ARTISTS OF GRACE Moving to an adopted town presents a plethora of opportunities for new discoveries—like where to swim laps and whom to see for healthcare. Our YMCA provides a splendid answer to lapping, with Holly Royster’s evening Yoga added as a bonus. Looking for advice while visiting with local ladies in |
Leaving my first dental appointment in Carthage, I notice a small limestone church across the street. With time to spare before I’m due at my next destination, I decide to try the gothic scarlet doors on the chance they’re unlocked. They are.
I wander in to find rainbow prisms of light dancing over the walls of the vestibule and throughout the sanctuary, too, for brilliant sunshine is flowing through the stained glass windows, leaded with exquisite skill to celebrate biblical motifs and those of the region’s native prairies.
I’m venturing into a wonderland of worship where the air tells of incense and liturgy in a setting of lifted prayers seasoned with reverence and awe. I am transfixed and enfolded by wonderment—a foretelling of the joy and love I discover among the parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church, the many good people who fill the well-waxed pews.
Becoming a part of this community is among the greatest and best of my Carthage beginnings. Included in Grace’s evening outings to Marion Days, I learn of the favored tents for dining. With figs plucked from the labyrinth’s garden, I garnish many of my meals. Snacking and sharing stories with Friends Anonymous, my heart is opened and filled with encouragement and affirmation.
For an Encore Lunch, Father Steve Wilson invites me to share my travels—from Arkansas to NYC to the wilderness, a mountaintop and then Carthage. Father Ted Estes helps me with the logistics of projecting images to illustrate my talk about painting my way through my journey I call “The Beauty of Change”. I enjoy exhibiting my art here and for the Olde World Christmas Market and as a commissioned painting for the chapel with a companion painting still to come.
I’m delighted with the number of artists I discover at Grace Church—souls using their talents to express and celebrate the inspiration and pleasure they find in the diverse dimensions of our wondrous world. I know with all my being, their art-making must be shared. The time is now!
This Friday, 6-8 pm, November 4, in the galleries of artCentral’s beautiful Hyde House, more than two dozen Grace parish creatives will be celebrated at the Opening Reception for “Artists of Grace”. The public is invited. Admission is free. Donations are welcome. Information: (417) 358-4404.