 Illustration I David Greenwood-Mathé | THE ART OF HAPPY By now you know that “happy” is my default setting. If I’m not 100% happy, I say I’m happy anyway, and I get to happy faster. Think happy, speak happy and happy eventually becomes a habit that sure makes life more fun and always easier. For artCentral’s recent Holiday Boutique and Silent Auction every room in Hyde House simply glowed with the energy of happy. Many happy people worked behind the scenes. Many happy people came to shop and choose creations made by happy artCentral artists. Some folks, like Jan Stukey, who brought her family, just naturally put out a happy vibe. Others, like art-loving good friends, Meg Shelfer and Amanda Stone, bubbled with happy enthusiasm as they |
placed their Silent Auction bids. Their effervescence was palpable when these happy shoppers walked through the door. The lights got brighter.
When artCentral’s newest board member Jason Shelfer and his daughter Flannery appeared the lights definitely went up! Out for a wintry “father-daughter Saturday” they arrived wearing twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks and radiant smiles. Like two fashion conscious metros they were dressed for the cold weather in carefully selected and perfectly paired “arty” outfits. (Apparently they had taken time to discuss and coordinate their attire for their day out.)
Flannery topped her freckled face with a pompom adorned stocking cap knitted with fibers of amber gold. The cuffs on her cozy, faux fur jacket were tinted to echo her hat which resonated with her dad’s amber gold pocket square tucked into his herringbone sport jacket worn above his amber gold peg-legged slacks. Keeping their palette pleasantly subdued, Jason’s charcoal gray stocking cap perfectly complimented Flannery’s soft, heathered gray pull over. Oh what a picture of holiday eye candy these two presented!
I’m getting to know Jason better every day having vetted him for our board of directors, given him orientation as a new board member and put him through the tasks required of a Holiday Boutique volunteer. On artist pickup day after the shopping was all done Jason checked out artists and took time to cordially chat with each, carried tables and chairs up and down stairs, swept floors, folded table drapes and happily gave attention to a plethora of wrap up details.
As Jason already knows well, serving on artCentral’s nine member board of directors is an honor that requires a three year commitment to pitch in and do your share. Ours is a working board! We all have a mutual passion—to express our love for art and artists as we live our mission to enrich the cultural life of Carthage and beyond.
Like every healthy board ours is diverse and well-balanced with regard to gender and background experience. We strive to have a good representation of practicing artists who presently include Jason and Jane Ballard and Doug Osborn and myself.
Jason, our newest artist board member, is married to Meg. As father to Miles, 19, and Flannery, 12, he stays fit in body and spirit with running and bicycling and time spent in his studio. He’s a Carthage native whose great, great grandfather permanently moved to Carthage in 1918 and was appointed to serve as Street Commissioner; his great grandfather worked for twenty-three years at Carter Hardware until he became a Deputy Clerk at the Jasper County Courthouse; and his grandfather graduating from Carthage High in 1929, worked as a credit manager for the Carthage Marble Corporation and was the owner/operator of the local Buena Vista Dairy. Jason’s mother graduated Carthage High School in 1967 and has been a very active volunteer to numerous local organizations including as a former board member of artCentral.
Besides his deeply rooted Carthage pedigree, Jason brings an impressive curriculum vitae to our board. Graduating from Carthage High School in 1991, he went on to Missouri Southern State University and earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Communications and in English with a minor in Studio Art with a Sculpture Emphasis that earned awards. For artCentral’s recent Holiday Boutique Silent Auction Jason painted and donated a beautifully rendered high-bid-receiving oil on canvas of an anatomically detailed heart.
Like most of us artists, he holds a day job: Jason serves our community as Supervisor in the Child Support Division in the office of the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney. Additionally for six years he’s represented Ward 5 on the Carthage City Council where he’s chaired several committees, participated on others and is the Council liaison to several community services. Philanthropically Jason serves on the board of Art Feed National and is a frequent volunteer with Vision Carthage’s “Carthage in Bloom” project and on the clean-up committee for the Walnut Bottoms City Park.
With great pleasure artCentral’s board of directors welcomes Jason Shelfer. He’s a civic-minded creative thinker, a gifted artist and will be a fine addition to our board for he is a skilled practitioner of the Art of Happy!
When artCentral’s newest board member Jason Shelfer and his daughter Flannery appeared the lights definitely went up! Out for a wintry “father-daughter Saturday” they arrived wearing twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks and radiant smiles. Like two fashion conscious metros they were dressed for the cold weather in carefully selected and perfectly paired “arty” outfits. (Apparently they had taken time to discuss and coordinate their attire for their day out.)
Flannery topped her freckled face with a pompom adorned stocking cap knitted with fibers of amber gold. The cuffs on her cozy, faux fur jacket were tinted to echo her hat which resonated with her dad’s amber gold pocket square tucked into his herringbone sport jacket worn above his amber gold peg-legged slacks. Keeping their palette pleasantly subdued, Jason’s charcoal gray stocking cap perfectly complimented Flannery’s soft, heathered gray pull over. Oh what a picture of holiday eye candy these two presented!
I’m getting to know Jason better every day having vetted him for our board of directors, given him orientation as a new board member and put him through the tasks required of a Holiday Boutique volunteer. On artist pickup day after the shopping was all done Jason checked out artists and took time to cordially chat with each, carried tables and chairs up and down stairs, swept floors, folded table drapes and happily gave attention to a plethora of wrap up details.
As Jason already knows well, serving on artCentral’s nine member board of directors is an honor that requires a three year commitment to pitch in and do your share. Ours is a working board! We all have a mutual passion—to express our love for art and artists as we live our mission to enrich the cultural life of Carthage and beyond.
Like every healthy board ours is diverse and well-balanced with regard to gender and background experience. We strive to have a good representation of practicing artists who presently include Jason and Jane Ballard and Doug Osborn and myself.
Jason, our newest artist board member, is married to Meg. As father to Miles, 19, and Flannery, 12, he stays fit in body and spirit with running and bicycling and time spent in his studio. He’s a Carthage native whose great, great grandfather permanently moved to Carthage in 1918 and was appointed to serve as Street Commissioner; his great grandfather worked for twenty-three years at Carter Hardware until he became a Deputy Clerk at the Jasper County Courthouse; and his grandfather graduating from Carthage High in 1929, worked as a credit manager for the Carthage Marble Corporation and was the owner/operator of the local Buena Vista Dairy. Jason’s mother graduated Carthage High School in 1967 and has been a very active volunteer to numerous local organizations including as a former board member of artCentral.
Besides his deeply rooted Carthage pedigree, Jason brings an impressive curriculum vitae to our board. Graduating from Carthage High School in 1991, he went on to Missouri Southern State University and earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Communications and in English with a minor in Studio Art with a Sculpture Emphasis that earned awards. For artCentral’s recent Holiday Boutique Silent Auction Jason painted and donated a beautifully rendered high-bid-receiving oil on canvas of an anatomically detailed heart.
Like most of us artists, he holds a day job: Jason serves our community as Supervisor in the Child Support Division in the office of the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney. Additionally for six years he’s represented Ward 5 on the Carthage City Council where he’s chaired several committees, participated on others and is the Council liaison to several community services. Philanthropically Jason serves on the board of Art Feed National and is a frequent volunteer with Vision Carthage’s “Carthage in Bloom” project and on the clean-up committee for the Walnut Bottoms City Park.
With great pleasure artCentral’s board of directors welcomes Jason Shelfer. He’s a civic-minded creative thinker, a gifted artist and will be a fine addition to our board for he is a skilled practitioner of the Art of Happy!
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