I love the story Andy tells of how badly he wanted to be successful enough to make painting his fulltime career and the sole means for supporting his family. For sixteen years while working his day job for Leggett & Platt, he went home to paint late into the night.
 
Andy was inspired when he met Lowell Davis, Bob Tommey and Jerry Ellis. They were making their livings painting full time and supporting their families. Though Andy thought, “I can do this, too,” he wasn’t fully convinced until he and Lowell had a three hour heart-to-heart talk in Lowell’s drafty old farmhouse. When Andy left that initial visit, he says there were two people in the world—Lowell and Andy—who truly believed in his ability to achieve his dream.
 
In pursuit of his own holy grail Andy set out on his quest supplied and suited out with his natural talents and riding a steed of passionate determination. Increasingly he grew confident in his ability to achieve his goals. Meeting his wife and muse Dina brought the special magic his journey needed. 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.
 
Andy’s 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!”
 
Andy believes he was blessed with good parents because Clarke and Olive Thomas taught him that family comes first. Today he and Dina have six children and eleven grandchildren with whom their lives are beautifully interwoven. Andy likes to give drawing lessons to the youngsters who often hang out in his studio. The glimpses of talent he sees are his best rewards. Perhaps because of Andy’s generosity, future heroes are already sitting at their grandfather’s feet. 

Through Saturday, December 5, Weekend Gallery Hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. with CDC protocols practiced at artCentral. Face masks, social distancing and sign in are required for everyone entering Hyde House.
 
Be sure to tune in Saturday, December 5, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., for the Facebook LIVE Closing Celebrations for the Silent Auction and the 2 FRIENDS Exhibition featuring the exquisite oil paintings of Ina Niday and Mary Datum.  You will be able to view all the art in real time, ask questions, place your winning bids and make purchases.
 
To see Andy’s and all paintings on display at artCentral visit Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/ as well as at www.artcentralcarthage.org. For more information call: (417) 358-4404.

Some say old artists never die, they just paint away. Certainly this is true of beloved artist Lowell Davis. At age 83, on the first day of November, 2020, All Souls Day, Lowell took his leave as naturally as he lived, forever faithful to the talents so generously bestowed upon him.

The love of all the artCentral community goes out to Lowell's beloved wife Rose and to all his family and friends as we join with them in sending this hero on his way. Lowell's inspiration and his love for life and art will be with us always!

On behalf of artCentral I had the privilege of naming Lowell Davis as the Carthage Artist of the Year at the 2019 Carthage Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet. Well-known artist and native son Andy Thomas was artCentral’s evening presenter. Andy told the poignant story of how Lowell had inspired and mentored him. He declared, “Lowell is in my eyes the greatest artist I have ever known. He’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some great people.”

With four hundred people rising to their feet and clapping waves of enthusiasm, leaning lightly on his cane, Lowell made his way down to the front, up the steps and onto the stage. He stopped some distance back from the podium. He just stood planted there as tears coursed down his weathered cheeks and Academy Award winner’s music blared over the loud speakers. When the crowd finally silenced, Lowell stepped to the microphone and said, “Let me tell you a little story. When I got out of the Air Force I went to the Dallas-Fort Worth area as an art director for a big ad agency.” 

Inducted into the Hall of Carthage Heroes in 2019, Lowell was honored as an Artist and Citizen of Distinction with a plaque celebrating his life. Born in Lawrence County, Missouri, on June 8, 1937, Lowell grew up in Red Oak. He attended Mark Twain grade school and Carthage High School. Lowell married Rose Castillo Davis in 2003. He had three daughters and three sons from previous marriages: April Davis Brunner, also an artist, Heather Davis, Wren Davis, Phillip Davis, Jeb Davis and Aaron Davis.

Ironically, after failing English and art his sophomore year at Carthage High School in the 1950’s, Lowell dropped out to join the Air Force. Following his military service and his stint as a big city commercial art director, Lowell moved back to Missouri and a farm.

Among Lowell’s greatest contributions to the Carthage area is his recreation of his childhood hometown of Red Oak, the original now vanished. Red Oak II is a charming step back into a small rural town, complete with the original Phillips 66 gas station, general store, school house, blacksmith shop, a white steepled church and the Belle Starr home he preserved, moved and restored on the property. Thousands of visitors traveling Route 66 have made a special stop to explore Red Oak II. Many have had the pleasure of a visit and a photo op with Lowell at his home there.

In 1978, Lowell was one of the founding members of The Midwest Gathering of the Artists, a juried art exhibit and sale held in Carthage for more than thirty years to showcase Midwestern and Western paintings and sculptures.

Lowell’s artistic works include paintings, figurines, bronzes, metal sculptures and art books that reflect small town life in rural Missouri—giving storybook glimpses into simpler and often sweeter times. Known around the globe for his art depicting farm life in America, most especially in Jasper County, Lowell is often referred to as the “Norman Rockwell of Rural Art”.

​We are so very grateful to be gifted with the legacies of this great man. The spirit and the stories of Lowell Davis will live among us always!

​Tim Darch, preacher at the Salem Church, will officiate Lowell's funeral service—a full military service followed by pickin' and grinnin' provided by the Salem Church musicians.

During the service, ONLY family members and speakers will be allowed in the cemetery. All other attendees will view the service from the churchyard. Please bring your own lawn chairs. After the ceremony, those who want say a prayer and pay their respects to Lowell will be allowed into the cemetery.

If you plan to attend in person, please wear a bandana to honor Lowell. Be sure to sign the guest book and leave your tributes for him. Casual attire recommended.

For the health and safety of all attendees, we will be requiring social distancing.

Parking will be available at Red Oak II and across Kafir Road at Old Time Reunion.

​A video recording of the service will be made and posted on this Facebook site. We will also be doing a live stream using Facebook Live.

​Autumn in Carthage is art! “All art is erotic,” declared the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

​Looking out from our upstairs bedroom window, we see the last golden leaves dangling from the giant Sycamore tree across the street. Yes, Mother Nature is flirting with us, inviting our hearts to keep dancing with hers. Gustav Klimt saw her beckoning, too, heard her calling and took up her invitation.

​​​​Together, my husband David and I have spoken often of Gustav Klimt as we have taken in the back road scenery while making our weekend junkets ferrying our puppies to the puppy park in Joplin. Driving through the autumn decorated streets of Carthage then out into the countryside; meandering over the familiar landscape we have seen the art of Klimt around every curve, over every hillock and in every view out every window. The color flecked rise and fall of the terrain echoed the rise and fall of the contours of a feminine body in repose. Again and again we have said, “This feels like a Klimt kind of day! This is a Klimt kind of season.”

Do you know of the artist Gustav Klimt? Are you familiar with his exquisite paintings romantically adorned with color and gold and women and beauty?

In Vienna in 1862, Gustav Klimt was born, the second of seven children in a lower middle-class family of Moravian origin. His father, Ernst Klimt, an engraver and goldsmith, earned very little money, and the artist’s childhood was spent in semi-poverty.

​In 1876, at age fourteen Gustav Klimt received a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. After completing his studies in 1883, his commissions for murals in public buildings carried him to the height of artistic fame. Becoming a fashionable, highly compensated portraitist Klimt began supporting his family of birth while he dramatically began turning toward Art Nouveau’s radical new styles incorporating Japanese, Chinese, Ancient Egyptian and Mycenaean art styles. Favoring decorative patterns, he painted beautiful women in elegant, flattering and languid poses.

The two embracing figures of “The Kiss”, depicted not naked, but draped in densely patterned cloths, are said to represent the mystical union of spiritual and erotic love and the merging of the individual with the eternal cosmos. They evoke a moment of intense sensual pleasure within a stylized composition—the masculine signified by a coat of black and gray blocks, the feminine represented as organic scrolling and spinning circles of bright floral motifs and upward flowing wavy lines. Golden rain surrounds them, blessing them and the fertile earth—the earth we now see celebrating all around us while making ready to rest.

At artCentral in this celebratory season you can find lovely hints of Klimt in the glittering reflections of metallic surfaces adeptly painted by artists Ina Niday and Mary Datum.
​
Come see their celebratory art in TWO FRIENDS | OIL PAINTINGS; and visit the SMALL WORKS | GREAT WONDERS Silent Auction Fundraiser. Both are available for your viewing, bidding and holiday shopping through December 5, at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage. Weekend Gallery Hours are each Friday and Saturday from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. with CDC protocols practiced at Hyde House. All images are available online at www.artcentralcarthage.org. For additional information call (417) 358-4404.