classes are filling up fast. Don’t delay. Sign up your artCamper today!
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An end-of-artCamp Reception and Exhibition will be held in the Main Gallery at Hyde House on Friday, July 19, 2019, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Everyone is invited. Mark your calendar and plan to come celebrate our artCampers and their two weeks of exciting creativity! I look forward to having you join us! 

artCamp is coming! Get your aspiring young artists registered today!

Yes, artCentral’s artCamp is coming for two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019! Curriculum and registration forms may be picked up at artCentral and at Carthage venues including Cherry's Art Emporium, the Carthage Public Library, KOKA Art Gallery, Mother Road Coffee, The Palms Massage and Day Spa and the Carthage Deli and in Joplin at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. Forms for artCamp are also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

​Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is composed from proposals submitted by the individual teachers. Presently the teachers are perfecting their lesson plans and preparing samples of their class projects which will be on display at artCentral as artCamp registration is underway.
 
Our 2019 artCamp Teachers are the best! All teachers selected as artCamp instructors are either recognized working artists, experts in their media, or public and private school teachers having professional credentials. Many are both practicing artists and school teachers, too. I am very grateful for these talented souls who choose to spend their precious summer days guiding and nurturing the young creative spirits who come to artCamp. I am proud to introduce to you these highly skilled art makers.
 
DEB BENTLAGE – Having returned to her Missouri roots, photographer Deb and her dog, Pete, and their cat companion live in The Little House which she renovated on her family’s old farm. She teaches in southwest Missouri and is a successful author of self-published books filled with her beautiful photographs.
 
ALEXANDRA BURNSIDE – Alexandra grew up in El Paso, Texas. She loves her musical husband, cats and playing with clay! She teaches elementary art at Fairview Elementary and loves making art with kids and watching their creative minds at work. For Alexandra, drawing and doodling are fun and relaxing.

​ANNE-MARIE GAILEY – Anne-Marie is a longtime participant as an artCamp educator. Art was the emphasis of her Bachelor degree with a minor in Art Education. Anne-Marie‘s teaching experience includes high school and elementary art programs in this region and at the Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin.
 
ALICE LYNN GREENWOOD-MATHÉ – I am an artist and the Executive Director-Curator of artCentral. I LOVE artCamp! With my artist husband, David, I like to go for vintage boat and motorcycle rides to discover inspirations. Together we travel, garden and share a big, old house filled with our art and our furry and feathered companions. We're training our high energy Aussie in French.

SARAH SERIO – A native of Neosho, Sarah is a professional artist/printmaker and returning artCamp teacher who enjoys teaching kids to be creative thinkers. Sarah’s prints are shown regionally and exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. She serves on the Neosho Arts Council Board of Directors.
 
Yes, artCamp teachers are the best! Very soon these gifted and dedicated instructors will be teaching artCampers in the terrifically inspiring setting of Hyde House’s beautiful, spacious galleries transformed into classrooms where the walls are filled with remarkable artworks by artCentral’s talented artists showcased in this year’s Annual Membership Exhibition.
 
The 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition will be on view at Hyde House through all of June, during weekend gallery hours, Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m., as well as through artCamp. Viewing in July will be by appointment. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org. Treat yourself! Come visit soon!

​Thirty years ago, in 1989, to the community of Carthage, Katherine Hyde bequeathed her family’s historic foursquare farmhouse as a home always to be used for sharing fine arts. My studio-office is at the end of the second floor hallway. This former sleeping porch has two window walls overlooking the spacious lawn spreading beneath old growth trees, the carriage house transformed into teaching spaces and the Great Wall painted by a bevy of artCentral artists and artCampers.

Naturally, I work at my computer and projects facing outside. Whenever I look up from my tasks I always catch a glimpse of inspiration. Hanging behind me a very large calendar charts yearly exhibitions and events and paper streamers of invitations celebrate the talents showcased in artCentral’s galleries over the last ten years. In every available space you’ll see paintings—some old, some new—that my husband David and I have made.
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The first time Joplin artist Andrew Batcheller came upstairs to visit me, he peeked through the door and exclaimed, “Did you do that with acrylic? How did you get the skin tones to blend so well?” He had cast his gaze on the portrait I made of Sophie, our granddaughter as a tiny, one-week-old babe tenderly held in her mother’s arms.

No one garners admiration better than Andrew Batcheller—as a caring person, as a rock star painter, as a good friend to all fortunate to spend time with him. The largeness of his heart and life and presence are irresistible. That Andrew paints large is no surprise! He paints with courage and with power. His paintings can take your breath and invoke your tears with fierce and poignant beauty. With hope they soothe your soul when aching and lift your spirit to new heights.

Batcheller states, “My greatest inspiration is derived from stories—specifically tales of how people traverse the landscape of this life. Stories of sadness, tragedy and pain are the most powerful for me, for they enhance my gratitude and lead me to greater appreciation. I always try to find the silver linings in these stories. Around these revelations, I focus my work.”
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Andrew tells stories in oils on textiles—canvas and linen and tee shirts and bed sheets and pillowcases, too. Many are stretched to the limits to accommodate the vast scopes of the narratives he brushes upon them.

​Now on display in artCentral’s 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition, Andrew’s painting, “The White Birds That Preside in the Heavenly Days”, offers up a stunning landscape, four feet by six feet, filled with revelations represented by his signature iconography—birds of splendor—in an exquisitely detailed, majestic setting.

When the exhibition’s distinguished jurors—Beth Simmons, Director of the McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation and an avid collector of art and patron of artists, and Jerry Ellis, AWS, NWS, our Carthage hero and famous watercolorist—stood before Andrew’s painting each expressed their awe and amazement for Andrew’s remarkable achievement. Beth recognized his excellence with the Underwriter’s award. Jerry paid tribute by bestowing Andrew with the Gold award for the most outstanding artwork in the collection of forty-three on display.

Other outstanding art was recognized. Recipients selected by Jerry, included Silver to Jane Ballard for “Sunflowers”, a digital photograph uniquely rendered as a layered shadow-boxed diorama. The Bronze award went to Karolee Blanchard for her intimate, atmospheric, stroke-perfect “Inception” in oil.

Honorable Mentions given by Beth included April Davis-Brunner for “Scooby”, Aurelia Burr for “Disneyland Dreams”, David Greenwood-Mathé for “Àshe. Namaste.” and Jesse McCormick for “Out of the Red”. Jerry’s Honorable Mentions went to Linda Teeter for “First Communion”, Debbie Reed for “Gracie in Spring” and Helen Kunze for “Claiming Our Spot”.

Both jurors told me I should be very proud of the high quality of all the art now hanging in the galleries of Hyde House. I am proud and very grateful to each artist sharing their talent so generously. Thank you! to our award recipients and to artists Diana Bray, Jim Bray, Maddie Capps, Valerie Cummings, Dan Curry, Mary Datum, Sherry Fobair, Brenda Hayes, Diane Heisner, Barbara Hicklin, Nina Johnston, Janice Kinman, Melody Knowles, Philip Ledbetter, Lori Marble, Koral Martin, Dan McWilliams, Connie Miller, Dustin Miller, Margie Moss, Mary Parks, Sandra Parrill, Percilla Penner, Tyla Raredon, Richard Reed, Emily Rose, Janiece Siebert, David Storm, Kerry Sturgis, Wayne Walker, Lora Waring and Bonnie Young.
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Come see remarkable artworks by artCentral's talented artists! The 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition will be on view at Hyde House in June during weekend gallery hours, Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m., and by appointment during July. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org

To view all 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition art by artCentral artists please visit artCentral's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pg/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/?ref=page_internal