free during weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information or to schedule a weekday visit please call (417) 358-4404 through November 18th.

Soon after Thanksgiving artCentral will be filled with new art made with love especially for your holiday shopping and gifting. The annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction will take place November 29 and 30 and December 1. Mark your calendar now and visit www.artcentralcarthage.org for more details.
 
While there’s a lot of art made with love and shown at Hyde House, there’s a lot of art made with love at my Paradise house, as well. I’m an artist. My husband David’s an artist. Lucky I am, for David’s also a trained chef which means every morning I get an artful, made-with-love breakfast in bed.
 
Recently coming back up the stairs with a breakfast tray generously laden, David brought a story that goes like this: “You know how people say, ‘Food always tastes better when it’s made with love’, well, this breakfast was made with a lot of love! The eggs were made with my dragging around our Aussie puppy with her front legs wrapped around my leg while I shuffled from the frig to the stove top. The egg scrambling was done with one hand while I played tug-of-war with a towel with the puppy tugging on the other end. The juice was made with the puppy jumping up on me with a squeaky toy in her mouth going squeak, squeak, squeak and the toast was made and saved with my grabbing away the slices just in time as the puppy put her front paws on the counter and opened her puppy mouth wide to steal the toast waiting on our plates. So you see, this breakfast was made with a lot of love.”
 
There’s been a lot of puppy love infusing the creative efforts made at our house and with our arty friends, too.
 
One of Lasyrenn’s God-given puppy traits is her capacity to chew up any attractive object that catches her Aussie eye or tempts her Aussie nose. In our storeroom we’ve collected a huge pile of Aussie-loved leftovers. Among these are puppy beds decorated with huge holes; bouncing balls sadly deflated and torn into remnants; pieces remaining from tethers and halters chewed clear through in moments of boredom; stuffed animals missing limbs and noses; and solo shoes that once belonged to nice matching pairs. While we talk of someday making a puppy collage using all these random, well-loved treasures, we do quake at the prospect of tallying the mounting costs of our puppy-created assemblage.
 
Just ask artCentral gallery docent, Emily Rose. A cat-lover herself, Emily knows all about the personal costs of being the object of puppy love. This time last year Emily was at artCentral doing her weekend gallery tending. She was also completing her sketching on the canvas she was preparing to paint and donate for the Holiday Boutique Silent Auction that features artCentral artist-created canvases. David and I popped in to say “hello”. While we visited with Miss Em, she turned away from her sketching. Lasyrenn seeing an alluring object to chew upon helped herself to Emily’s unattended art-in-the-making. Happily Lasyrenn chewed away a corner of the canvas and wooden stretcher then left her signature toothy, puppy markings all over the rest of Emily’s lovely drawing. Before our puppy was discovered, the damage was thoroughly done.
 
Emily’s quivering lower lip and streaming crocodile tears were so, so sad to see. Shaken but not discouraged, with her love for artCentral and her skilled strokes, Emily rallied and rendered another canvas for her donation. David took Emily’s damaged canvas and painted a portrait ode to Lasyrenn. On one edge “No! No! No!” was boldly lettered. On another edge: “DROP IT!” was painted like a shout.
 
The Silent Auction came. Bidding was brisk. David put in the winning bid and now has an original Emily proudly displayed in our music salon. I bid high and brought home David’s portrait of our puppy.
 
Soon you’ll have your own opportunity to bid on the stunning collection of 5x7 artist created canvases in this year’s Silent Auction. These and all the art in artCentral’s Holiday Boutique at Hyde House are guaranteed to be made with love.
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among darkly mystifying hints of mysteries. They’re​ telling us the sacred day of Halloween is next on our calendar of seasonal celebrations.

While we lay in stores for trick-or-treaters and the small and youthful citizens of our community are getting costumed up for school parties and going from door-to-door down Grand Avenue, some are mindfully beginning a three-day observance of Allhallowtide—the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs and all the faithful departed.

What better way to remember those passed over than to tell their stories? Yes, this is a storytelling time of year when we pass down family tales both fact and fiction—headless horsemen and folks-a-flyin’ all bound up with lace-encrusted ancestors and cracked photos of nameless children posed in most peculiar settings! Our local shop windows remind us of such carrying-ons, especially at Screen Door Antiques, aka Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited on the Square’s west side at 331 South Main.

Come with me now and I’ll take you into this enchanting downtown venue owned and operated by Dana and Gary Reed with the help their family. With love for artistic aesthetics of color and texture, Dana brings in the design talents of her more than two dozen vendors and consignors.

Passing their story-filled, bewitching windows, we walk into a really good, living, breathing, bigger-than-life storybook overflowing with countless enchantments and wonders. Taking time to have a visit with Dana is one of the best wonders of all!

Raised in the Carolinas in an arty family of five, Dana as a very small girl dreamed of growing up and having her own magical shop—like the romanticized ones she saw in movies—filled with curiosities and collectibles. At age twelve she climbed onto a school bus with her music-minded parents and adventuresome siblings and their two cats. Off they went on their meanderings. Unlike the bygone “grand tours” that covered Europe in a year or two, their “grand tour” followed the coastline covering the southern states over several annums as they stretched out to Arizona then circled back to mid-America and Missouri. Kansas City then Springfield were their chosen ports of call.

While living her own road story (a genre favored by Dickens), Dana read voraciously. Throughout our conversation favorite authors kept popping up and dropping in—Poe and Steinbeck and Dickens among them. With her love for literature and language and story to know Dana became a teacher is no surprise. For twelve years while raising her family, she taught school.

Somewhere over her traveling miles and through her child-rearing years, Dana’s shop keeping dream faded away and was almost completely lost. Eventually she and her husband Gary leased a warehouse on Route 66, filled the space with vintage antiques and sold them. One day on the square in 2016, she pressed her nose against the plate glass window of the Screen Door’s storefront and thought, “I wish I had a shop like this”. They bought the store and then in 2018 they acquired Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited (opened originally in 1991) and blended the two ventures.

Late one night, working alone after store hours while setting objects in yet another display installation, Dana realized, “I had a dream when I was a little girl. My dream has come true. I’m living my dream!” Walking into the Reeds’ store is like walking into a dreamy book. There’s so much to see, to discover, to investigate and study. The vast space is set up with nooks and crannies, each a different chapter, each leading to the next and somehow related as they go forward and backward and sometimes veer to one side or the other. They cover many genres: primitive, mid-century, farmhouse, reclaimed and repurposed, vintage, antique and even shabby chic, home décor and gift items.

Dana and Gary and all their staff aspire to be open and friendly, helpful and flexible—the best antique store in the four state area with price points and something special for everyone. They’re succeeding beautifully! I’m bewitched by the art of their windows and by their art-making of Dana’s childhood dream.

Don’t forget: “The Art of Quilting” exhibition remains on view at Hyde House through November 18th.
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Witches still appear in autumn windows. All decked out in their signature black, I’m spying them in some of my favorite storefront displays that ring around our enchanting, historic Carthage Square. These witches are charming and amusing. They’re all artsy. Some are downright funny.
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Two of these beguiling dark-clad crones have recently caught my attention to beckon me through front doors into shops full of delights and overflowing with curiosities. Bewitched by these window wonderments, I’ve met and grown to know two Carthage women, both visionary shopkeepers. Both have followed their instincts and intuitions. Both have worked hard and successfully created family owned and run businesses that are great sources of customer satisfaction, the kind that creates a loyal base of patrons that repeatedly return.

Come with me this week and I’ll introduce you to Sharon Coffee, owner of Colonial House at 348 Grant Street on the east side of the square. Next week we’ll visit with Dana Reed at Screen Door Antiques, aka Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited on the Square’s south side at 331 South Main.

Sharon, a native of Monett, Missouri, and her husband, David, a son of Detroit, originally met at their Christian College in Tennessee. After their marriage, they moved about with David’s work until settling, first in Mt. Vernon, then in Carthage in 1979 to raise their family—two daughters and a son—who’ve grown up to make their own families. These days their youngest pre-school grandson spends weekday afternoons “helping” Sharon in the shop.

Together Sharon and David opened their Colonial House eleven years ago. For seventeen years, Sharon had worked as a secretary in the library at Carthage High School, before deciding to launch out in a new direction. She was inspired witnessing the success of her sister Cindy, who owns the 6,000 square foot Cobblestone in St. Charles, Missouri, outside of St. Louis.

What a pleasure to walk into Colonial House and find a Carthage grown original—an artistically designed home décor store specializing in only American made furniture and home accessories. The day Sharon and I set aside time to visit, after she put her “helper” down for a nap, we chatted quietly at a sturdy dining room table, festooned with an assortment of enticing gift and decorating items. Each time the bell at the front door jingled to announce the gentle stream of arriving new customers coming to browse and shop, we paused our conversation for Sharon to offer her greeting and welcome. Feeling relaxed in the shop’s serenity, we easily picked up the threads of our talk.

Since inception, Colonial House has been filling a niche market that’s unique in our four state area. They carry colonial and primitive style furniture and every imaginable accessory to decorate your home—handmade lighting, rugs, prints, harvest tables and chairs, upholstered furniture, bedroom suites, candles, curtains and lots, lots more. You can find Americana accessories all year long with many historical reproduction prints.

I’m not a big fan of faux adornments that are made to look like foliage and flowers, but the ones I find in Colonial House keep me going back for more, especially the seasonally sweet bittersweet wreaths embellished with small cutout metal stars. Sharon’s flame-less candles with flickering wicks are mesmerizing!

At Colonial House the possibilities seem limitless. You can custom order a chair from a line of 200 designs. You can customize a table any way to suit your liking from the table top to the table legs, from the kind of wood to the finish. Each wood piece is hand made by Amish artisans in Ohio. With a myriad of styles from which to choose, all upholstered furniture pieces are also handmade by the Amish with hand-constructed frames of hard maple. Each artful creation is guaranteed for the lifetime of the purchaser.

As we enter our Maple Leaf Festival season and begin moving fast forward into and through the holidays be sure to stop in often at Colonial House where you’ll always find an abundance of seasonal décor. Handmade Santas are already in stock—the Arnett Santas as collectibles since 1976.

The shop’s annual Christmas Open House will take place the first weekend in November—the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Do drop in and as you’re leaving take another delightful look at Sharon’s bewitching witch in her window, then pay a visit to artCentral’s Hyde House and see the amazing “Art of Quilting” exhibition on view through November 18th during weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information or to schedule a weekday visit please call (417) 358-4404.



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have a brief meeting on the condition Jinny meet us on the sidewalk on the square.

​For days David and I had been down on our knees and derrières working our way around the perimeter of the courthouse. While we painted one fire hydrant and then another with swirls of maple leaves and poufy white clouds floating over a cerulean sky above vibrant green grass below, the sidewalk pavement was, as the old timers say, “hot enough to fry an egg,” as temperatures soared through an end-of-summer heat wave.

In spite of the sweltering conditions we had to multi-task and meet with Jinny while we kept painting. We were on a deadline—determined, with the help of a bevy of plein air artCentral artists, to have all the hydrants dressed up and spiffy along the parade route for last October’s Maple Leaf Festival. 

Jinny arrived, sat down on the midday hot, hot sidewalk alongside us and made her pitch for a quilt exhibit at artCentral. A month later in artCentral’s pleasantly cool, upstairs library, we met again—Jinny and I and members of the quilt exhibit committee including Barbara Montague, Ruth Potter and Sandy Swingle.

​After months of planning and preparing, quilters hand-delivered their treasures to Hyde House, and David and I spent a couple of evenings working into the wee hours installing this colorful exhibition of fiber arts with their individual story cards. Barbara Montague filled the shelves in the chandelier gallery with her personal treasure trove of quilts and fibers paired with selections from her crockery collection. The door prize quilt, “Lone Star” (valued at $500), made and donated by Jinny Hopp and Barbara Montague, was wall-mounted and made ready to receive five-dollar donations for tickets available at the opening and through the exhibition’s run. Additionally two dozen artful fiber items were displayed with their cards for visitors to make their silent bids. All proceeds from the Silent Auction and Door Prize donations will go to fund artCentral’s work on behalf of art and artists.

Michele Hansford spent an afternoon selecting award winners for outstanding entries based on their artistic, compositional and technical qualities. Michele’s husband, Gary Hansford, himself an accomplished quilter, lent his insights based on his years of experience and technical expertise. Award placards and ribbons adorned with quilted medallions handmade by Ruth Potter were paired with envelopes filled with cash prizes and set aside for the announcements to follow.

The Art of Quilting opened with last Friday night’s festive celebration! Guests arriving at Hyde House were greeted and treated to seasonal pleasures created by Joplin Globe food columnist, Amanda Stone—ice cream floats served “with and without”. When I asked Amanda for her recipe to share she replied, “Ummm…I don’t have a real recipe. The ingredients are apple cider, an array of spices, sugar, optional caramel vodka, club soda and vanilla ice cream.” No exacting recipe was needed. Amanda’s creations were heavenly!

At last the time for the long anticipated announcement of awards arrived. Best in Show: Jinny Hopp for “Full Bloom: 4th and 6th Designs”; Gold: Mary Thornton for “Hourglass of Life”; Silver: Sue Swindle for “Peach—Anyone”; Bronze: Joan Banks for “The Snowy Day”; and Judge’s Choice: Francis McDaniel for “Basket of Flowers”.

The honey-haired quilter, that so caught David’s and my attention when we first saw her at Cherry’s Art Emporium on the Square, was present for The Art of Quilting opening. Still seated and framed within “The Wedding King Quilt”, she continued working silently, beautifully rendered with oils on canvas by Roy Lee Ward.

During weekend gallery hours or by appointment at (417) 358-4404, come see this lovely, honey-haired quilter as you view this wondrous fiber arts exhibition. All remain at artCentral through November 18th.

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GOLD · Mary Thornton · "Hourglass of Life"

Time ticks on in small bits.
But each bit has the power to take large bites of ones being.
Time seems to move effortlessly through space. 
It is paced at being the present between the past and the future.
We can't alter the past,
We attempt to deal with the present,
We can only dream of the future, knowing in all certainty it is only a dream.

With such power that nothing can halt its progression,
It is cursed, it is envied, it is abused, it triumphs. 
It adds balance to music, rhythm to dance, flow to words. 
It has the power to crumble tall mountains, erode the strongest structures, diminish the greatest efforts and achievements.

Propaganda speaks that time has the power to heal but in whose life time. 
Time has withstood all before it, 
and the barriers that tried to hold back its passages
have all crumbled into nonexistence. 

The beating of the heart, the swinging of the pendulum, the movement of the celestial bodies are all put in motion by its power. 
Time will take it all back 
To dust. ​

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JUROR’S CHOICE · Francis McDaniel · "Basket of Flowers"

I got this pattern about 2014 from a dear friend, Doris McCall, from Golden City, Missouri. The Basket of Flowers quilt she made for a full size bed was gorgeous.

I decided I wanted to make a miniature of Doris’s quilt. Using 2,249 hexagons, getting my Basket of Flowers made took all this time.

I was sorry Doris passed away before I got my miniature finished. For this reason, Basket of Flowers is precious to me.
 ​

Autumn! Oh, how I do love this crisp season with so much to enjoy. Signs of celebration are appearing all around us. You can see them in the imaginative windows of Mother Road Coffee on the square. Enlisting the artistic ingenuity and talents of Terri Bunn, at MRC Kara and Ed Hardesty go all out to decorate for each new season. For now, among a plethora of colorful delights tucked into a forest of birch tree trunks (or are they aspens?) there’s a stack of books perched on a shelf.

Descriptive words are neatly printed on the book spines, as though they’re song lyrics on the staff lines of sheet music. Collectively they perfectly describe this magical season. They poignantly express my autumnal sense of wonderment as together they sing a sweet shout out for the joys of this time of year: Autumn; jeans; crisp air; football; hot cider; good books; coffee; bliss. I’m tempted to sneak in two more volumes placed at the tip top of the stack. The text on my volumes would read “art” and “quilts”!

Yes, art is at the top of every stack of books in our house and at artCentral’s Hyde House, too. Art is what makes this and every season special. The art of nature. The art of gathering with family and friends. The art of slowing down so not to miss the comfort this season brings to all of us. The art of seeing another splendid exhibition filling our gallery walls with the beauty of quilted fiber creations.

The current exhibition, “The Art of Quilting”, at artCentral, in the galleries upstairs and down is made possible by the generous underwritting of Edward Jones Financial Advisors in Carthage: Darren Collier, Kristi J. Montague, Joe Ryder and Garrett Stramel.

This exhibition offers us the best of autumn—color, imagination, comfort—on the walls of Hyde House waiting for your viewing all through our Carthage Maple Leaf Festival and beyond to November 18th! Quilters with outstanding entries have been selected by juror, Michelle Hansford. Their ribbons and awards hang beside their creations.

These aren’t just old-fashioned or ordinary quilts. These are fashion-forward fiber art. They come with stories told by the creators who give us written windows into their art-making.
Exploring how others see her is the foundation for Mary Thornton’s “Quintessence of the Heart”. Using a drawing a friend composed of her after she wore outlandish leggings to her friend’s home, she broke free of her friend’s constraints to radiate her soul outwards with the colors of hope, life, love and creative synergies. Some free motion flowers are enhanced to be a rebirth of ideas.

Fiber artist, Andrea Luliak, says about her “Oklahoma Earthquakes”, “Oklahoma has experienced an unprecedented rash of earthquakes caused by wastewater disposal during fracking operations. I strongly felt two earthquakes where I live and the impression they made on me was intense. No one knows the extent these earthquakes will have on Oklahoma, but I needed to show the displacement of the earth in this piece.”

“Peach – Anyone”—cream on one side, peach on the other—by Sue Swindle is an oval, reversible table runner with a satin stitch edge.

Lillie Eaton usually looks for a appliqué pattern. Appliqué patterns are her love. When she saw the “Snow Village” pattern she was instantly drawn to the the colors and houses. She altered the original pattern, adding her own appliqué bird. She feels the quilt is very inviting and would be a great entry piece in someone’s home.

Joan Banks likes the dimension that a layer of organza gives to an art quilt. “The Snowy Day” feels almost as if you could step into her woodland setting and sink into the snow.
Through the weeks ahead, before our own winter descends, all the quilts at artCentral are hanging like open windows singing colorful welcomes to autumn and to you. Come see them soon and often during weekend gallery hours at artCentral: Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information or to schedule a weekday visit please call (417) 358-4404.
We think for sure you’ll hear autumn singing through our windows and on our walls in our big, old Hyde House.