​Here’s your sneak preview. Each quilt is displayed with words that tell a story. Read these and just imagine what you’ll see.

Joan Banks: The idea for many of my quilts begins with the fabric, which was the case with "Apogee." The cotton background fabric suggested a starry sky to me, and I decided to put a moon in that sky. Still, the idea of layering circles of silk organza on a quilted background and then making it more ethereal with another layer of organza appealed to me. So what had I created? The word apogee popped into my head. I looked it up to make sure I had some idea of the meaning. My one tiny appliquéd "moon" is the smallest element and represents the furthest point in the moon's elliptical orbit around Earth: the apogee. The others? Just an art quilter's suggestion of our lovely satellite's path.

Ruth Potter: “Another Windy Day” came about by finding the background fabric in Paducah, Kentucky. I could see leaves falling in the fibers. So I purchased some gradation fabric from Caryl Fallert's store and a year later I gathered leaves from our yard and enlarged one to make this one of a kind quilt.

Sue Swindle: “Butterfly Fly Away” is an original design made from a block inspired by Molly Kohler. Quilted on my home sewing machine, my quilt is enhanced with a scalloped and piped edge.

Jinny Hopp: “Full Bloom” was designed by Barbara Persing and Mary Hoover of 4th and 6th Designs for Island Batik fabrics. I was drawn to the bright Batik fabrics and was challenged by the machine appliqué to create the flower blocks. A very satisfying process! Long arm machine quilting by Cheryl McFadden completes the quilt.

Karl McDaniel: I made my “Hanging Gardens” quilt when Miami Calico Quilters made a full size quilt for a fundraiser. I enjoy sewing ¾” pieces on my featherweight Singer sewing machine.

Barbara Montague: I fell in love with a quilt I saw in a 2001 Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine. Many years ago I started collecting a variety of plaid fabric for my own “Homespun Stars”. Some are re-purposed men’s shirts and some are quilt shop homespuns. (The hunt is half the fun!) I made a sample block and then the project set dormant for a few years, though I continued to add to my fabric collection when a certain plaid caught my eye. When I saw an opportunity with the “Art of Quilting” exhibit I was re-energized to finally make this quilt.

Mary Thornton: Cotton patchwork, metal charms, ribbon, braided cord, Angelica, wood frame. The poem was written first, which the inspired quilt, “Hourglass of Life”. The star points were cut off, wrinkled, and scrambled to represent passage of my life. Parts of “me” have broken up and fallen to the bottom. The positive thought is that people can reach out and reverse the hour glass and begin again: “Time ticks on in small bits. But each bit has the power to take large bites of one’s being….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….[Time] is cursed, it is envied, it is abused, it triumphs. It adds balance to music, rhythm to dance, flow to words….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.”

Still I have more good quilt stories to tell and tease your interest. Return with me to Art Notes next week and not only will I share more quilt stories, I’ll also name names.

Yes, by then the award winners will have taken home their cash prizes and left their beautiful art work in our safe keeping for your viewing pleasure.
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Mark your calendar for an early autumn outing and then another to artCentral 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.

 OUR CLOUDSCAPES ARE SPECTACULAR! ​

Have you looked up much lately? This is that beautiful time of year when our cloudscapes are spectacular! Transitioning from summer into autumn, our daytime skies are putting on a heavenly exhibition against an exquisite cobalt backdrop! They’re enough to make you want to slow down and snap some photos for facebook and your screensavers.
 
Lately my husband David and I have been recalling how as children we’d stretch out on our backs and search the clouds and name the images we discovered. We’re doing this still though mostly when we’re riding upright behind a windshield, and we don’t try to identify shapes quite so much as we once did; rather we simply enjoy the shared pleasure of witnessing the ethereal beauty we see—fluffy clouds, puffy clouds, big and small and the wee little ones, too. 
 
Watching the clouds put on their show, I’m often transported into the paintings of my all-time favorite artist, the Belgium surrealist, René François Ghislain Magritte. Many of his canvases depict clouds painted in surprising settings—clouds surrounding the pupil of a single eye, clouds on the interior walls of a room, clouds within the outlines of a flying dove or a man’s head and torso beneath his bowler hat.
 
Viewing Magritte’s 1992 retrospective exhibition in the vast galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, though I was enchanted by his “Time Transfixed” with his finely wrought steam locomotive dramatically puffing smoke and racing from an empty, sterile fireplace, his cloud paintings were what captivated my attention and kept calling to my heart again and again. They still do today.
 
René Magritte, (1898-1967) made witty, thought-provoking paintings. Using simple graphics he gave new meaning to seemingly unrelated everyday images and familiar, mundane objects. Over his lifetime he experimented in various styles and became a primary influence on the pop art movement of the sixties.
 
Magritte was born the eldest of three sons. His father’s manufacturing business sometimes afforded comfort for the family. At other times they knew financial difficulties. When Magritte was thirteen, after his mother took her life by drowning herself in the Sambre River, he found escape and comfort in films and novels and painting. Magritte’s constant play with reality and illusion in the paintings of his mature years has been attributed to the early death of his mother.
 
Leaving home at eighteen Magritte attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts for two years, where he was exposed to cubism and futurism and was greatly influenced by the work of Pablo Picasso. After his compulsory year of military service he married Georgette Berger whom he’d known since childhood. Georgette became his model and muse. They remained married until his death.
 
In the early years of marriage, Magritte held various jobs to provide support. He worked briefly as a draughtsman designing cabbage roses in a wallpaper factory, then found employment as a freelance poster and advertisement designer. Continuing to paint as his time allowed, he was inspired by “The Song of Love” by the Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico and his unusual amalgam of images—a small wall on which is mounted a Greek sculpted head and a surgeon's glove with a green ball beneath and the outline of a locomotive on the horizon.
 
Magritte became increasingly popular as his paintings incorporated clouds, rocks, pipes and bowler hats in curious juxtapositions and contexts, hence invoking both mystery and a madness of orientation. In spite of his popularity, his first solo exhibition in 1927 in Brussels was scorned by critics. Bitterly disheartened, Magritte felt compelled to leave his homeland for Paris where he landed in the center of the surrealist movement that included writer André Breton, poet Paul Éluard and artist Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Joan Miró.
 
In the late 1930’s Magritte had exhibitions in New York City and London.  The onset of World War II found him back in Belgium where he remained during the Nazi occupation. Afterwards, the suffering and violence caused by the war moved him to change his palette to brighter colors. He adopted more impressionistic techniques that lead him away from the frequent dark and chaotic moods of surrealism.  “Against widespread pessimism,” he said, “I now propose a search for joy and pleasure.” I wholeheartedly advocate his admonition in our modern time of confusion and discord. Seek joy and pleasure!
​
Among the many pleasures of my married life is David’s preference for doing all the driving when we go places together around town or on roads to more distant destinations. I’m delighted with every opportunity this affords me to look up get in some good cloud gazing that reminds me of Magritte. Somehow David manages to cloud gaze and converse about Magritte and safely drive simultaneously. Together we agree, “Our cloudscapes are spectacular!”          

​In the midst of all the rest, the bright and bold image on Frank Young’s 2008 invitation has captivated my attention and my heart since the first time I caught a glimpse. Against a color field of sparkling, vivid greens a sturdy, empty wheelbarrow stands. An old shovel rests, propped against the side. A deep shadow falls below. A serpentine garden hose stretches around and over the grass as though pointing the way to somewhere. The gardener has apparently walked away, for the title of this exquisitely simple painting is “Break Time”.
 
Plein air artist extraordinaire, Frank Young, too, has gone away. He passed from our presence on August 8th surrounded by Amy Fret, his wife of four years, and by members of his family. The community of artCentral artists is deeply saddened by his departure. He is truly missed. We send our love and caring to Amy and to all of Frank’s family.
 
Frank was special among artists. He was special among all human beings. To be in his presence was a privilege. When Joplin artist, Andrew Batcheller, learned of Frank’s passing, he immediately texted me, “I’m so glad you introduced us. Frank was the kindest man I ever met.”

 In the ways Frank was skilled at moving pigments onto a picture plane, Amy was fluent in the technical skills of digital transmission of images and text. Thank goodness, for many of our preparations were by long distance as they snowbird traveled west from their Joplin home during the winter months leading up to Frank’s March opening at Hyde House. Through cell phone calls and emails that attended to details preceding their return, all necessary arrangements were accomplished with ease.

​The artist statement and biography accompanying Frank’s paintings beautifully told Frank’s story behind his “Seen and Unseen” exhibition. Born in Manhattan, Kansas, Frank’s parents raised him there with his two sisters, Macey and Susan. His mother was an important influence in leading him in the direction of his art. He entered Kansas City Art Institute in 1964, graduating in 1968 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. He then attended the University of Cincinnati from 1968 to 1970 attaining his  Masters of Fine Arts degree.
 
Following graduation, Frank worked in graphics at Western Auto in Kansas City, as well as at WDAF Channel 4 TV.  In 1976 he moved to Champaign, Illinois, where he was an instructor at the Parkland Community College. In 1980 he began working for the Department of Army in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, transferring in 1983 to Fort Lee, Virginia, where he worked for thirty years, retiring in 2006. From his retirement until his death, Frank enjoyed his painting on a full time basis.

​Using a camera, Frank captured photographs with themes in all kinds of places, then created environments for their use.  In most of his paintings he used figures. The images are not photo realistic: he used them as jumping off points for his painting technique of broad brush strokes of color and value.
 
Frank enjoyed painting large because he felt more free to paint boldly, and he thought viewers could relate to the scale more easily.  When he painted smaller he tended to detail and tighten his techniques and lose the broad stroke brushiness he so enjoyed.

​Frank’s palette, limited to seven colors and white, consisted of a cool and warm combination of primary and secondary colors. He got more pleasure from mixing colors rather than just pulling them from tubes. As with many impressionists, he didn’t use black because black’s not naturally found in nature.

Like the absentee gardener missing from the setting of his “Break Time” painting, Frank Young has left his tools behind. His canvases and paints and brushes—once ​animated by his sure, bold strokes—are sitting still now, abandoned like the gardener’s. Though we’re feeling the loss of our inspiring artist friend, Frank Young, we are grateful to be blessed with the paintings he leaves made with the well-used tools of his trade.
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​​“Colors of Autumn” presented by the Four State Photography Enthusiasts and generously underwritten by The Country Caboose Wedding Chapel and Railroad Museum and The Print House Fine Art continues view through September 23, 2018, during weekend gallery hours. Do visit this spectacular, exciting exhibition! For more information call (417) 358-4404. 

Arriving for our most recent artCentral board meeting, “Did you do that?” queries board member, Gail White. “Do what?” I ask, thinking I must be in trouble. “You know,” responds Gail, “the installation on the lawn!”

I’d noticed them earlier when I pulled up the drive—the first lemon-tinted, end-of-summer scatter—maple leaves artfully sprinkled across our serene green grass. As an artist and artCentral’s executive director-curator, I may have a fair amount of creative power, but for the wonder of these perfectly placed omens I must give full credit to Mother Nature. She’s telling us ever-so-kindly that autumn’s waiting in the wings.

While the leaves begin to color brightly and twirl down from the canopy above our beautiful campus outside, our galleries inside are reflecting this annual miracle. “The Colors of Autumn” are displayed and ready for your viewing on the high walls throughout Hyde House, upstairs and down, generously underwritten by The Country Caboose Wedding Chapel and Railroad Museum and The Print House Fine Art.

Please come join me and artCentral’s board members and the artist photographers of the Four State Photography Enthusiasts for the exhibition opening reception: this coming Friday evening, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street. Admission is free. You’ll find complimentary libations for your enjoyment as you take in the wonders on our walls, then pause to visit and feast around our vintage, wooden table colorfully spread with autumnal fare presented by board member Lee Pound.

There is a backstory to every evolving season and to every exhibition, as well. Just as autumn follows summer, “The Colors of Autumn” comes to us as a lovely unfolding that began two or three years ago with a phone call from Jane Ballard. Jane wanted to know if her local photography group, the Four State Photography Enthusiasts (FSPE), might have a gallery exhibition at Hyde House. I assured her the possibility was likely, if their art was ready.

Visiting the group’s exhibit at the next Carthage Downtown Art Walk, I found my premonitions to be accurate. I saw talent that was worth sharing and suggested FSPE initially mount displays in artCentral’s three satellite galleries. Jane, herself a gifted photographer, agreed to serve as my co-curator for all three exhibits. Following these successful presentations, a gallery exhibition at artCentral was scheduled.

The Four State Photography Enthusiasts first started to develop somewhere around 2008 as Danny Wilson and Robert Vise became friends through an online forum for Missouri photographers. When they found out that they were both from the Joplin area, they started getting together and shooting everything from storms to skateboarders.

From the four state region they added to their adventures other like-minded folks who loved to play with their cameras. Soon they started having regularly scheduled get-togethers with area photographers, including hobbyists, amateurs and full time professionals. They discussed photography issues and went on photographic outings. From their group shoots and photo walks they learned new techniques. They had their limits pushed by monthly contests sponsored by Print House Fine Art in Carthage. Over the last ten years this group has learned about and practiced their passion—photography!

Since word of mouth was the only way local photographers would come to know about the group, the group initially grew very slowly. In the fall of 2009 Danny took the group to social media. The FSPE moniker was chosen, local professionals were asked to come and speak at their first-Tuesday-of-the-month meetings in Joplin where members, as well, spoke about their specialties

Through the social media format the FSPE now serves as a learning resource for members worldwide. FSPE has expanded rapidly, today boasting over 2,100 international members. If you want to participate in FSPE, go to Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4Statephotogs/about/.

My collaborations with FSPE member, Jane Ballard, continue to be a source of great pleasure as she serves as co-curator for “Colors of Autumn”. She’s recently become a member of artCentral’s board of directors enriching our work with her experience, expertise and uniquely vivacious joie de vive. She’s also been raising awareness of the photography "industry" and local photographers by helping with the Spiva FSPE galleries over the past three years. She’ll assume direction over these in 2019, while she concurrently shares her booth at the Joplin Empire Market with fellow photographers.

Jane currently has a photograph, one of only fourteen selected, in an exhibit with the Photographic Society of Northwest Arkansas. She’ll have her own gallery exhibit in Neosho in March 2019 with the Neosho Arts Council and is working on several books of her photographs including "The Four Seasons through Photographs", just now available through Amazon.
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Visit artCentral soon and see Jane Ballard’s beautiful photographs along with those of over two dozen other photographers in artCentral’s autumn season opening exhibition “Colors of Autumn”! The installation will be on view August 31 through September 23, 2018, while Mother Nature continues to scatter colorful leaves over our spacious lawn.

“Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plait” (sit down, please),” I say to our French-trained puppies as David, my husband, and I look through the large plate glass windows. Chiquita, our Wheaton Terrier Poodle, and Lasyrenn, our year-old Aussie, are eager to cross the threshold beneath the owl. They want to go inside, make their greetings and perhaps receive a treat before they stretch out to rest on the cool, cool vintage tiles covering the shop’s expansive floor. “Un instant je vous prie (one minute, please),” David assures the puppies.

We always enjoy pausing before entering. We like to take in the variety and quirkiness of each window installation as they rotate through the seasons filled with custom made clothing and hand-crafted objects d’art. I think to myself, “These window decorations are delightfully eclectic, just like this enchanting shop.” When I ask David to describe his take on the windows and the shop he quickly responds, “Really eclectic—in the best kinds of ways”.

As you weekly readers know, in the last few weeks while David and I have been making our puppy-training walks around our historic Carthage square, I’ve been writing my newspaper columns and blog posts around the art of the shop windows and the businesses we find behind them. I’ve wanted to tell the story of Spellbound for quite a while.

We go inside and I ask shop owner, Sarah Manzer, “Will you sit with me for an interview, so I can feature Spellbound in my Art Notes from Hyde House?” “Oh, Yes!” comes her smiling, enthusiastic response.

When I arrive for our appointed hour, we walk past the racks of clothing—new and custom-made and vintage—as we navigate an array of display cases and wardrobes overflowing with a plethora of curiosities both decorative and useful. At the back of the shop, we ease ourselves down and settle at either end of a comfy, stuffed sofa. Both of us being of diminutive stature, we each sit with our feet dangling above the floor. I delightedly take note of our unspoken, physical alliance as among “the small people” on this good earth.

My first question to Sarah creates a bond of artistic kinship, too. I ask, “How do you succinctly describe the aesthetic of Spellbound?” After some thoughtful pondering, she answers me simply with one word—“Eclectic”. We’re agreed!

The “eclectic” ambiance reflected in Sarah’s shop surroundings seems to be her approach to life, as well. Married to the physician, Jon Manzer, she tells me their home is a mish-mash of the orderly and the disarrayed. While their shared living spaces are more conventionally tidy, Jon doesn’t mind the chaotic dishevelment of her studio and those spaces she claims as her own.

Sarah seems to thrive on variety in relationships and the mysterious beauty that comes out of collaboration. Throughout our conversation, she often answers my questions speaking in the vernacular “we”, referring to her team of diverse artistic souls involved in the creation and day-to-day workings of Spellbound. Though she is Spellbound’s sole proprietor, she’s pleased to have gathered a team that works together. In many ways Sarah’s Spellbound is like the artist-cooperatives so familiar to me from my New York City days, where artists with similar inclinations coalesced to create vibrant shared venues.

Sarah knows of these NYC settings for her eclectic travels have taken her from coast to coast. Born in Barry County, Missouri, while she grew up in Neosho her mother brought her to Carthage for cultural events. From a very young age, Sarah knew she wanted to go see and experience a larger world, but she also always knew she’d one day return to Carthage.

For five years she traveled and played fiddle and sang and wrote songs as a performing member of her Sarah Dunn Band. They primarily did radio tours going from town to town and from station to station promoting their music and recordings.

Sarah says, “Being out pursuing my passions was top notch. I love traveling. But the music business is so hectic. I got homesick. I wanted to be somewhere and do something that makes me feel calm and connected to a home community.”

These days Carthage is Sarah’s home community. You can hear her with her parents, Max and Deborah Barnett, and their Catalyst Band performing 70’s and Classics at the upcoming Concert in the Park presented by the Carthage Council on the Arts on Saturday, August 18th, 7 to 9 p.m. Take your chair, family, friends and a basket dinner, then read Art Notes next week to learn more about the eclectic, magical addition of Spellbound to the historic square of Sarah’s hometown.

Next comes Annie’s, our treasured gourmet kitchen and gift shop, where Stormy and Betty always keep a fresh stock of our favorite dark chocolate truffles. The expansive views at Cherry’s Art Emporium offer up a plethora of stunning multi-media art and philanthropically give a supportive shout out for artCentral, our hometown’s amazing non-profit arts gallery. At the “Deli” we comment on the lovely window collection of thriving jade plants and bougainvillea and ponder sharing one of their excellent grilled Rueben sandwiches sometime soon.

Making the corner at the county sheriff’s office, we pass The Print House of Fine Art displaying works in progress. The front windows of Goads Antiques entice us to consider vintage novelties inside. Ray’s and Lana’s True Value hardware store shows off handsome grandfather clocks and home furnishings and lots of gift choices for family and friends. In The Front Page we see an array of pocket-friendly clothing and home accessories. At Lillian James and Company we’re inspired by glimpses of sparkling lights in the exquisitely updated interiors.

Coming to the next corner, Lasyrenn begins to tug on her tether. We suspect she’s anxious to cover the next two blocks quickly and get to the Farm Bureau where a farmyard tableau includes a feather-covered faux chicken, a black and white polka-dotted textile milk cow and a disarray of fluffy, stuffed little lambs that seem to be in need of Lasyrenn’s working dog herding.

Instead, Lasyrenn has her gps programmed for BigDogBoutique, the neatest, newest little shop in Carthage. The day Lasyrenn discovers the window displays she is beside herself with delight. What can be more enticing than four life size pretend puppies fashionably turned out in distinctive collars and leads as they quietly sit and wait for her to stroll by? Up on the window tap-tap-tapping and scratch-scratch-scratching our puppy jumps wanting her new found friends to come on out and play.

David and I are infatuated with the artistically-dressed, minimalist display windows flanking the shop entrance. Behind one window, against a neutral backdrop rising from old wooden floors, dog toys and accessories fill galvanized buckets suspended from a long, weathered, beaver-sculpted branch on the wall above Lasyrenn’s new friends. The opposite window, across the marble and tile entry floor, features a life-size ceramic pony and colorful, Lucky Pony western and English tack mounted on simple wrought iron racks.

Inside BigDogBoutique fashion-forward shop goods are thoughtfully set about, in a stylish, vintage wonderland furnished with original tin ceilings and darkly stained displays creatively assembled from large up-cycled wooden spools and wooden pallets. The “Bark of Fame” gallery wall features 4x6 framed photographs contributed by the companions of dogs who visit the shop. You’ll find distinctive Lucky Pony equestrian tack and gift items hung on a kiosk of replicated stable walls.

Owner and shop proprietor, Jeanette Cartright, originally from Joplin, has lived in Carthage for thirteen years with her husband, their two daughters and their family including three dogs—Max, a German Shepherd; Ted, a Goldendoodle; Daisy, a Maltese; a horse named Ginger; and a cat named Theo.

After seventeen years as a stay-at-home mom, Jeanette felt inspired to take on “something new” that would interest her and serve as good role-modeling for her daughters. Working from her home, she bought and for three years ran her company as an online, family-owned, cottage enterprise. Jeanette told herself, “I’ll open a shop on the square, if the right location becomes available.”

Today, at her perfectly right and charming location, you’ll find Jeanette or one of her daughters, Grace or Katherine, keeping shop hours and welcoming you with their beautiful, friendly smiles at 336 Grant Street on the east side of the courthouse square. Shop hours are Monday through Friday, 10:30 am-5:30 pm, and Saturday, 10:00 am-1:00 pm.

​As a style-minded pet store, BigDogBoutique offers dog collars to fit petite pups all the way up to giant dog breeds. All their collars and leads are made by small businesses that manufacture their products in the USA. Whether your dog is a family pet, a show off companion, an obedience champion, a guard dog or a working dog, BigDogBoutique has the perfect collar and leash. There’s also a bakery case full of novelty-shaped, doggy confections. Durable toys, training bells and much, much more are available. From the three dollar clearance rack we purchased a bead-encrusted collar for Chiquita, our Wheaton Terrier Poodle.

​Visit, BigDogBoutique soon! You just may find our Lasyrenn playing with the shop toys while David and I talk with Jeanette about an upcoming Art Walk or Lasyrenn’s ongoing crush on her Goldendoodle, Ted.

​gate and sweeping the storefront sidewalk, by noon I was ready for our first clients. Mid-afternoon I’d order out for Chinese or nip around the corner for a slice at a favorite pizzeria. I closed at eight each evening. On my way home I often met a friend for a late dinner at a Greek diner.

My day was filled assisting first-time shoppers as well as patrons returning for fittings. I mpizzeria. I closed at eight each evening. On my way home I often met a friend for a late dinner at a Greek dineade drawings and patterns for new garments. I placed new orders and received completed ones. Working with the shop assistants, I became good friends with Pearla from Argentina and Angelica from Bolivia. Given free passes, we went together to openings at MOMA.

Lo’s was a specialty women’s boutique. The racks were filled with unique, one-of-a-kind dresses, skirts and tops. Each was custom designed in the shop. Our original patterns were sent to Great Britain where skilled needle workers, at home in their small cottages, knitted and crocheted then air mail returned the finished pieces.

We catered to brides and members of their wedding parties, professional performers and women wanting a “special something” for a special occasion. Since each garment was made from white and off-white fibers, many a customer chose to first wear her design in the original natural color. A few months, or even years later, she’d likely return to up-date her garment with a new color, dyed in the big vats in our basement.

Our customers came in all sizes. I was most often sought out by the generously curvaceous as well as the très petite. One of my favorite clients was the statuesque, picture-perfect soap opera star who came for one-hour fittings. To great praise and admiration, she paraded up down the shop for three hours. Back and forth she went requesting alteration tweaks and then some more. As I made notes and sketches and held her puppy, her driver kept the air-conditioner going in a sleek, black stretch limo parked at the curb. She always departed more beautiful and very happy. Like several other satisfied clients, she presented me with a huge blooming bouquet from the corner deli. From others I received complimentary performance tickets. Nice perks!

Creating the shop’s art-centric window displays was always a source of great fun and pleasure. A favorite was themed around a Porgy and Bess show tune: “Summertime and the livin’ is easy”. With the plate glass acting as their metro-aquarium, colorfully painted paper fish were suspended as though jumpin’ high over full-to-bursting cotton bolls shipped from Arkansas and glued to potted bushes I borrowed from a neighbor’s courtyard. I liked to watch the passers-by stopping to look and smile and laugh out loud.
What an unexpected thrill to be head-hunted by Barneys New York and invited to join the big league working on the team creating their artful, seasonal show-stopping window tableaus. In spite of the glamorous allure of the offer, I wanted to keep my life small and sane. Saying, “No. Thank you,” I stayed on at Lo’s until I moved to Brooklyn and then back to Arkansas and then to my sweet, new hometown of Carthage where I find charming window art to delight me every day.

Each morning I take Lasyrenn, our year old Aussie, for her training walk around Carthage’s historic downtown square resplendently bedecked with summer blossoms. David, my husband, joins us when his work schedule allows. We begin with Mother Road Coffee cappuccinos enjoyed in ceramic mugs, as we feast on the bistro’s two entry windows filled with marvelous enchantments festooned in patriotic red, white and blue.

Beginning our tour, we window shop as we go, while Lasyrenn responds to our rudimentary French and practices “au pied” (walking at heel) and “asseyez-vous, s’il vous plait” (sit down, please) before each corner crossing. Not too long ago she began to pull on her tether as though she had someplace special to go, and she wanted us to hurry up and get her there fast. We followed her lead and discovered the BigDogBoutique!
Next week return with me to the Carthage square and I’ll show you the charming windows of the BigDogBoutique and our favorite new hang out. I promise to give you a full tour of this newest jewel on Carthage’s square. The BigDogBoutique sets the bar very high for “The Art of the Shop Windows” in Carthage and all across southwest Missouri, too!

​HAPPINESS RUNS IN A CIRCULAR MOTION   

​Lyrics penned by Donovan Leitch tell us,

Happiness runs in a circular motion.
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

When my husband, David, was substituting in our regional public school systems, I always sent him off with a kiss and a hug and a request. “Bring me sweet stories, please!” I loved David’s afternoon returns and the stories he brought home to me, especially the ones about playing his guitar and singing with the youngest students. I loved hearing how when he sang and played rounds of “the happiness song” all the kids joined in, even the most timid and withdrawn among them.

“Happiness runs in a circular motion!” So, so true at artCentral, especially at artCamp. The happiness with which our creative adventures began just grew and grew as our amazing ten days unfolded and were celebrated with the grand finale of our fabulous artCamper Exhibition and Reception at Hyde House.

That last Friday morning of artCamp, I arrived super early at artCentral. Sandra Dawn Ebbs and her two artistic children, Jasmine and Eric, were already outback beginning work on the artCamp mural in anticipation of the arrival of the artCamper artists in Sandra’s class. As I booted up my laptop in my upstairs office, I was surprised to see David’s name on my cell phone screen. He was calling to tell me he was getting the day off. “Wonderful!” I instantly responded. “Will you please come help me for artCamp’s last day?” Moments later I heard the sweet purr of his vintage BMW motorcycle pulling up on the patio below. 

​After the artCampers were checked in by our artCamp interns, we gathered on the porch to begin our last day for artCamp 2018. David helped me make the time special. With his guitar accompaniment all together we sang “Happiness runs in a circular motion…You can have everything if you let yourself be.” Before heading to class, I introduced the teachers and then our interns.

Our interns are the best! They give two precious weeks of their school-free summertimes to work very, very hard for the love of art and for experiences that prepare them for their futures. Maddie Capps and Sydney Hartless, both artists and Crowder College students, are studying to be teachers. Kate Beeler and Gabby Cook will be terrific assets in fields of art and service.  Allie Lambeth will certainly have a career that embraces the world of fashion. Kaylee Shultz-Carmichael plans to be a surgeon. Amy Lane anticipates Christian mission work. Practicing artist Emily Rose, not only donates her limited free time as a superb weekend gallery docent, she enthusiastically helps out as an intern, too. Lead intern Owen Platt is an impressive role model for both artCampers and interns, as well. His years at artCamp teach us all that “You can have everything if you let yourself be.”

I first learned of Owen four years ago when his grandmother called to inquire if artCamp might be a good place for him to spend some time during his summer visit to Carthage. Owen’s story is told best in his own words:

​​“A portion of my summers are spent in Angel Fire, New Mexico, visiting my maternal grandparents, where I go mountain biking and work as a busser at a country club. When I’m not working or going down a mountain at 20 miles an hour, I’m in my room drawing or painting. The other part of my summer I spend in Carthage visiting my paternal grandmother. She’s the one who introduced me to artCentral and artCamp. At first I thought, ‘I really don’t want to go. I don’t need any art lessons!’ (But I really, really did!) After weeks of pestering from my dad, I reluctantly agreed to go.”

Owen continues, “When I first got to artCamp I was a small, shy little freshman. After some help from the interns, I started having fun. Also, Alice Lynn made me a kind of a pre-intern. She had me help her move boxes and tables. That led me into being an intern the following summer when I was too old to be an artCamper. Ever since, I’ve loved spending the end of my summers at artCentral. Every year artCamp is always interesting and exciting. I never know what will happen. Just like the day this year when Alice Lynn unexpectedly asked me to substitute teach. With the help of Allie Lambeth, another experienced intern, I was able to have a successful print-making class. Unexpected surprises like this, the awesome teachers and interns and the kids are what keep me coming back to artCentral year after year to spend my time being an artCamp intern." 

Yes, at artCamp, “Happiness runs in a circular motion…You can have everything if you let yourself be.”

Daddy served in the Air Force in World War II, then earned his law degree as they began our family with my birth. Working for the Veterans Administration, he served two tours in Vietnam, where he prepared GI’s for their return and their resuming their high school and college educations.
 
Reflecting on his full and satisfying life, my father told me that some of his happiest moments were back on the farm as a young boy—those sweet times he paused at the end of a long day.  His after-school chores completed with the livestock and in the gardens, standing on the side of Round Mountain in his dirty overalls and scruffy hand-me-down boots, he would look out over the farm and the two ribbons of slow waters meandering past, and he’d think “I’m the luckiest boy alive!”
 
He told me as he stood alone sometimes a poem he’d learned in class would pop into his mind, and he’d sing the lines loud and clear for all the world around him to hear. He said his very favorite poem was, “The Village Blacksmith”, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem, familiar to so many of us from our own school days, begins:
 
Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
 
Longfellow, on October 5, 1839, recorded in his journal: "[I] wrote a new Psalm of Life….'The Village Blacksmith'.” He presents his character as an iconic tradesman who’s embedded with deeply rooted strength in the history of his town and the town’s defining institutions. His blacksmith serves as a role model who balances his job with his commitments to his family and community.
 
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
 
Week in, week out from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
 
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And watch the burning sparks that fly…
 
The artCampers of artCentral had their very own iconic village blacksmith working with them and teaching them to make horseshoes the first week of camp. Beneath the spreading maple trees on Hyde House hill, Longfellow’s poignant poem fully came to life when world-class farrier Chris Gregory and his son, Cody, arrived in two large trucks pulling two heavy trailers fully equipped with mobile forges, anvils, hammers and tongs and all the other tools and materials needed for making horseshoes.
 
Chris earned the title of Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Farriers (FWCF) at the age of 30. The Worshipful Company of Farriers is a group founded in London in 1356 and regarded by many as stewards of horseshoeing’s highest standards. Internationally, around 40 farriers currently hold this distinction, five of these are Americans. Chris’s 696 page book, “Gregory’s Textbook of Farriery”, has become the textbook for most of the top schools teaching the craft. He brought a copy for the artCampers to see. 
 
With the two men came Chris’s wife, Kelly, herself a certified farrier and full-time instructor at their Heartland Horseshoeing School, established in 1995 in Lamar, Missourui. Kirsty, Cody’s wife, a second time new mother, came, too, and spent the 97 degree day outside with the youngest family members—two-year-old toddler, Marcy Grace, and twelve-weeks-old baby, Heidi Fayth. The family’s farm dog—the robust, impeccably trained blue heeler, Blueberry—completed the Gregory family entourage.

All day long the hammers of the farriers and their artCamper protégés sang a beautiful psalm of praise for the art of blacksmithing! Just before “going home” time, I asked the artCampers, “What was your favorite part of your blacksmithing class?” In enthusiastic unison they replied, “Everything!”
 
With the words of Longfellow I say to Chris Gregory,
 
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou has taught!