​Sydney Hartless, Owen Platt and Kaylee Shultz gather the bonanza of artCampers items to be exhibited, set up the giant display board they carry over from the Pottery House, create labels with artCamper names and ages and place all the artworks with the instructors’ bios and descriptions of their classes.

The variety and uniqueness of the exhibit is over-the-top delightful. There are clay mugs and multi-media mermaids, light sabers and original board games, bugs made from glass and bags woven with duct tape, stitched pillow pals and watercolor paintings, dioramas and decorated dream catchers, and much, much more.
 
Owen and Emily Rose greet artCampers and their guests arriving through our vibrant, green door. Sydney and Amy Lane work the room helping artCampers lead their families and friends to see their works beautifully displayed in the main gallery. In the chandeliered gallery, Maddie, Sydney and Kaylee offer a lovely array of cookies and lemonade donated by artCamper families and the Greenwood-Mathé Fund for artCentral Art and Artists.
 
Hyde House is filled with excitement and appreciation for the artCampers and their creations. What pleasure for me to receive beaucoup hugs as I visit with the artCampers and their guests. Many are wearing artCentral green tee shirts. Several are dressed up for a party.
 
 I tell little Luci how much I like her ensemble. She’s wearing soft suede leather boots paired with a charming purse shoulder-strapped across her lovely pastel floral frock, styled with a fitted waist and wrap skirt. Luci says, “My dress is a birthday present. My birthday was in February.” “Mine, too,” I respond.
 
I learn from Luci’s mother that Luci loves horses and she wants to buy one of my paintings. Apparently on her very first day of artCamp Luci discovered my pony painting in the Boardroom Boutique. Her love-at-first-sight attraction sent her home to announce again and again over two weeks, “I want to use my all saved vacation money to buy Alice Lynn’s pony.”
 
Little Luci is unwavering in her desire and intention. I’m moved by her zeal and her words when she tells me, “I want to build an art collection to fill my room. I want to start with your pony painting to hang over my bed.”

What a perfect denouement for artCamp 2017!

artCentral’s artCamp interns are awesome. They make artCamp happen. Each day they arrive early and stay late. They work, work, work while volunteering two weeks of their summer, because they love artCentral and art. Mostly they’re here because they love kids and want to help and learn how to best nurture, support and teach our future artists.

A grandmother asks me, “What are the interns doing over there? The first week my grandson comes home, gets something to eat and goes to bed!” I understand. This is me, as well. The first week of artCamp keeps us on our toes, twirling between tasks and working on our edge as we do our best to stay ahead of sixty artCampers and their seemingly unlimited enthusiasm and energy. By the second week we’re conditioned, blissfully running on adrenalin and finding our stride.

The intern roster for this year’s artCamp is all-star with returning veterans  and rookies, too. All are equally awesome in their commitment and contributions on behalf of our young wanna-be artists. I dearly love our artCamp interns—each and every one: Kate Beeler, Maddie Capps, Sydney Hartless, Amy Lane, Owen Platt, Emma Pound, Emily Rose, Kaylee Shultz and Katie Watson. They are awesome and amazing, inspiring and just the very best ever. My heart sings when I reflect on their generosity and their caring, compassionate dedication.

Being on the artCamp intern staff means showing up at 9:00 am or earlier. They carry in and unpack my director’s stuff in my studio-office: laptop, notebooks, new registrations, more supplies, et cetera, et cetera. My laptop gets booted up. Our artCamp hub is made ready. Our attention turns to making all of Hyde House beautiful.

Interns clean an abundance of artCamper finger prints from the glass panes in the front and back storm doors. A good drink is given to our newly-donated, mature hastas and to Judy Goff’s planter filled with lush annuals. The porch is set in order. Ferns are taken down, watered and rehung to elegantly swing on their hooks; the floor and steps are swept and mopped. Our giant, colorful, polka-dotted artCamp pinwheels are placed curbside with my David’s hand-painted artCamp sign marking the entrance to our hilltop of creative adventuring.

Final touches are added to teacher classrooms with bottles of water, teacher name badges and the day’s class rosters put in place. Interns help choose their assigned class for the day—one or two or sometimes three interns per class depending on the number of artCampers registered for each.

For artCamper check-in, a new bouquet of zinnias from my garden is arranged while name badges are lettered and spread on the kitchen table. By 10:00 am when the front door begins to swing with arrivals, interns are in full welcome mode. They greet artCampers dispensed from cars, then walk them in to stow lunches and get their badges. Interns partner as paras with first-time campers to insure their artCamp beginning is smooth and sweet.

After all artCampers are present, we gather for “porch time”. Teachers and interns contribute as we set the tone for each day with a special word or two. Included in this year’s words are magic, imagination, joy, creativity, kindness and goodwill. We talk about their meanings and how we want to practice and experience each. We learn some new art terms like abstract, balanced and multi-media.

Then comes art-making class time and lunch and play and more class time and snacks and back to the porch for 3:00 pm pickups. Interns stay late to do a thorough clean up and reset for our next day. Trash and recycles are collected. Work tables are freshly covered. Teacher supplies are delivered. Our interns always finish what they start.

All day long the interns are “on” every minute. They don’t take breaks, yet somehow they find moments to bond—sharing snippets of conversation with each other—creating friendships of appreciation, support, encouragement and the anticipation of another year as artCamp interns.

Our artCamp interns are awesome!
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Last week when we learn The Legend of The Little People, we build them a Songline and celebrate their presence among us.

​Now living at artCentral, The Little People are immigrants from Downunder. They’ve tunneled up and arrived by way of The Big Hole beneath the Great White Pine. They’re here with us from Australia.
 
They’re shy and hard to see. They only come out after dark. They like to play croquet on the lawn outback around the circular Iris Bed.
 
I first heard The Little People giggling and singing last autumn. David, artCentral’s Prepitor, and I are at Hyde House installing an exhibition late into the night. While taking a break David strums his guitar and sings me an Australian song, “Give me a home among the gum trees, the place that I adore...”
Suddenly we see many, many wee shining-giggling-singing faces peeking over the sill and pressed outside against the pane of the gallery window. We invite them in. “No! No!” they chorus with giggles, “We won’t come in. You must come out to us.” We do go out and learn all about The Little People at artCentral.
Though quite cheerful, The Little People are a wee bit homesick and weary of camping in The Big Hole.  They yearn for a real place of their own. David declares, “I can fix this.” He does.

I understand. When I was hosteling through Australia I learned the indigenous peoples can hear Mother Earth singing and follow her Songlines on their Walkabouts.

I promise, “I’ll speak to the artCampers and see what we can do.” The Little People respond with much jumping up and down and hip shaking and high-fiving and giggling and singing and dancing off to play croquet.

One fine day last week, while on their lunch break when the air is hot like Downunder, our artCampers make a Songline for The Little People of artCentral.

​As teachers and interns clear winter’s leavings from our pile of Carthage Marble flag stones, campers line up two-by-two to fetch one stone or more. Carefully they carry their contributions as they circumnavigate The Croquet Lawn of The Little People. 

​With the able assistance of intern Katie Watson, the artCampers place their stones leading from the well house to Somewhere Sometime in a lovely undulating, circling Songline.

​We gather beneath The Grand Cedar beside the well house. Softly we dedicate the new Songline as we sing a couple of rounds of Kumbaya. Then we get very, very quiet and still and listen. I’m certain in the silence I can hear The Little People giggling their approval. I’m sure several of our smiling artCampers hear the giggling, too.
  
We’ve built a Songline for The Little People. The Little People are pleased.
 
Next year we’ll have an artCamp class that’s all about The Legend of The Little People.

​As we anticipated our marriage we spoke of sharing a new last name. What to choose? For the sake of lyricism, David suggests, my last name, Greenwood, should precede his Matthews to become Greenwood-Matthews. With ears and eyes attuned to the staccato flow, I agree. An important decision for a big change is made. Easy! Change sans resistance.
 
Soon after settling on our new last name, while visiting Aunt LaVerne, David’s only living relative in his father’s family, she reminds us of David’s heritage. As many of you know, David never had the opportunity to know most of his paternal lineage and their history. Just two months before David’s birth, his father perished in an accident.
 
Wally Matthews, a jeweler, survived active duty and returned unscathed from two wars. Taking a day off from his jewelry shop, he drove a truck to move a piano for a friend. Traveling near Joplin, the truck’s blow-out sent the piano laden vehicle over a bridge. Mid-morning on July 6, 1951, Wally Matthews was lost to his wife and their two young daughters and the son he never knew.
 
Aunt LaVerne recounts this story and reaching further into history, tells David and me of his father’s ancestors who arrived in this country bearing their ancient, French-Austrian surname, Mathé. As with so many immigrants, the family name was Anglicized, first to Mattey and then Matthews, which was passed to David’s father and then David.
 
The name of Mathé and David’s French-Austrian heritage are beautiful gifts for our Francophile inclinations. Driving home that Sunday afternoon we know without doubt our new shared name will be Greenwood-Mathé. The next day we begin working the legal steps to adopt our new name.
 
Last week, mid-morning on July 6th, the court date serendipitously assigned to us, we enter the elegant, spacious courtroom of Judge Stephen P. Carlton, presiding over the 29th Judicial Circuit Court, Division VI. His friendly bailiff shows us to our seats. His clerk, Sarah, is there to transcribe. In a courtroom frequently filled to capacity we are the only petitioners present, for ours is the only case on the day’s docket. The vast room feels more like a holy sanctuary than a space where law is administered.
 
Before going on the record, Judge Carlton chats with us informally to become familiar with the dimensions of our petitions. We share the significance of the July 6th date, telling him briefly of the untimely loss of David’s father. Judge Carlton observes, “Perhaps David’s father is here with us now”. David and I are certain of this truth.
 
There follows considerable discussion around our choice of Mathé which bears the French accent aigu on the é. Judge Carlton is concerned about having the correct character on the certified copies of our granted petitions. Search and discovery ensue as the nuances of computer fonts are considered and explored until collaboration among us solves the challenge. The é character is found and inserted. The result is perfection.
 
On the anniversary of the death of David’s father we reclaim and make our own their shared ancestral name as Judge Carlton declares our new name henceforth shall be officially Greenwood- Mathé.
 
“There is only change, resistance to change and then more change.”
 
Change sans resistance brings a paternal blessing in the perfection of poignant timing.