​Though our work commitments here haven’t allowed time for a get-away-from-home since our May wedding, Dan’s gift doesn’t sound like any romantic pre-Paris honeymoon I’d like to have. To the contrary, he’s pitching a working honeymoon in Strong City in the middle of Kansas!

What can possibly be romantic about a working honeymoon in the middle of nowhere? And besides, Dan is inviting various members of his family to share the time with us, so the prospect sounds more and more like a working-group-honeymoon-with-people-I-don’t-know-in-the-middle-of-nowhere! All I really want is an interlude to rest and romance with my new husband.
 
I’d much rather wait for Paris, even if our “real” honeymoon is a ways off, as we build our special Paris savings account to fund our dream. While working our day jobs at artCentral, the Library and R-9, all our loose change and our “art monies” realized from both our art sales and commissions are being tucked away. As soon as we have enough, we’ll make our reservations, cover our commitments, enlist Emily to house sit and off we’ll fly. I can wait for Paris.
 
For now David keeps encouraging me to stay open to Dan’s proposal. David has his reasons. Dan is a successful Kansas City entrepreneur launching his cowboy-themed Chuck Wagon Café, a new restaurant in the heart of the Flint Hills. He wants to generously commission David to restore and frame the large, vintage western-themed murals he’s purchased at auction, and he wants to put us up at Clover Cliff Ranch, the finest B&B in that part of the country.
 
Over twenty years David’s completed several art commissions for Dan’s venues. He’s also worked for Dan as a chef, an oysterman and a maître d’. David assures me Dan has impeccable taste in creating all his ventures, treats his people very well and that working with him is fun and satisfying.
 
I’m still not sold, but I keep listening and learn that Kansas is not all flat, arid and boring. Kansas is much more than the broken down farm where Dorothy got blown away in a terrible tornado.  According to world-travelled Dan and many other adventurers, the rolling Flint Hills and the last major unbroken stand of tall grass prairies are considered to be one of God’s most enchanting creations.
 
While pondering our Kansas possibility, I get an email from our Carthage Press managing editor attesting to this claim. John Hacker writes, “I love Strong City. Been there and to Cottonwood Falls many times. My mother's family lived in Augusta, Kansas, and we lived in Harrisonville, Missouri, so we made that trip dozens of times when I was a kid. I need to go out some spring and shoot a thunderstorm from that overlook southwest of town.”
 
I like John, a lot. Maybe he knows something I need to learn. Next week I’ll let you know if we find our way to the Flint Hills of Kansas.
 
In the meantime stop in at artCentral to see “The Beauty of Betsy Pauly”.  Checkett & Pauly, P.C. are the generous underwriters for this exhibition of exquisite watercolor and ink paintings.
 
All purchase proceeds go to the BETSY PAULY FUND for artCENTRAL.
 
Gallery hours: Fridays & Saturdays 12:00-5:00, Sundays 1:00-5:00, All other days call (417) 358-4404 to schedule a visit.

​Our frequently breezy August weather is a currently popular topic in studios and stores, on porches and in parks, over coffees and at water coolers throughout our community. We’re reviewing the scorching heat of past Augusts and sighing and saying “I can’t remember a wetter and a milder August than this one. This weather is amazing!”

Indeed, we’re having the climate I hoped for when I moved six years ago to Carthage from the Ozarks of Arkansas. Crossing state lines back then, I’m coming north expecting to find milder temperatures. Instead I’m greeted with a series of long arid summers of intense, unrelenting heat.
 
Over and over, again and again, I keep on painting canvases filled with plumped up, heavy bellied rain clouds hoping to conjure the relief of the soothing moisture and the mountain breezes I left in the foothills behind me.
 
Finally my conjuring cloud magic is working in Missouri. Every time the thermometer goes past 90, the weather shifts. We get some showers and the 80’s return. I feel like we’re living in Eden, especially when we taste the perfection of a garden-of-Eden-evening like artCentral’s opening reception for Betsy Pauly’s retrospective exhibition.
 
Oh, what a gracious, grace-filled night this is. While predictions of thunderstorms persist, we carry on with preparations and dreaming of celebration weather that’s welcoming and perfect. Our dreams magically manifest! Clouds and showers come and go. The skies clear and soft sunlight foretells the bliss of yet another cool August evening.
 
For months Chuck Pauly, Betsy’s husband, has set the bar high for blessings with his donations of Betsy’s paintings, prints and cards. He graciously makes them all available for purchases that benefit our Betsy Pauly Fund to carry on the work of artCentral. Chuck’s law firm, Checkett & Pauly, PC, proactively extend their underwriting generosity.
 
Mike Burken’s landscape crew grooms the campus to perfection. My beloved husband, David, adds his outdoor detailing, artfully scatters chairs over the lawn and porch and professionally preps the gallery walls.
 
Over several months Sally Armstrong, artCentral’s former director, with the assistance of Miriam Putnam, gathers and delivers Betsy’s paintings from the private collections of Betsy’s patrons who happily agree to live with blank spaces on the walls of their homes and offices, so we all may see and share the beauty of Betsy’s creations. For your contributions, my sincere, appreciative “thank you” goes out to Sally Armstrong, Lance and Sharon Beshore, Jim and Elizabeth Creighton, Jon and Connie Dedon, Bill and Cindy Putnam, Wayne and Miriam Putnam, Charles Pauly, Ron and Susan Ross, Janet Wagoner and Mike and Linda Woody.
 
With her gourmet panache, Judith Goff dresses the reception’s table decked in palate pleasing delectables—ruby red strawberries and shiny pickup veggies; batter baked cheese sticks and sharp English cheese spread; wonton wrapped shrimp bites and Judy’s signature chocolate and sugar cookies.
 
Board members Jackie Boyer and Betsy Flanigan with their husbands, Alex and Bren, as well as Miriam Putnam and board members Helen Kunze and Brenda Sageng, lend their hands to serving and greeting, while gallery docents Jan Evans and Emily Rose assist patrons with buying their selections. Patrons sip and savor as they mingle, admire and purchase Betsy’s light-filled paintings and limited edition giclée prints.
 
Celebrating our dear Betsy, the stars come out to shine and remind us that Betsy’s effervescent beauty is with us still and forever on our walls and everywhere.
 
Betsy Pauly’s elegant retrospective, “The Beauty of Betsy Pauly”, continues on exhibit through September 17, 2017, at Hyde House on the hill, 1110 East Thirteenth in Carthage. The public is invited. Admission is free. Donations are welcome.
 
Gallery hours: Fridays & Saturdays 12:00-5:00, Sundays 1:00-5:00. All other days call (417) 358-4404 to schedule a visit.

“Internalizing and expressing the world’s physical beauties through one’s own eyes, mind, heart and hands, into images bearing a hallmark of personal creativity, defines the essence of art. I am ever grateful to live out this passion, to rephrase the natural order into watercolor and ink. Both the act of re-creation and its encapsulated outcome, souvenir colors and textures, seed my soul, as do the happy moments of connectivity with other eyes, minds and hearts. Details and discussions of training, techniques, exhibitions and sales all aside, ultimately a painting speaks fully for itself.”
 
All of Betsy’s paintings speak with an engagingly soft power as her artistic voice vibrates through her many, many images of the natural places she most loves—lush gardens and expansive seascapes, Bermuda and the Buffalo River, Norway and Florida. Dipping into a muted palette Betsy skillfully lays down watercolor washes then enriches these with shadowy depths and pops of bright pigment. Adding her distinctive, signature detailing with delicate lines etched in water-based ink, she gives each painting a charming clarity. This is “something I picked up somewhere,” she modestly explains.
 
Betsy’s as gracious in her living and her loving as she is in her painting. She sees the world around her with knowing eyes and responds always with a depth of genuine caring and compassion. She founded The Carthage Spay-Neuter Assistance Program and has rescued and placed hundreds of stray dogs and cats.
 
When I was new to Carthage I first met Betsy when we’re both shopping in the health food store. Approaching with a radiant smile and a warm hug as though I am her long lost sister, she seems to know all about me. Apparently her very good friend Sally Armstong, then director of artCentral, has mentioned to her that I’m invited to give a solo exhibition. Betsy tells me how much support Sally has given her and how excited she is for me to have the same experience.
 
On my opening night, Betsy and her husband Chuck are some of the first to arrive. With Sally and Dan Armstrong and other friends, they treat me to a post reception dinner. When Sally is called away from town, Betsy steps in as docent during gallery hours to greet guests coming to view my work.
 
Betsy and Chuck divide their time between their three homes in Carthage, Minnesota and Florida, so our encounters are too few and rather random except for Marian Days when they always return to Carthage. What fun to meet up at their house and walk down Grand Avenue to share a meal under the big tents. Our smiles in my photographs posted on facebook reflect the chorus of our delight as we meander about sharing laughter and sticks of Vietnamese ice cream and big cups of bubble tea.
 
Betsy wasn’t always a practicing artist. She took a degree in Business Administration from the University of Minnesota and was General Manager of Employer Lifelines in Minneapolis until moving to Dallas. Meeting and marrying her best friend, Chuck Pauly, dramatically changes the trajectory of her life. As their love deepens Betsy’s inspiration to paint becomes ignited. Her paintings emerge as vibrant expressions of the passion she finds in their relationship. Seen around town in one of their frequent, spontaneous embraces, they are known as “the most romantic couple ever.”
 
The beauty of Betsy’s romance with her dear love, Chuck, and the beauty of her romance with all of life gracefully shine on today in her elegant retrospective, “The Beauty of Betsy Pauly”, on exhibit at artCentral, 18 August through 17 September 2017.
 
The opening reception takes place this Friday evening, 18 August 2017, 6 to 8 pm at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth in Carthage. The public is invited. Admission is free. Donations are welcome.
 
Checkett & Pauly, P.C. are the generous underwriters for this Exhibition.
 
All purchase proceeds go to the BETSY PAULY FUND for artCENTRAL.
 
Gallery hours: Fridays & Saturdays 12:00-5:00, Sundays 1:00-5:00, All other days call (417) 358-4404 to schedule a visit.

Artists! We’re always spying and collecting stuff—fallen tree limbs and loose boards; hole-y rocks and smooth flat stones; scraps of fabric and shards of broken glass; dented, discarded buckets and colorful cracked bowls. Our home is a haven for these orphans waiting to be transmogrified into art. 

We do just this: give these random derelicts a new home and a new identity, too. We delight in taking the lost, the cast off and the unwanted and up-cycling them into something new and special and fun.
 
Today’s find, this dirty old strip of tire tread, becomes David’s “Road Gator”—mounted vertically on Reverend Jan’s salvaged piece of barn wood and adorned with a wee set of faux golden antlers found some-time-ago from who-knows-where. The finished results are charming when seen on David’s studio wall, ready for an acquisitive patron to claim this amazing recreation.
 
Likewise I have a new painting fresh off my easel inspired by and including a tiny porcelain basket discovered by David, purchased for fifty cents in the second hand shop around the corner and given to me as a gift. I’m thrilled as I ply my acrylics to add and text to tell a story and images that create an environment. Voilà! “My New Little Basket” is ready—my entry for the upcoming JRAC “Yes We Can” exhibition scheduled for September in Nevada. David’s entry for “Yes We Can” is “Dawn’s Early Light”, a work of elegance and grace oil stroked on stretched canvas.
 
Every morning I wake to see the actual object of his inspiration purchased decades ago in a miniscule shop hidden in the depths of Florence. Finding and falling in love with her shape and her exquisite features and the response she gave him when he plucked her strings, my husband, then a broke young art student wandering the streets and back alleys, boldly wired home to solicit a loan. The requested funds forthcoming, his new love purchased, David’s strummed her in many places around the globe from the mountain top Acropolis above Athens to the chair beside our bed where he sweetly plays and sings me to sleep.
 
More rescued art adorns our sleeping sanctuary including “Jan’s Wedding Cans”—battered and dented and rusting at the edges. Jan’s artfully linked them together with hay baling twine retrieved from the ancient bales in her barn loft where she married us. The “Cans” come to us when David goes to get a Jan massage and returns home jangling them. They’ve been retrieved from the bumper of Jan’s 1951 Chevy—our post ceremony get-away car in which Jan chauffeured us around her rural section as grazing cows looked up in puzzlement at the clanging and thumping of Jan’s tin can bells and two left boots.
 
Reaching up to drape the string over the hook where our candle lantern swings between our upstairs bedroom windows, David reports, “Reverend Jan says we should hang these from the maple tree in the back gardens and let the winds make them sing.”
 
“Oh no!” says I. “I want them to stay right there to look at first thing every morning and last thing every night. They mean everything to us! They’re all about our beginning and our wedding celebration and our promises for forevermore. I want to see and cherish them every day. Jan made them special—just for us!”
 
“Okay” replies my husband realizing there’s no room for argument. “Here they’ll stay. They’ve got a new home!”
 
Yes, some of our rescued castaways are meant to stay with us in our home every day and forever.