You’ll see a sparkling site! Hyde House has just enjoyed a thorough scrubbing, attic to foundation, and she is gleaming—fabulously ready to begin artCentral’s autumn and winter seasons of Exhibitions and Openings, Classes and Workshops and our first annual Holiday Boutique!  

For the continuing upkeep and care of Hyde House, we are grateful to UMB in Kansas City, particularly Janet Keefer our liaison, who manages the Trust set up by Katherine Hyde to preserve her family home.

Also, a grateful Thank You! to Ron Hill for his hours of powerwashing—restoring our grand dame to her former splendor.

Appreciation additionally to Dewey Sheets for his meticulous grooming of our big old trees, keeping them healthy and beautiful through all seasons.

While we enjoy the support of our Trust and the good work of our local service providers, the multiplicity of artCentral’s in-house happenings and outreach programs are supported by Members and Artists, Grantors and Underwriters—you, the good folks of Carthage and our surrounding communities—who value art and culture, both the old and the new.

A special Thank You! to Crackpot Gallery & Art Studio and to Southwest Missouri Bank, generous Underwriters for our September Exhibition: Collective Perspectives and the Opening Reception at 6pm on Friday, September 11th. Join us for a festive evening celebrating the stunning canvas-to-clay works of collaborators Tom Jones and Brent Skinner. The public is invited. Admission is free. Donations are always welcome. For more information, please call (417) 358-4404.

artCentral’s artCache is coming in September! Old art made New just for you.

northwest Arkansas, I enthusiastically accepted an invitation to present THE ART of TEXTING, my first solo exhibition at artCentral heralding my love for language and foretelling my love for artCentral. 

 At artCentral, September continues to be about new beginnings, as our impressive lineups of fall and winter Gallery Exhibitions, Classes and Workshops are starting to unfold and plans are made for artCentral's first annual Holiday Boutique scheduled for the first week in December.

First up for September is the Opening Reception on Friday, September 11 at 6 pm, for our blockbuster Exhibition—COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVES: CANVAS to CLAY—presented by two of our favorite regional artists, Tom Jones and Brent Skinner.

Call them mavericks. Call them jokesters. Call them iconoclasts. Call them accomplished creatives.

Mostly Tom Jones and Brent Skinner are known as two hard-working, award-winning artistic friends bound by their mutual love for their families and by their twin passions for making and sharing the art that gives them joy. Each felt his creativity stirring at an early age.

Tom, after a childhood in Oklahoma, received BA and MA art degrees and won recognition as an editorial cartoonist. He now teaches art in the Carthage School District. While Tom’s mature, masterful and always evolving works find expression in many media, watercolor remains his first love.

Brent, originally from Mead, Kansas, spent several years honing his skills on the art fair circuit and as a Silver Dollar City ceramist. Today with great pleasure he pursues his love of teaching others at Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio in Joplin. Brent’s work is sought out by collectors nationally and around the globe.

Tom and Brent’s individual paths converged, then merged into collaboration, when Tom’s painterly vision first saw female forms in the shapely vessels turned by Brent’s hands. Their conversation, once launched, intensified and still continues such that one now finishes the creative sentence begun by the other. Tom’s working more in ceramics, especially sgraffito, and Brent’s started exploring painting with clay tools on canvas.

Canvas to clay. Clay to canvas. Out of collaboration innovations are born and friendships enriched. 

Mark your calendar and experience the newness of COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVES—presented to us in September, the sweet month of meaningful new beginnings

a photo taken for The Carthage Press?” She explains I’m wanted because my submitted art design has been selected to celebrate our 2015 Maple Leaf Festival.

Now this is happy news, especially considering this art is created only because Wendi Douglas nudges me into an eleventh hour effort.

As many of you know, here at artCentral we’re dancing with a full agenda, which means my days spin from one deadline to the next—an undulating choreography. The moment I question my abilities to be timely with completing a commitment, I remember what Eric Haun, my Board of Directors President, tells me. “Oh, no problem. You can do and have everything you want.”

Adopting Eric’s philosophy, I frequently whisper to myself “You’re almost to a successful finish. Keep going.” I do, “keep going” and somehow everything that needs doing gets done, though often with a last minute wrap.

Given the brief time available, I keep my Maple Leaf design clean and crisp, using a limited, nuanced palette with only three graphic elements—our turreted Courthouse, maple leaves and the text: 49th Maple Leaf Festival, Memories in the Making, 2015.

In the deadline’s last hour, I hand deliver the finished art to our Chamber’s Mary Jo Little, then immediately focus toward the “next up” on my dance card without another thought for Maple Leaf art until Jeanine’s photo request.

While fully immersed in July’s two weeks of artCamp with 66 artCampers, I learn from Tonja Parrish of Embassy Embroidery in Webb City, that the Festival tee shirts will be pewter and my design, created for presentation on a white background, will need reworking ASAP to accommodate the dark tee shirt.  Okay, “I can do everything!” Right?

After the artCampers Exhibition—a fine denouement for artCamp 2015—I’m head down into the Maple Leaf art redesign—a brand new rendering with The Courthouse done in simple, elegant lines and the maple leaves in brilliant, golden yellow.

Soon you’ll be able to purchase your 2015 Maple Leaf Festival tee shirt at Race Brothers. Who needs the Eiffel Tower on a tee shirt, when you can wear our turreted Courthouse enhanced with autumn’s beautiful maple leaves?

With a blue moon rising all bright and beautiful, our very first artCampers  Exhibition and Reception fills Hyde House brimful with artCampers, their amazing art and their guests, who come to celebrate the art-creators and their creations of artCamp 2015.

Greeted at our artCentral green door, artCampers are given name badges honoring them as the evening’s exhibiting artists. They share their creations with their families and friends in the Main and Member Galleries, and then lead their guests on tours along The Great Wall, into the Pottery House and through Hyde House. All enjoy milk, cookies and lemonade at the refreshment table decorated with colorful canvases painted in the Butterflies class instructed by April Davis who attends this special celebration in a lovely summer frock.

Thank You! to all the families who contributed the delightful variety of cookies. Thank You! to artCentral’s newest Board Member, Betsy Flanigan, for preparing and serving refreshments and tidying up after the party. Thank You! to artCentral Board President, Eric Haun; Treasurer, Pat Goff; and Membership Chairwoman, Gail White for stopping by before and during the evening to congratulate our artCampers. Thank You! to Interns Emma Pound and Katie Watson for all your good work. Special thanks to artCamp Dad, Eric Putnam, Manager at UMB Bank, for loaning and delivering UMB’s display screens used as the backdrop for our artCamper Exhibition.

Thank You! to all our gifted artCamp Educators: Debra Bentlage, Cheryl Church, April Davis Brunner, Sean Fitzgibbon, Anne-Marie Gailey, Cindy Head, Tom Jones, Kahlie Jones, Beth Lawson, Sarah Serio and Randy Wright. During these two artCamp weeks I’m amazed daily by your classroom skills, your love of teaching and your affection for our artCampers. For your generous donations of supplies from your own studios, I am truly grateful.

I offer, again, artCentral’s artfelt appreciation to all our 2015 artCamp supporters and contributors—the Helen S. Boylan Foundation; Carthage Council on the Arts; Crackpot Pottery; David and Betsy Flanigan; Sandy Higgins; the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation; S&S Computers; Mark Lasley and our local Walmart; and those generous souls who wish to remain anonymous.

With the help of so many, artCamp and our artCampers Exhibition shine with lustrous goodness like the full blue moon rising over our sixty-six artCentral artCampers experiencing the joys of art-making beside Route 66.