​Now we’re spreading our wealth around town with artCentral artCaches! While you’re out in our lovely autumn weather, start looking for our first artCache. Follow the clues found here in Art Notes, on our Facebook Page and on our Blog at www.artcentralcarthage.org. September’s artCache is small, tucked away and waiting for your finding in front of a business across from the Courthouse. Open your eyes. Look up. Look down. Look all around. When you get lucky and find this treasure, email a photo of your discovery to artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org. You’ll be registered to win an arty surprise when all the artCaches are discovered. Happy sleuthing and stay tuned for more clues for an abundance of artCaches yet to come!
 
If you want to create an art treasure of our own, attend an artCentral artClass! Our teachers are amazing—talented, fun-loving and inspiring. Sample a class or workshop and unleash your inner artist to explore and make new discoveries.
 
Just last week April Davis, accomplished artist, dedicated teacher and local treasure, led a beautiful artCentral evening guiding her class in the sculpting of clay roses. In only three hours, blooming creations came to life with everyone taking home an exquisite new artwork. April will be teaching a variety of classes in the months to come. Watch our Newsletter for future class schedules.

During the bewitching month of October, one of our artCamp pros, the award-winning artist Sarah Serio, will be teaching at Create Your Own Halloween Tote—artCentral’s Saturday for Kids. Class space is limited. Sign up your Trick-or-Treaters early for October 24, 10am-12pm. All supplies are furnished. Each tote is $10. Send your check with your reservations to artCentral. Call (417)358-4404 for more information.
 
If you missed last Saturday’s Creating Cocktails and Appetizers with Amanda Stone, start planning now to attend her next offering. This mom/mudpuppy/food writer for the Joplin Globe is dynamic and imaginative. She packs the house and your head with good humor as she spins a menu of culinary concoctions into mostly clean imbibing and eating and a hankering for more of her palette pleasing libations and garden savvy innovations.
 
artClasses. artCache. artCentral. Artful abundance—here, there, everywhere—to share.

Stacey knows well the restorative benefits of slowing down and self-soothing with yoga. A professional photographer and mother of two, her days are filled with multi-tasking, as she tends her own business and her charming twins, while finding time and energy to share work with her husband, Caleb, as they create boxed casual cuisine from Carthage’s new restaurant on wheels.

You’ve likely seen the chalkboard black and white Lunch Box Truck (available for catering and special events), frequently parked midday at Garrison and Fairview or at Grand and Macon streets. Stop by, order up and prepare to be pleased. I’ve sampled almost every menu offering, and I’ve been delighted by each choice. Rarely do I allow myself the indulgence of chips, but I can’t resist the Lunch Box Truck sweet potato version. Not too salty, and oh! so tasty. Try some! I finished off all mine on my way back to artCentral, but I still had a turkey sandwich to enjoy as I perched in the front porch swing, while thumping continued in the attic.

The porch swing, softly pillowed, is a pleasant perch any time, in any season—especially as we transition into autumn. From here lovely sights can be seen. Golden sprinklings tinge the top of the towering maple nearest the road. Hummingbirds grow more rotund by the day as they tank up at the feeder, preparing for their southern migration. Triplet ceramic sculpted totems sway in the cool breezes, and three glazed, polka-dotted mushrooms offer their cheery greetings at the foot of the front steps bedecked with lush bronze chrysanthemums. So much to love!

Even for the thumping I am grateful, in spite of the racket above me for days as I worked in our studio/office. The end to the noise is near. Finishing touches are being made to the new heating and air-conditioning attic unit that will keep artCentral comfortable and art-climate-friendly for many years. We at artCentral are truly thankful for this and all other goodnesses provided by the Hyde House Trust established for fostering and promoting the arts in our community. While receiving the beneficial bounty provided by an artistic visionary, our benefactress, Katherine Hyde, tolerating a week of attic thumping is a tiny tariff to pay.

YOGA BY CANDLELIGHT benefitting artCentral's Community Satellite Galleries

—Jackie Boyer, Pat Goff, Helen Kunze, Brenda Sageng and Gail White—welcoming guests and facilitating the evening’s brisk sales.

Artistic wizards Tom Jones and Brent Skinner, magician creators extraordinaire, filled the night with their electric presences plus 134 amazing works of beautiful, imaginative art. While many creations were purchased at the Opening Reception, magic still lingers in others now waiting your selection. Visit artCentral during Exhibition Gallery Hours (Fridays and Saturdays 12-5; Sundays 1-5) or call (417) 358-4404 for an appointment. The Exhibition continues through Sunday, September 27. Come soon! There’s magic here for you—on the walls, in the air, everywhere!

The wizardry greets you when you first arrive to find on the lawn three, towering, totemic stanchions complete with a QR code perched on a wand. Read the image with your smart phone and you magically meet the artists riffing on their work and inspirations. As you tour the show you’ll find more QRs scattered throughout, adding delightful dimensions to your viewing experience. Look for colors subdued, saturated and marvelously applied. Look for lines enchanting, entrancing and lyrical. Look for surfaces both gleaming and soft. You’ll find all these and satisfying surprises you’ve yet to imagine.

Your love for magic enlivened, attend one of artCentral’s September offerings: Saturday, September 19–Watercolor Painting with Tom Jones, $35; Wednesday, September 23–Media Branding and Marketing, $20 includes lunch; Thursday, September 24–Sculpting a Rose with April Davis, $40; and Saturday, September 26-Creating Cocktails and Appetizers with Amanda Stone, $10 Donation.

Come! See the magic! Try your hands at making your own!  

Audrey knows my love for all things French, especially beautiful phrases spoken in the City of Light. On my last visit with Audrey, Lex and Sophie, I found waiting for me an exquisite Parisian fingertip towel and a petite dish inscribed with the words “Je t’aime” (“I love you”)—the perfect resting place when that first night I set down another of Audrey’s presents, a wooden bangle engraved with “We’ll always have Paris”. 

Beginning my recent Seattle stay, Liko and Simon gave me a bowed bundle of Seattle chocolates, locally roasted coffee beans and wished-for portfolios from the Japanese market. When encouraged to open the guest closet door, I found three precious frocks only Liko could have chosen for me.

Year round, here at artCentral in our Boardroom Boutique, you’ll find a wide array of pocket-friendly, artist creations perfect for gifting. Between now and the New Year, your gift choices will be even more fabulously abundant with the fine artworks available in our three upcoming Exhibitions and at our Hyde House Holiday Boutique.

This Friday, September 11 at 6 pm, is the free Opening Reception for “Collective Perspectives: Canvas to Clay” showcasing new art by Tom Jones and Brent Skinner. Please join us. You’ll find remarkable paintings, classy ceramics, artfully practical mugs and much, much more with a range of price points to please.

Arriving in October, “Sibling Inspirations” will fill our galleries with the exquisite, multi-media creations of internationally known sister and brother artists, Rebecca and Bill Perry. In this stunning Exhibition you’ll discover irresistible, imaginative photography, one-of-a-kind  jewelry and a multiplicity of artworks from the whimsical to the provocative.

With “Falling into Place”, November will showcase the two and three dimensional paintings of Diana and Jim Bray, well-known, married Joplin painters sharing a passion for making art beautifully sing with inspirations they find in people and places and in dimensions beyond our physical world. This lyrical collection has been created especially for your viewing and purchasing pleasures.

artCentral’s Holiday Boutique, our fund-raising benefit supporting artCentral’s community outreach programs, will be our season’s beautiful dénouement. Beginning with our evening Boutique Preview Party on Thursday, December 3, you’ll find Hyde House transformed into a shopping dreamland filled with distinctive creations from artCentral artists’ studios and workshops. The Exhibition and Sale continues through Friday and Saturday.

Mark your calendars, visit artCentral and chat with our art-savvy gift consultants. We’re here to serve and assist you with your special selections, as we join together to foster art, artists and the giving of gifts as an art form. 

As “an-artist-woman-of-a-certain-age”, I like knowing my creative skill set has a diverse repertoire of life’s lessons learned. Still there’s always another new learning curve to climb and another opportune lesson to master, like “How to Buy a New Car”.

 “‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)”, according to Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland.

Surprised, and pleased, I am to find myself in Wonderland with new wheels beneath me after driving the same ride for twenty-one years!

With the coaching and positive encouragement of my west coast son, Simon, and my Hometown banker, Lonnie, I’ve worked the steps from choosing to registering my shiny new artCentral green Soul that now parks at Hyde House. Thank you Simon and Lonnie for guiding me and telling me, “It’s time. You can do this. This is right for you. You’re doing the right thing!”

Positive words have such tremendous power to transform yearning and curiosity into the wonderment of abundance.

During a recent water-centric Seattle staycation with my Great Northwest family, I basked in the beautiful environment created by positive words and deeds among caring, courteous people. Staying with my son,  daughter-in-law and her ninety-six year old father in the home they share, I delighted in the joys and ease of our daily urban adventures.

After the endless choices that big city offers, coming home to Carthage could be a bit of a small town letdown; yet our small town has everything that matters plus the efficiency of simple living, such as a fifteen minute in-and-out at the DMV enhanced with helpful politeness.

Making my homecoming truly sweet, was hearing admiring words spoken by a man doing work at Hyde House. He asked if I would like to meet a beautiful woman. I said, “Yes.” When she brought his lunch, he introduced me to his pretty wife. After her departure, he told me how fortunate he feels to have the perfect wife for twenty-eight years.

To his husbandly admiration I listened with pleasure, as I considered all the curious steps they’ve worked together learning their way to the satisfaction and bliss that is wonderment.