Arriving for our most recent artCentral board meeting, “Did you do that?” queries board member, Gail White. “Do what?” I ask, thinking I must be in trouble. “You know,” responds Gail, “the installation on the lawn!”

I’d noticed them earlier when I pulled up the drive—the first lemon-tinted, end-of-summer scatter—maple leaves artfully sprinkled across our serene green grass. As an artist and artCentral’s executive director-curator, I may have a fair amount of creative power, but for the wonder of these perfectly placed omens I must give full credit to Mother Nature. She’s telling us ever-so-kindly that autumn’s waiting in the wings.

While the leaves begin to color brightly and twirl down from the canopy above our beautiful campus outside, our galleries inside are reflecting this annual miracle. “The Colors of Autumn” are displayed and ready for your viewing on the high walls throughout Hyde House, upstairs and down, generously underwritten by The Country Caboose Wedding Chapel and Railroad Museum and The Print House Fine Art.

Please come join me and artCentral’s board members and the artist photographers of the Four State Photography Enthusiasts for the exhibition opening reception: this coming Friday evening, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street. Admission is free. You’ll find complimentary libations for your enjoyment as you take in the wonders on our walls, then pause to visit and feast around our vintage, wooden table colorfully spread with autumnal fare presented by board member Lee Pound.

There is a backstory to every evolving season and to every exhibition, as well. Just as autumn follows summer, “The Colors of Autumn” comes to us as a lovely unfolding that began two or three years ago with a phone call from Jane Ballard. Jane wanted to know if her local photography group, the Four State Photography Enthusiasts (FSPE), might have a gallery exhibition at Hyde House. I assured her the possibility was likely, if their art was ready.

Visiting the group’s exhibit at the next Carthage Downtown Art Walk, I found my premonitions to be accurate. I saw talent that was worth sharing and suggested FSPE initially mount displays in artCentral’s three satellite galleries. Jane, herself a gifted photographer, agreed to serve as my co-curator for all three exhibits. Following these successful presentations, a gallery exhibition at artCentral was scheduled.

The Four State Photography Enthusiasts first started to develop somewhere around 2008 as Danny Wilson and Robert Vise became friends through an online forum for Missouri photographers. When they found out that they were both from the Joplin area, they started getting together and shooting everything from storms to skateboarders.

From the four state region they added to their adventures other like-minded folks who loved to play with their cameras. Soon they started having regularly scheduled get-togethers with area photographers, including hobbyists, amateurs and full time professionals. They discussed photography issues and went on photographic outings. From their group shoots and photo walks they learned new techniques. They had their limits pushed by monthly contests sponsored by Print House Fine Art in Carthage. Over the last ten years this group has learned about and practiced their passion—photography!

Since word of mouth was the only way local photographers would come to know about the group, the group initially grew very slowly. In the fall of 2009 Danny took the group to social media. The FSPE moniker was chosen, local professionals were asked to come and speak at their first-Tuesday-of-the-month meetings in Joplin where members, as well, spoke about their specialties

Through the social media format the FSPE now serves as a learning resource for members worldwide. FSPE has expanded rapidly, today boasting over 2,100 international members. If you want to participate in FSPE, go to Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4Statephotogs/about/.

My collaborations with FSPE member, Jane Ballard, continue to be a source of great pleasure as she serves as co-curator for “Colors of Autumn”. She’s recently become a member of artCentral’s board of directors enriching our work with her experience, expertise and uniquely vivacious joie de vive. She’s also been raising awareness of the photography "industry" and local photographers by helping with the Spiva FSPE galleries over the past three years. She’ll assume direction over these in 2019, while she concurrently shares her booth at the Joplin Empire Market with fellow photographers.

Jane currently has a photograph, one of only fourteen selected, in an exhibit with the Photographic Society of Northwest Arkansas. She’ll have her own gallery exhibit in Neosho in March 2019 with the Neosho Arts Council and is working on several books of her photographs including "The Four Seasons through Photographs", just now available through Amazon.
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Visit artCentral soon and see Jane Ballard’s beautiful photographs along with those of over two dozen other photographers in artCentral’s autumn season opening exhibition “Colors of Autumn”! The installation will be on view August 31 through September 23, 2018, while Mother Nature continues to scatter colorful leaves over our spacious lawn.

“Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plait” (sit down, please),” I say to our French-trained puppies as David, my husband, and I look through the large plate glass windows. Chiquita, our Wheaton Terrier Poodle, and Lasyrenn, our year-old Aussie, are eager to cross the threshold beneath the owl. They want to go inside, make their greetings and perhaps receive a treat before they stretch out to rest on the cool, cool vintage tiles covering the shop’s expansive floor. “Un instant je vous prie (one minute, please),” David assures the puppies.

We always enjoy pausing before entering. We like to take in the variety and quirkiness of each window installation as they rotate through the seasons filled with custom made clothing and hand-crafted objects d’art. I think to myself, “These window decorations are delightfully eclectic, just like this enchanting shop.” When I ask David to describe his take on the windows and the shop he quickly responds, “Really eclectic—in the best kinds of ways”.

As you weekly readers know, in the last few weeks while David and I have been making our puppy-training walks around our historic Carthage square, I’ve been writing my newspaper columns and blog posts around the art of the shop windows and the businesses we find behind them. I’ve wanted to tell the story of Spellbound for quite a while.

We go inside and I ask shop owner, Sarah Manzer, “Will you sit with me for an interview, so I can feature Spellbound in my Art Notes from Hyde House?” “Oh, Yes!” comes her smiling, enthusiastic response.

When I arrive for our appointed hour, we walk past the racks of clothing—new and custom-made and vintage—as we navigate an array of display cases and wardrobes overflowing with a plethora of curiosities both decorative and useful. At the back of the shop, we ease ourselves down and settle at either end of a comfy, stuffed sofa. Both of us being of diminutive stature, we each sit with our feet dangling above the floor. I delightedly take note of our unspoken, physical alliance as among “the small people” on this good earth.

My first question to Sarah creates a bond of artistic kinship, too. I ask, “How do you succinctly describe the aesthetic of Spellbound?” After some thoughtful pondering, she answers me simply with one word—“Eclectic”. We’re agreed!

The “eclectic” ambiance reflected in Sarah’s shop surroundings seems to be her approach to life, as well. Married to the physician, Jon Manzer, she tells me their home is a mish-mash of the orderly and the disarrayed. While their shared living spaces are more conventionally tidy, Jon doesn’t mind the chaotic dishevelment of her studio and those spaces she claims as her own.

Sarah seems to thrive on variety in relationships and the mysterious beauty that comes out of collaboration. Throughout our conversation, she often answers my questions speaking in the vernacular “we”, referring to her team of diverse artistic souls involved in the creation and day-to-day workings of Spellbound. Though she is Spellbound’s sole proprietor, she’s pleased to have gathered a team that works together. In many ways Sarah’s Spellbound is like the artist-cooperatives so familiar to me from my New York City days, where artists with similar inclinations coalesced to create vibrant shared venues.

Sarah knows of these NYC settings for her eclectic travels have taken her from coast to coast. Born in Barry County, Missouri, while she grew up in Neosho her mother brought her to Carthage for cultural events. From a very young age, Sarah knew she wanted to go see and experience a larger world, but she also always knew she’d one day return to Carthage.

For five years she traveled and played fiddle and sang and wrote songs as a performing member of her Sarah Dunn Band. They primarily did radio tours going from town to town and from station to station promoting their music and recordings.

Sarah says, “Being out pursuing my passions was top notch. I love traveling. But the music business is so hectic. I got homesick. I wanted to be somewhere and do something that makes me feel calm and connected to a home community.”

These days Carthage is Sarah’s home community. You can hear her with her parents, Max and Deborah Barnett, and their Catalyst Band performing 70’s and Classics at the upcoming Concert in the Park presented by the Carthage Council on the Arts on Saturday, August 18th, 7 to 9 p.m. Take your chair, family, friends and a basket dinner, then read Art Notes next week to learn more about the eclectic, magical addition of Spellbound to the historic square of Sarah’s hometown.

Next comes Annie’s, our treasured gourmet kitchen and gift shop, where Stormy and Betty always keep a fresh stock of our favorite dark chocolate truffles. The expansive views at Cherry’s Art Emporium offer up a plethora of stunning multi-media art and philanthropically give a supportive shout out for artCentral, our hometown’s amazing non-profit arts gallery. At the “Deli” we comment on the lovely window collection of thriving jade plants and bougainvillea and ponder sharing one of their excellent grilled Rueben sandwiches sometime soon.

Making the corner at the county sheriff’s office, we pass The Print House of Fine Art displaying works in progress. The front windows of Goads Antiques entice us to consider vintage novelties inside. Ray’s and Lana’s True Value hardware store shows off handsome grandfather clocks and home furnishings and lots of gift choices for family and friends. In The Front Page we see an array of pocket-friendly clothing and home accessories. At Lillian James and Company we’re inspired by glimpses of sparkling lights in the exquisitely updated interiors.

Coming to the next corner, Lasyrenn begins to tug on her tether. We suspect she’s anxious to cover the next two blocks quickly and get to the Farm Bureau where a farmyard tableau includes a feather-covered faux chicken, a black and white polka-dotted textile milk cow and a disarray of fluffy, stuffed little lambs that seem to be in need of Lasyrenn’s working dog herding.

Instead, Lasyrenn has her gps programmed for BigDogBoutique, the neatest, newest little shop in Carthage. The day Lasyrenn discovers the window displays she is beside herself with delight. What can be more enticing than four life size pretend puppies fashionably turned out in distinctive collars and leads as they quietly sit and wait for her to stroll by? Up on the window tap-tap-tapping and scratch-scratch-scratching our puppy jumps wanting her new found friends to come on out and play.

David and I are infatuated with the artistically-dressed, minimalist display windows flanking the shop entrance. Behind one window, against a neutral backdrop rising from old wooden floors, dog toys and accessories fill galvanized buckets suspended from a long, weathered, beaver-sculpted branch on the wall above Lasyrenn’s new friends. The opposite window, across the marble and tile entry floor, features a life-size ceramic pony and colorful, Lucky Pony western and English tack mounted on simple wrought iron racks.

Inside BigDogBoutique fashion-forward shop goods are thoughtfully set about, in a stylish, vintage wonderland furnished with original tin ceilings and darkly stained displays creatively assembled from large up-cycled wooden spools and wooden pallets. The “Bark of Fame” gallery wall features 4x6 framed photographs contributed by the companions of dogs who visit the shop. You’ll find distinctive Lucky Pony equestrian tack and gift items hung on a kiosk of replicated stable walls.

Owner and shop proprietor, Jeanette Cartright, originally from Joplin, has lived in Carthage for thirteen years with her husband, their two daughters and their family including three dogs—Max, a German Shepherd; Ted, a Goldendoodle; Daisy, a Maltese; a horse named Ginger; and a cat named Theo.

After seventeen years as a stay-at-home mom, Jeanette felt inspired to take on “something new” that would interest her and serve as good role-modeling for her daughters. Working from her home, she bought and for three years ran her company as an online, family-owned, cottage enterprise. Jeanette told herself, “I’ll open a shop on the square, if the right location becomes available.”

Today, at her perfectly right and charming location, you’ll find Jeanette or one of her daughters, Grace or Katherine, keeping shop hours and welcoming you with their beautiful, friendly smiles at 336 Grant Street on the east side of the courthouse square. Shop hours are Monday through Friday, 10:30 am-5:30 pm, and Saturday, 10:00 am-1:00 pm.

​As a style-minded pet store, BigDogBoutique offers dog collars to fit petite pups all the way up to giant dog breeds. All their collars and leads are made by small businesses that manufacture their products in the USA. Whether your dog is a family pet, a show off companion, an obedience champion, a guard dog or a working dog, BigDogBoutique has the perfect collar and leash. There’s also a bakery case full of novelty-shaped, doggy confections. Durable toys, training bells and much, much more are available. From the three dollar clearance rack we purchased a bead-encrusted collar for Chiquita, our Wheaton Terrier Poodle.

​Visit, BigDogBoutique soon! You just may find our Lasyrenn playing with the shop toys while David and I talk with Jeanette about an upcoming Art Walk or Lasyrenn’s ongoing crush on her Goldendoodle, Ted.