​The excitement is palpable in Hyde House! The call has gone out and responses are coming in as artCentral artists deliver their donations for artCentral’s fundraising SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS 5x7 Silent Auction opening Friday, October 7 at 12 noon.

Traveling in a partnership of equals they found their diverse talents and skills made them the perfect business partners to go forward together, to succeed in manifesting their shared dreams and to enjoy a comfortable life of their own making.
 
Beautiful renderings of Andy’s and Dina’s artistic collaboration can be found in the interior restoration of St. Ann’s Catholic Church here in Carthage. With Dina serving as volunteer leader for the restoration, Andy designed and built wooden frames for the Stations of the Cross lining the church walls. He also designed the grand wooden encasement for the Sacred Heart statue. Together, they restored the statue.
 
Another collaborative venture for Andy and Dina, a must-see for Carthaginians and visitors to enjoy, Andy’s “Big Dreams Grow in Carthage” mural is just off the historic Carthage Square at the corner of Grant and Fourth Streets. Preserving local history was an idea proposed by Vision Carthage that Andy and Dina both liked. Dina did much of the background work and provided assistance and promotion in order for Andy to just create. The artwork was initially conceived in watercolor with several oil paintings made in the process. Installed in tiles, the completed mural tells the story of famous people whose roots came from small-town Carthage, Missouri.
 
Over many years Andy has shared his talents with our community, first with a mural entitled “Memories of Carthage High” at the Carthage R9 Auditorium on Main Street, later designing the theme artwork for the 2011 Carthage Maple Leaf Celebration and Sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Andy was honored with the 2013 Carthage Citizen of the Year and Artist Award at the Carthage Chamber of Commerce Banquet. In 2020 Andy was installed in the Hall of Carthage Heroes.

A nationally recognized artist, Andy’s historical and western works hang in numerous museums, galleries, national parks and private collections. His advice to painters aspiring to success:  “You are successful because you keep going. You have to want to be better. A positive attitude goes a long, long way. Put on a happy smile and surround yourself with positive thinking and positive speaking people.” Dina emphasizes: “Modesty and self-criticism do not sell art. If you cannot say something nice about your art, do not say anything at all!”
 
At the SMALL WORKS/GREAT WONDERS Silent Auction you will have many, many nice somethings to say about Andy’s “Choosing the Perfect Tree” and every other original 5x7 donation in this terrific collection created by the artists of artCentral.
 
All the Silent Auction 5x7 creations will be on view beginning October 1 at artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org and https://www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/photos_albums.
 
Mark your calendars to celebrate the magic of the HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE October 7 through December 3.

and numbers—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—facing forward. These are treasures from my childhood—the building blocks I played with over and over as I learned about numbers and letters.
 
Describing the shrine I have made honoring my husband, I feel immensely grateful for the privilege of walking this walk of sobriety with David, but I must confess this has been so much harder and much more challenging than I anticipated, though he has not touched a drink since we married.
 
The easiest decision and action came early when we cleared our home of alcohol and all the accoutrements that can go with the drinking life. Next came a stretch of David’s second guessing. Had he made the right choice? Was he ready? Couldn’t he drink just a little?
 
The lingering appeal of the old life has been powerful. Since that initial act of commitment and the doubting time that followed, each step forward has been processed through filters of denial, resistance, depression, stone-walling, back paddling, behavioral relapsing and checking out. Steadiness and stability have been hard to achieve and to sustain. The resolve for change has been elusive. Choosing to stay present to create a better future has presented a daunting learning curve. The hard work required emotionally has been at times overwhelming.
 
When David quit drinking, he stopped cold turkey with only me and his determination as his support. Without the numbing effects of alcohol in his system, the troubling emotions of resentment and anger—masked by drinking for 52 years—rose to the surface and were expressed with terrifying forcefulness. Anti-depressants were prescribed. They helped with the anger but over time rendered David emotionally dysfunctional. They were taken away.
 
I now realize to stop drinking and to depend on prescribed drugs to moderate behaviors are not enough to bring about the radical transformation an alcoholic must experience. Relationship and coping skills, ordinarily learned as part of an adolescent’s development but delayed by the early escape into drinking, must be retroactively mastered for a new life to be built and the art of living sober to be enjoyed.
 
For 5 years I have kept walking the walk with David, wishing, hoping and praying a mentoring couple would come into our life—those who have been through what we are experiencing, someone to guide us and help us learn the art of being happy in sobriety.
 
Though that couple has yet to appear, support has come through the caring and love of family and friends, the wisdom of experienced therapists and the fellowship of AA. I offer my small shrine in gratitude for these and for David’s courage that has gotten us through 5 years to here and for his continuing to practice the art of making a new life. For David’s sobriety and a beautiful life ahead, I am grateful.
____________
A beautiful life is now on display in the galleries of Hyde House. Come see the paintings of Al Gritten and Sandra Parrill in SPIRITUAL SPACES through September 17. Weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. Mark your calendars to celebrate the magic of the HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE opening October 7.

​One by one, week after week, on our Sunday walks along a creek in the woods, I picked them up—5 wee empty bottles—half hidden beneath fallen leaves, twined in muscadine vines draped over the ground, pressed face down in a bed of moss, floating at the edge of the water and half buried in the mud. Bringing them home, I unscrewed the lids, rinsed out the tiny plastic flasks and stood them in a marching row atop a studio chest that holds my art supplies. I figured they would become art someday, I just did not know how or when.
 
Inspiration came as an email from Spiva Center for the Arts announcing the “call for entries” for the 75th MEMBERSHIP SHOW that will be the first Spiva exhibition to be installed in the Harry M. Cornell Arts & Entertainment Complex in Joplin. In an instant I knew that I would make and deliver my shrine as my entry. During my Sunday studio afternoons I have made a shrine. I will make my delivery in a few weeks and be pleased to see my little shrine hanging in the company of amazing regional art in Spiva’s sanctums.
 
Making a new work of art can take courage. You put your heart on the line. You reveal your unclothed soul. Determined to seek and find joy, on the way you may go to places you did not know you would go, places that can make you feel uncomfortable, places you may not like. You must be brave. Though you become nakedly vulnerable to acceptance or rejection, you must carry on. You must surrender and allow the Force to flow through you.
 
Courage, determination, bravery and surrender are essential when making a new work of art: likewise when you are making a new life.
 
Five years ago, I signed on to make the art of a new life with my partner, David Greenwood-Mathé. I offered one proviso before our marriage: David had to stop drinking. He did. After a 52-year drinking career, David has been sober for 5 years—5 years sober and counting, as he rounds the bend into his 71st year of living.
 
To my brave and beloved husband I send this birthday wish…“May your 71st birthday be fabulously happy and may the new year before you be filled with many blessings of sobriety and with many, many more to come.”
 
I have heard you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe…but I am witnessing a brave, old soul create a brand new life! I feel deeply happy for David, and for our sharing his new life together! My 5 bottle shrine honors the sobriety journey we have made so far, though the journey has not been easy and the journey is not done.
 
The backdrop for my shrine, purchased for three dollars at an “old stuff sale”, is a rusty red tray lifted out and discarded and long separated from the tool box that was once home. Turned on one long side, the tray can be imagined as a very narrow and shallow room with a ceiling and a floor, two side walls, a back wall and the front wall missing for looking inward.
 
The 5 bottle caps—black, red, gold, black and black—stride across the floor of the shrine. The 5 empty bottles, from left to right—Black Heart Premium Spiced Rum, Fireball Red Hot Cinnamon Whiskey, World Famous Dr. McGillicuddy’s Intense Butterscotch Liquor followed by one then another Wild Turkey American Honey Exceptionally Smooth Liqueur—are all turned neck down and suspended in the fashion of an arching rainbow. Hung on the back wall among the bottles are 2 photo booth images of a handsomely jaunty, cigarillo smoking young sailor dressed in street clothes while on shore leave.
 
To be continued….
 
Until then, come visit the beautiful paintings of SPIRITUAL SPACES in the Hyde House galleries through September 17. Weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. 

   Turning the Corner into Autumn and the HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE!          

Turning the corner into autumn is definitely happening as we head toward artCentral’s HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE! August is gone. Fini!
 
September is here which to this Southern woman means autumn has begun, because down south I learned that new fashion rules start after September 1! Growing up as a girl in Little Rock, Arkansas, I quickly understood: “You never wear white shoes or carry a white purse after September 1, or at the least, you stop donning white footwear or handbags after Labor Day!”
 
Really? Hmmmm…though at this time every year, in my head I still hear a replay of that cautionary admonishment, I have long since given up trying in any season to follow any fashion rules that do not allow me to dress as I please.

For these present transitional days, wearing or not wearing white is not on my list of color considerations. To the contrary, I am practicing gratitude for the green restored by recent showers and the plethora of late season jewel colors emerging as our flora makes a comeback from summer’s intense heat. I am enjoying anticipating the autumn palette that will delight us throughout our Maple Leaf celebrations. Beyond that I am looking ahead to the traditional reds and greens that will appear to grace our celebratory holidays.
 
Mostly my mind is fast-forwarding to those reds and greens and all the twinkling lights that enhance them for the decorating of artCentral’s elegant Hyde House and enchanting HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE. In truth, here in early September I am immersed in the colors and the creating of artCentral’s arty festivities for October-November-December. Our 2022 HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE, October 7 through December 3, promises to bring pleasures to cherish and treasure through the sparseness of winter’s depth and far into the New Year.

Four featured artCentral artists and their charming, perfect-for-gifting artisan creations will be showcased in the galleries downstairs and upstairs, too. Debbie Barnett’s painted-on-wood mandalas are stunning. (David and I first found them at Spellbound Boutique where we quickly purchased two to hang on the old doors of our music salon.) Kristin Girard will offer an array of the amazingly beautiful one-of-a-kind jewelry she creates—often with repurposed elements. Brenda Hayes will bring us upcycled funky hats and scarves, whimsically delightful paintings and décor, and magical wee journals all made with parts of old and bits of new and lots of love. Jane McCaulley’s original works of glass—ornaments, tea lights and decorative wonders—celebrate the splendor and sparkle of glass that brings newness and freshness to every setting in every season.
 
Of course colors and more colors will abundantly abound in the SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS Silent Auction. This is your perfect opportunity to choose and begin or add to your collection of exquisite 5x7 canvases created and donated by artCentral artists who support this annual fundraiser that benefits artCentral programs. Beginning October 1, you can preview all the images at www.artcentralcarthage.org and on Facebook at ArtCentralCarthage. With the October 3 HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE opening, you can see all the 5x7’s at Hyde House and place your bids on the official bid sheets, call in your bid to (417)358-4404 or email your bid to artcentral@artcentralcarthage.org.
 
Again, for this year’s BOUTIQUE the color of scarlet will reign supreme as the annual limited edition SCARLET AMARYLLIS SALE again features bulbs imported from Amsterdam. Each will be presented for $30.00 with an elegant bow in a clay pot hand-crafted by an artCentral artist—perfect for decorating gifting! Order yours early!
 
As we turn summer’s corner into autumn, dressed as you please with or without white accessories, there is still time to come visit the beautiful natural palettes of SPIRITUAL SPACES in the Hyde House galleries through September 17. Weekend gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m.