I reminisce about missing my Australia Shepherd, Sasha, and Lab-Collie, Lucia. Both were with me for almost twenty years, passing shortly before I moved to Carthage. David knows how much I loved them.

Now with us are David’s beloved six-years-old Wheaten Terrier-Poodle, Chiquita along with his ancient and grand white cat, Ding. For me they’re like a priceless furry dowry—the ready-made family David brings to our marriage. We talk to them and about them a lot.
 
David and I often get what we talk about. We’re frequently amazed at how quickly our thoughts and words turn into realities. I’m holding our newest as I write.
 
Waking one recent morning, preparing to set the tone for our day by speaking our intentions, we reflect on the fullness and fast forward twirling of our life. We agree we want to simplify and create more spaciousness—to have more room to receive newness and to savor the newness that comes.
 
We speak our intentions accordingly and launch into the work of our day. Meeting up for lunch we stop by one of my favorite places—our local feed store where we restock supplies for our feathered ones—our four laying hens. I’m always quick to go in fast and get my first breath of all those grainy aromas I love.
 
David, slows me down saying, “Did you see that sign on the door, the one offering Aussi puppies?” In my eagerness to be inside, I passed right by. I go back to check the details. Sure enough six-week-old pups are available not too far out of town. The attached picture shows a litter of red merles—plump, little brothers and sisters gathered around their communal feed bowl. My heart sings just seeing them.
 
“Do you want to go look today?” asks David who is scheduled back at the library for his afternoon gig in reference. “Oh, yes! yes!” say I, “then we can go again tomorrow afternoon and choose one together. Today, I’ll just look.”
 
I do. I go and I look and then I just can’t help myself: I write our check without ever putting down the littlest, bright blue-eyed female I chose and gathered up the moment I saw her.
 
Now we’re lamenting how fast she’s growing and learning, her puppyhood slipping by so, so quickly. Trying to anticipate her ever changing needs, I’m speed reading “The Art of Raising a Puppy” by the monks of New Skete, famous for training pups. So far, our love and instincts seem to have us doing most things right.
 
The day we bring her home we take her to Art Walk and watch our chilled out little wonder being passed without even a whimper from one set of arms to the next—woman to man, man to child. The book says this is perfect socialization, though our vet cautions about taking Lasyrenn out before her vaccines are complete.

While local hummingbird visitors prepare to make their journeys south, the dogs of Carthage and their walkers have a new show to discover when making their rounds. A bevy of artCentral artists, in cooperation with CW&EP, are out on the town. You can see them, too. Drive down the Maple Leaf parade route and you’re likely to spy a painter—artCentral green-shirted, in total creative focus with brush and paint in hand, each leaning into one of sixteen fire hydrants strung up and down Grant, Grand and Centennial.
 
This Saturday past we’re off to an excellent start—painting hydrants and making dog friends. All the pre-arrangements are in place. We say “thank you” to Ron and Crystal Stiles who are allowing us to use their front room as our meet-up place and to Father Steve Wilson who’s arranged for Grace Episcopal Church to offer us a comfort station.
 
We send a bouquet of “thank yous” to artist Lora Waring who has cut out hundreds of theme related motifs—maple leaves and fluffy cumulus clouds mounted on sheets of foam core—a set for each artist to arrange as they create a swirl of autumn color against the sky blue background of their assigned stanchion.
 
Carrying, Benton, her infant son, Meagan Milliken, CW&EP Customer Relations Manager and project coordinator for the square and the parade route hydrants, arrives with the artist supplies she’s assembled—a full kit generously underwritten by CW&EP whose crew has done the power-washing and background painting. The painting party, off to a grand start, is only temporarily interrupted by much-needed rain.
 
While canine companions are finding hydrants on the route being dressed up for the October 21st Maple Leaf Parade, artCentral is preparing to fill our galleries with portraits of dogs that will stop you on your walk.  They’re painted and brought to us by artist Michael Steddum, a California transplant and much admired Missouri artistic treasure—an inspiration to all artists who aspire to make their living by their loving.
 
Michael loves dogs. A practitioner of “paint what you know and love”, Michael is at his easel six days a week expressing his passion as he paints everyday scenes of the canines he loves and enjoys. His ability to touch our heartstrings, while felt with pleasure by those of us nearby, echoes internationally with his patrons from Europe to Japan to Canada.
 
As we follow the postings of Michael’s digital journal, candidly, generously he reveals the layer-by-layer unfolding that leads to the completion of each new work. We see an initial concept and composition sketched with his exquisite black and white drawing laid on paper or canvas. We are awed at his mastery of his brushes and pigments. Fluent in oil and watercolor, his paintings are poignant in richness of depth and sensitive in nuance of color. Each is another exquisite rendering of one or more of our beloved companions at work or rest or play. Each causes our hearts to sing.
 
Joining the United States Navy in 1984, Michael was an illustrator during the latter part of his enlistment. After the military, Michael worked for a gallery in San Diego, California, where he honed his skills in the marketing of art. A 2014 Summa Cum Laude graduate with a BFA from MSSU, Michael is a self-published artist with more than 500 limited edition prints to his credit. He has produced numerous commissions for companies such as Field & Stream Apparel and Vance Creek, as well as for private collectors.
 
What a pleasure to honor and exhibit an artist of true excellence. Equally well-versed in his art making and in his highly professional presentation, Michael is indeed a true inspiration—a man with his talents unleashed.
 
The opening reception for “unleashed! DOG SHOW” is Friday, October 6, 2017, 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The public is invited. Admission is free. The exhibit continues through November 12, 2017, generously underwritten by HOMETOWN BANK.
 
For information call (417) 358-4404.
 

As I fall in love with Carthage—her beauty, her charm, her history, her diversity, her people and her places—Carthage embraces me. I feel welcome here, quickly woven into our community’s fabric.
 
Now with my husband, David, together we’re falling ever deeper in love with Carthage, while we offer our first public-works art collaboration. As the creative team of Greenwood-Mathé, we’re painting the fire hydrants on the square. Never did either of us dream fire hydrants would have such significant places in our shared life. Never have either of us experienced such a profound out pouring of appreciation for our artistic creations.
 
We love all you people of Carthage for your thumbs-up and kind, encouraging words. Thank you for driving and walking by saying “good job…beautiful…keep up the good work” as we sit on the concrete putting in dawn to dusk hours to complete each hydrant. Thank you to the quartet of junior high guys for nodding your approval in unison. Thank you to the young girl who observes, “You should be artists.” Thank you to the two young fellows on their segues who agree “Those are real good”. Route 66 travelers are especially complimentary.
 
Apparently on our very first plein air painting day, there was a bit of a public outcry on the square. As the CW&EP team prepped downtown hydrants with a final coat—the blue paint was misunderstood to be the color of a neighboring town’s athletic teams. We missed the downtown hubbub. We were heads-down painting our “practice” hydrant across from our house adding floating cumulus clouds and bright, swirling maple leaves to the backdrop we’d carefully chosen to be sky blue—not baby blue or powder blue or you-know who athletic blue.
 
One local restaurateur confesses, “Your blue is a good lesson for me. Like a lot of other people, at first I was really upset, but now the choice makes perfect sense, and reminds me I shouldn’t be so quick to rush to judgment.”
 
Months in the planning, our hydrant project was first conceived by Jason Choate, CW&EP Director of Water Services, after he viewed the Veterans Way hydrants in Mount Vernon. Artist Sarah Huntley connected Jason to me at artCentral. 
 
David and I made trips to view the patriotically themed hydrants in Mount Vernon, as well as in Galena, Kansas, where the hydrants are painted with black spots on white backgrounds reminiscent of Dalmatian dogs as fire truck mascots.
 
Choosing the theme for Carthage we went with our first artistic instinct which we usually find to be our best. For Carthage to be distinguished as ‘America’s Maple Leaf City’ gives us all the ingredients for a successful design: a simple iconic leaf motif that’s readily recognizable and allows for beautiful colors. We created the maple leaf/cloud designs and templates used on the square which will be used again when the hydrant painting is expanded to include sixteen hydrants on the Maple Leaf parade route. Lora Waring is putting in lots of hours preparing multiple sets of the motifs and templates for the ten artCentral artists joining our painting team.
 
The simple, theme-appropriate color palette is limited to six pigments. The paints used are marine quality to meet regulations. CW&EP is underwriting all project costs. Meagan Milliken, CW&EP Customer Relations Manager, is project coordinator for both the square and the parade route. She’s gathering supplies and serving as liaison with the fire department and in general cheering us on with her own good cheer.
 
Each hydrant requires approximately twenty to twenty-four hours for completion. With artCentral’s team of artists, artCentral is providing the talent and skill to produce professional art to beautify Carthage for the enjoyment of residents and guests alike. The artists are volunteering all their time. We love our artists!
 
Come to artCentral and you’ll fall in love with “The Beauty of Betsy Pauly” on exhibit through Sunday, September 17, 2017.  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.

​Now I can say, the Flint Hills are God’s country and Dan Clothier is the best of patrons and hosts. We work hard, oh yes—David as artist-under-contract, me as his happy assistant—and the finished murals, restored in an amazingly brief time frame, are vibrant and stunning.

I still can’t figure out how we find any leisure time to see the sites, but we do and the memories we make in the company of Dan and his delightful family will be with us forever! Dinners at Ad Astra and the Grand Central Hotel and Grill, impeccably restored by Suzan Barnes, are impressive and palate pleasing.

We’re awed by the massive stone Old Cedar Point Mill on the Cottonwood River where Dan has created a not-for-profit foundation focused on the mill’s restoration. Our side trips to the Stone Arched Bridge and the almost-completely-abandoned-one-time-cattletowns-turned-prospering-boomtowns give us peeks into the wild west out-law days dating back to the 1860’s when the latest Paris fashions are sold out of the backs of wagons.

The Victorian flint rock mansion  grown up around a one-room homesteader’s cabin, Clover Cliff Ranch, owned by gracious ranchers Warren and­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Susie Harshman, is perfectly sited and appointed well above the highway and railroad tracks and worthy of a write up in every travelogue.

Our family sunset wagon ride behind the ranch’s two huge, working black percherons, Rosie and Roxie, is straight out of a movie as we jostle and bump over the prairie pasture and through the curious members of the ranch’s one thousand steers. David’s and Dan’s brother-in-law’s late night jam session around the fire pit is as magical as the lightening dancing across the expansive sky.

The bunk house reserved for us by Dan is private, spacious and exquisitely conducive to romance as we lay in a newlywed embrace listening to soft whistles of train engines pulling their trailing cars that seem to stretch out as far as the California coast.
​
Like my “regular” wedding band engraved with “everyday” and my “special” stone-embellished wedding band engraved with “forever”, David’s and my working honeymoon in the Flint Hills, a là Dan Clothier’s generosity, gives us precious memories to savor every day and forever while we anticipate our “real” honeymoon on foreign soil.
 
Today, as we save our pennies for Paris, France, we return to Carthage more newly-wed-in-love for having explored and fallen in love with the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas.
 
Come to artCentral and you’ll fall in love with “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.