| TWIRLING LEAVES BRING HOLIDAY MAGIC The falling leaves are drifting by the windows—the courthouse windows, the Hyde House windows, my studio windows—the autumn leaves of red and gold. |  |
Yes, our gusty breezes have done their best to tease the lingering clusters from our magnificent maple trees. Gentle showers have twirled them down and added them one-by-one to the multitude of shimmering leaf carpet littering our lawns like nature’s best confetti. Soon we’ll hear old winter’s song, though I’m so, so reluctant to see this season go.
Have we ever had a more gloriously colorful autumn? To drive through Carthage—down Grand or Garrison Avenue or almost any street or even any alley—is like traveling through a movie set that’s decorated to saturate our senses. On sunny days the glow has been dazzling. On cloudy days the wet tree trunks have looked like sturdy, blackened, upright columns supporting crowns of glistening dazzlement. Reds in crimson, scarlet and aubergine. Yellows from pale lemon to dandelion to bright and burnished golds. Oranges and coppers to make our eyes pop. This year the vibrant palette of our trees has been more resplendent than ever!
What shameless glory! What magnificent showing off has unfurled for our delight! Mesmerized and distracted into a state of sustained, low level delirium, I’m almost disoriented. I have so, so much to do to get ready for the coming twirl of the holidays just ahead, and yet I’ve been endlessly inclined to play hooky, as though my life depends on running outdoors to plunge into the beauty swirling all around us. When my husband, David, comes home to tell me he has the luxury of a couple of unexpected days off, I chorus with him, “Let’s use this time to make art and have fun!” We do. We give ourselves a stay-cation and follow the flow of our creative impulses.
Filled up and brimming with the good fortune and joy of our free time to-spend-as-we-please, I want to use some delicious moments to reach down into my little purse of words and images. I want to use them to tell the world that we live in a land of awesome amazement—a wonderland of wonderment. I want to share our abundance with everyone, and so I go out with David to meander about to look and sniff and see. I want to photo document the gifts we find and post them on facebook for all to savor. I do.
I photo and post and the world responds. Julie Yokey, director of our Carthage Library, is delighted with my photos of our autumn afternoon in Ma Chéri Amour, our beat up old john boat, floating along the colorfully, reflective shoreline of her beloved Lake Lamar. My facebook friends in Florida and California message me, “We don’t have your colors here. Please share more of yours there.” I do. Sharing makes my heart sing as I say my good-bye-ing to this gorgeous Carthage autumn and turn my attention to the approaching delights of winter, just around the corner.
Already I’ve started celebrating on my easel, for I’ve just received a lovely commission to make a painting on canvas of a grand old Carthage house that was my patron’s home. The best news is her desire to have the depiction rendered to reflect the Christmas season. Lucky me. Just what I need to focus my attentions away from fallen leaves and onto the bright reds of poinsettias and amaryllis, the deep greens of hollies and the twinkling lights festooning the doorways of the magical yuletide we’re approaching.
Of course all my creative, artistic urges always circle round and lead me back to artCentral where at Hyde House magic happens the whole year through—most especially at this changing-of-the-seasons time as our physical world dramatically transforms from the stunning lushness of autumn’s colorful abundance to the subtle serenity of winter’s beautifully bare landscape. While twirling leaves finish falling to serenely blanket our campus outside, behind artCentral’s green door of hospitality exciting preparations are unfolding for our fourth annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction featuring an enchanted plethora of artist created gift items.
A recent post I made on artCentral’s facebook page tells best of my mounting anticipation:
This Christmas…
*Buy local.
*Buy handmade.
*Buy from people you know.
*Buy from self-employed.
*Remember, the big stores don’t do a jig when they make a sale.
*Make someone jig this year.
*Put smiles on the faces of everyone on your gift list!
*Shop artCentral’s Holiday Boutique and Silent Auction.
*Then watch our artists do their happy jigs!
Have we ever had a more gloriously colorful autumn? To drive through Carthage—down Grand or Garrison Avenue or almost any street or even any alley—is like traveling through a movie set that’s decorated to saturate our senses. On sunny days the glow has been dazzling. On cloudy days the wet tree trunks have looked like sturdy, blackened, upright columns supporting crowns of glistening dazzlement. Reds in crimson, scarlet and aubergine. Yellows from pale lemon to dandelion to bright and burnished golds. Oranges and coppers to make our eyes pop. This year the vibrant palette of our trees has been more resplendent than ever!
What shameless glory! What magnificent showing off has unfurled for our delight! Mesmerized and distracted into a state of sustained, low level delirium, I’m almost disoriented. I have so, so much to do to get ready for the coming twirl of the holidays just ahead, and yet I’ve been endlessly inclined to play hooky, as though my life depends on running outdoors to plunge into the beauty swirling all around us. When my husband, David, comes home to tell me he has the luxury of a couple of unexpected days off, I chorus with him, “Let’s use this time to make art and have fun!” We do. We give ourselves a stay-cation and follow the flow of our creative impulses.
Filled up and brimming with the good fortune and joy of our free time to-spend-as-we-please, I want to use some delicious moments to reach down into my little purse of words and images. I want to use them to tell the world that we live in a land of awesome amazement—a wonderland of wonderment. I want to share our abundance with everyone, and so I go out with David to meander about to look and sniff and see. I want to photo document the gifts we find and post them on facebook for all to savor. I do.
I photo and post and the world responds. Julie Yokey, director of our Carthage Library, is delighted with my photos of our autumn afternoon in Ma Chéri Amour, our beat up old john boat, floating along the colorfully, reflective shoreline of her beloved Lake Lamar. My facebook friends in Florida and California message me, “We don’t have your colors here. Please share more of yours there.” I do. Sharing makes my heart sing as I say my good-bye-ing to this gorgeous Carthage autumn and turn my attention to the approaching delights of winter, just around the corner.
Already I’ve started celebrating on my easel, for I’ve just received a lovely commission to make a painting on canvas of a grand old Carthage house that was my patron’s home. The best news is her desire to have the depiction rendered to reflect the Christmas season. Lucky me. Just what I need to focus my attentions away from fallen leaves and onto the bright reds of poinsettias and amaryllis, the deep greens of hollies and the twinkling lights festooning the doorways of the magical yuletide we’re approaching.
Of course all my creative, artistic urges always circle round and lead me back to artCentral where at Hyde House magic happens the whole year through—most especially at this changing-of-the-seasons time as our physical world dramatically transforms from the stunning lushness of autumn’s colorful abundance to the subtle serenity of winter’s beautifully bare landscape. While twirling leaves finish falling to serenely blanket our campus outside, behind artCentral’s green door of hospitality exciting preparations are unfolding for our fourth annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction featuring an enchanted plethora of artist created gift items.
A recent post I made on artCentral’s facebook page tells best of my mounting anticipation:
This Christmas…
*Buy local.
*Buy handmade.
*Buy from people you know.
*Buy from self-employed.
*Remember, the big stores don’t do a jig when they make a sale.
*Make someone jig this year.
*Put smiles on the faces of everyone on your gift list!
*Shop artCentral’s Holiday Boutique and Silent Auction.
*Then watch our artists do their happy jigs!
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