focused effort—effort that’s supported by new rituals of repetition.

​Knowing that our thoughts spring forth from the seeds of our feelings and emotions, Margaret Thatcher’s wisdom rings true: “Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become…habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character.”

Old, obsolete thoughts and patterns, habits and practices, like roadblocks, can hang up our efforts to move forward. Their familiarity can be seductive, alluring and intoxicating. They create distractions and diversions and detours. They build resistance. They cause us to lose our focus and wander off course and even turn backwards. So how do we stay the course to newness? We practice.

In the midst of his family, business and travel commitments, my son works with a personal trainer. Choosing this relationship keeps him accountable to show up, do the work, rest and repeat. The trainer says his January schedule is always tightly packed, because lots of folks sign up with new year’s resolutions and good intentions. Then comes February and one by one new clients start to fall away. Excuses are made. Diversions and distractions creep in. Old, lethargic patterns return.

Newness isn’t always easy. Newness requires transformation. Transformation comes and is sustained with time and ritual practice.

I’ve just finished reading a book that’s all about the practice of ritual, transformation, the invocation of inspiration and the beauty that rituals create. Daniel James Brown, the author of his exquisitely written “Boys in the Boat” has certainly practiced, and practiced well, his own rituals of researching, showing up at his desk and putting in hundreds of long hours crafting a complicated true tale into an inspiring adventure story—a textbook of hard work, tenacity and creative accomplishment.

In “The Boys in the Boat” Brown seamlessly interweaves the waft of personal challenges and the warp of the hard historical times stretching from the days of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl leading to the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Skillfully he tells the saga of nine young men—eight oarsmen and their coxswain—the sons of farmers and dock workers and lumberjacks, who overcome all manner of obstacles to attend the University of Washington, to train in Seattle’s sometimes harsh weather and waters and to develop into an American gold medal-winning long boat crew. Theirs is an intriguing tale of focus, tenacity and ritualistic practice raised to the level of an art form.

Among those influential in their success was the British shell building artisan George Yeoman Pocock who sagely counseled “rowing a race is an art, not a frantic scramble. Your thoughts must be directed to you and your own boat, always positive, never negative.” “It’s not hard work when the rhythm comes—that ‘swing’.” The young men listened. The young men practiced. The young men learned to swing, and they brought home the gold.

Pocock also said, “Just as a skilled rider is said to become part of his horse, the skilled oarsman must become part of his boat.” I remembered this when my husband David and I were recently out seeking beauty in the ordinary and enjoying our ritualistic Sunday walk with our puppies. Since our usual go-to destination, George Washington Carver Monument Park, is temporarily closed, we were following the Nature Conservancy trail along Shoal Creek in Joplin. This early January day was exceptionally mild. We encountered joggers and dog walkers and courting couples and families pushing strollers.

Then to our great surprise we saw approaching two men riding large, saddled mounts we took to be horses. They were not horses. They were two huge mules! Out loud we wondered, “How can this be? Mules are supposed to be stubborn and less than ideal rides.” These long-legged, long-eared elegant mules, one a lovely chestnut the other a blazoned-face paint, moved with grace and a steady gate. Their skilled riders were definitely parts of their ordinary creatures. Together they were travelling with the beauty and “swing” of oarsmen on their way to Olympic gold. They’d done their practice. They were starting this brand new year with big hooves clicking a swingingly beautiful mantra as they began to climb a high bluff to the panoramic vista waiting above.

talent—art works created by more than three dozen regional JRAC artists—from those internationally recognized to those emerging and just beginning to develop their artistic voices.

For these annual JRAC collective expressions of rich diversity planning begins with the exhibition theme chosen by JRAC’s board of directors. Though some artists really like to paint to theme and others not so much, always the JRAC exhibition comes together with an impressive collection of terrific creations. Recent unique themes, including “Art Speaks”, “Love Languages” and “Sparkle and Shine”, have given member artists plenty of opportunities to strut their best stuff.

This year’s cleverly titled “Arti Gras” theme is sure to tweak the imagination of every participating art maker who’s inclined to artistically riff on the energies and images associated with the once-a-year full-on fête we know as Mardi Gras. Come the end of January, with the help of our artCentral prepitor, my husband David Greenwood-Mathé, I expect to install yet another exciting JRAC extravaganza.

David and I already have our own “Arti Gras” submissions completed and ready to be hung. I’m pretty sure Andrew Batcheller’s painting is finished and framed and wired for display. In anticipation of artCentral’s January 27th delivery date, lots of JRAC artists are heads-down, doors-closed in their studios using these cold winter days to maximize and harness the heat of their arty energies for their “Arti Gras” offerings. We all know cash awards will be passed out for exceptional works. This awareness is always an excellent incentive to get our creative juices flowing!

As the inspiration for JRAC’s “Arti Gras”, Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”—the last day for eating indulgently before the setting aside of spirited foolishness and frivolity to take up preparations and fasting for the Lenten season. Mardi Gras has long been a part of our American winter tradition where carnival parades and parties and fancy masque balls are carried on to balance the spareness of the coming weeks.
​
According to my online gleanings, two southern cities, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and their respective krewes and mystic societies, all lay territorial claim to our country’s first Mardi Gras origins in the early 1700’s. Of course my leanings are toward New Orleans beginnings, since my daughter, Audrey, did her fair share of Mardi Gras reveling in the ultimate party town of NOLA, where she took her degrees at Tulane.

In addition to small town “Arti Gras” partying with grand art at artCentral, if you’re looking for more carnival close to home, “Eureka Gras” is an Ozark Mountain resort town rendition of Mardi Gras happening in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Begun in 2006 as a "one car parade" conducted by New Orleanian Daniel Ellis following his move to Eureka Springs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, “Eureka Gras” is now run by a so-called "Krewe of Krazo" ("Ozark" spelled in reverse) and has grown into a month-long celebration with a nighttime parade on February 23rd and a daytime parade on March 2nd. Perhaps you’ll want to journey south to catch one or the other.

Mardi Gras accoutrements and symbols are many. For our “Arti Gras” exhibition motif I’ve chosen just a few—a head piece, a masque and beads—using the krewe colors of purple, green and gold/yellow dictated by the laws of heraldry and representing justice, faith and power. Many an artist uses some sort of mask for hiding one’s identity in the mystery of the creative act. The golden head piece perched atop the mask can be seen as a reveling jester’s hat or a crown symbolizing the baby to be found in the King Cake that will be served at our “Arti Gras” opening reception party. Beads, like the “throws” tossed from carnival floats, are for festively bedecking and connecting ourselves with our partying community of artistic practitioners and patrons.
​
Yes, Mardi Gras, the inspiration for JRAC’s “Arti Gras” is a time to frolic and have fun, to cut loose and, as they say in the Big Easy, to “throw down”. Plan to get an early start on this season’s festive merriment! Mark your calendars now for a splendid artCentral “throw down” at JRAC’s “Arti Gras” opening 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Friday, February 1st. You’ll to be fully in-the-spirit and very ready when traditional Mardi Gras arrives on Tuesday, March 5th.

Eric tells me he’s been watching a Netflix series about a British painter and his process. The artist works in small, intimate formats and uses only five pigments. Eric is inspired by the challenge of working within limitations of size and color choices. He already has five small stretched canvases, five small frames and five tubes of paint laid out to begin a new series.
​
I share one of my favorite Igor Stravinsky teachings: “My limitations are my freedom”, which Stravinsky fully states: “My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles….The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”

Eric relates how he’s been looking into the practices of some of the great impressionistic painters like Degas and Renoir. He’s been thinking about how they made more than just their famous paintings so familiar to us. How they also made simple sketches and line drawn studies. We talk about how the great artists valued the ordinary practices of drawing. That drawing for the likes of Leonardo de Vinci and Picasso was a ritual that preceded the grander beauty of their masterpieces.

I truly know the value of sketching and drawing. I do a lot of this ordinary, often mundane practice, before I begin any of my paintings. Drawing for me is a ritual that precedes whatever comes next artistically.
​
I love telling Eric that, after fulfilling the tasks of our jobs and our long work weeks, my husband David and I are setting aside and dedicating our Sunday afternoons to drawing and painting in our twin studios. That we’re committed to creating new complimentary bodies of work and mounting a collaborative exhibition in 2020. That the exhibition is already titled “Signs and Wonders”. That the paintings we’re producing are all about finding and seeing and honoring beauty in the ordinary.

Weekly we’re reinforcing my belief that when you do something positive over and over, eventually the repetition will have her way with you. This is the value of ritual in painting or anything that matters. Ritual is about showing up and being present, fully present over and over, again and again. Rituals create spaces where inspiration can enter. Leonard Cohen says this so well, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

​Rituals create the cracks in our routine, ordinary, everyday living. Rituals create the spaces and invoke the opportunities for the light of inspiration to come through and get in.

Our weekly studio rituals actually begin early with our Sunday morning family outing, including our furries Chiquita and Lasyrenn. First we stop for coffee and brunch in Joplin, and then on we go for our weekly photo-taking walk-about at George Washington Carver Monument Park.

Over the weeks and weeks of our ritual Sunday outings, for reasons I can’t fathom, I’ve become enchanted with ordinary signs we see going to and fro. They’ve become my inspiration for artistic interpretation. I’m finding amazing potential for beauty in the ordinary traffic signage we encounter. I ask David to slow the car and pull over. I get out. I take photos, and when we get back home I paint beautiful stories made of these ordinary road side sightings.

David, in the meantime, back in his studio, is painting and finding beauty on big, old, ordinary pieces of rough wood. He’s completed a huge, serenely beautiful Buddha on a huge chunk of a tree trunk pulled from a river. He’s painted a fiercely beautiful gar rendered on a slab of wood given to him by our friend Jan Stuckey who has a knack for acquiring cast off timber perfect for making art. For his handsome gar, David convinced me that my ordinary, beloved, miniature girlie garden rake was the perfect adornment he needed to give his gar a tail.

All for the sake of creating beauty out of the ordinary, now I’m in need of a new or old ordinary miniature garden rake with a wooden handle, so I can turn my ordinary, wee spring garden into a work of beauty! Surely inspiration and a girlie garden rake will come.

​granite now beautifully patinaed by golden lichens and the passing of time. Wearing a one shouldered tunic, beneath a flowing lock of long hair, her left hand held over her heart modestly covers her bare breast. Her right hand rests on the top of an anchor with a prong broken off and missing. We discovered no inscription on this miniature monument nor is there an engraved base to be seen beneath.

The stone figure’s simply crafted artistry, though exquisitely diminutive by contrast, calls to mind the large full-volumed, famed sculptured figures of Fernando Botero Angulo of Columbia or of Great Britain’s Henry Moore whose work can be seen close to home in the sculpture park of Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.

Who crafted Our Lady? Whose grave does Our Lady mark? Who can she be? What is the significance of her nautical implement?

In my search for Our Lady’s identity I learn from the Park Cemetery website that the boundaries encompass eighty acres within the city limits of Carthage, Missouri. Founded in 1879 by Timothy Regan, the grounds contain a dedicated Grand Army of the Republic block for Union Civil War veterans, a dedicated Catholic area and a dedicated Veterans block that contains a monument wall with names inscribed.

Familiar Carthage family surnames are prominently displayed on numerous large, impressive monuments. There are some exceptionally unique markers such as the tall obelisk made of dozens of gleaming conch shells. The engraving on many stones is so weather-worn as to be unreadable. Many unmarked graves are scattered throughout the vast terraced incline. This is particularly true of areas set aside as babylands where, during times of high infant mortality, numerous babies were placed in a single plot with no individual recognition.

With hope of discovering the provenance of Our Lady I reach out to Frank Stine, Park Cemetery Administrator and Sexton; Carthage historian Nancy Brewer; and Ben Young in the reference department of our Carthage Public Library. After much research and many conversations Our Lady’s true identity still remains mostly a mystery.

Mr. Stine told me, “Though no official death certificates were recorded before 1910, the cemetery records do show that Our Lady’s figure keeps watch over Infant Hannen, a still born baby, laid to rest March 18, 1904, by the child’s father John. Searches for the mother and father lead to possibilities but no certainties. I find no sure answers for why the nautical lady keeps watch over this one child’s grave when so many other infant graves go unmarked. Surely someone felt the need to remember “the spirit of a child who never found a way into this world.”

For me, my attraction to Our Lady and the stillborn child she remembers is a gift of grace.
​
As though passing through the scrim that separates us from the world of the spirits, gifts of grace come as those curious and sometimes strange sensations that stir deep within, whisper to the heart and ask for attention. Ours is not to wonder “Why?” Rather ours is to pay heed, to listen and to respond.

This call and response is at the heart of every creative act: the mysterious something calling out to be seen and heard; the artist hearing and seeing and giving voice to the calling. This is the gift of grace made real. This is the gift of grace made manifest.

With our small homemade evergreen crown—our creation infused with the gift of grace—David and I honor Our Lady of the Unknown and the child of her solitary vigil.

During this season heralding the long ago birth of an infant born to a young mother and father lodged in a stable among livestock, there are those among us who, like the parents of baby Hannen, are today mourning the loss of someone dear and now departed from us. In the midst of all our holiday celebrating there is still remembering and grieving to be done for a daughter or a son, a sister or a brother, a wife or a husband, a parent or a grand, a friend or a loved one we once knew among us.
​
May you receive a gift of grace that guides you in creating your own token of remembrance for your loved one. May your creating ease your heart and give you peace.

Our girls—puppies Chiquita, our Wheaten Terrier, and Lasyrenn, our Aussie—are shoulder to shoulder jockeying for the best forward view between our two front seats. They’re anxious to be in position to spot the sights behind the fence rows we’ll be passing.

Many “excitements” will appear as we turn on Macon Street then jig and jog on the county roads that lead us to and over Center Creek. There on the bridge we always stop and look and listen. Until recently we frequently saw a great blue heron fishing for breakfast alone or with his mate. Though the herons seem to have flown south for the winter, the resident Kingfisher still makes a reliable fly-by keeping close to the bank and declaring his presence with a rattling call.

What a plethora of pleasing sights are ours on any Sunday! Before and after the creek we can always count on seeing cows in an abundant assortment of sizes, shapes and tints. For sure we’ll see horses and a donkey or two or three.

On one trip we saw a rafter of turkey hens scurrying away through a wooded understory and a coyote casually strolling across an open pasture. Another Sunday, while the puppies barked their delight, six very young deer frolicked on the roadside before crossing over in front of us. Further down the road we find long-horned cattle and a bunch of goats our working-dog Aussie longs to herd. In a short half day trip we see a menagerie of creatures sufficiently diverse to fill the Christ child’s stable for at least two or more nativity visits.

This Sunday’s sighting of the little lady is a splendid, unexpected precursor to all the fauna that follow. To my question “Did you see that little lady over there?” David, always eager for a new discovery, replies, “I missed her. Shall we go back?” “Yes, please!” is my happy response.

Making a quick turnaround we retrace our way to Chestnut Street. Passing through the wrought iron and Carthage marble entrance to Park Cemetery, we drive down a faint, less traveled tract leading in the direction of the little lady who’s beckoned for our attention.

Reverently we step lightly among graves as we walk down the hill to greet the enchanting wee woman. She’s less than three feet tall, hewn from granite now beautifully patinaed by golden lichens and the passing of time. Wearing a one shouldered tunic, beneath a flowing lock of long hair, her left hand held over her heart modestly covers her bare breast. Our Lady’s right hand rests on the top of what at first glance appears to be a miner’s pick. Closer looking tells us the implement is an anchor with a prong broken off, possibly by a mowing machine. Searching for an inscription on this miniature monument, we find none. Perhaps an engraved base beneath this stone figure has long since sunken below the soil line.

Whose grave does Our Lady mark? Who can she be? Our imaginative artist minds begin to create and spin a story as though to unravel Our Lady’s mysteries. Might she be the wife of a sailor lost at sea? Intrigued with her aura of the unknown, we’re compelled to make return visits on our Sunday outings. Her magnetism is undeniable. Is she enchanting us? For sure we are adopting her.

On our most recent visit we present Our Lady with our gift of a festive Christmas crown made just for her. To a lovely small wreath of pinecone adorned faux greenery, I added a bow with streamers of scarlet woven threads. David attached a delicate band to go beneath Our Lady’s chin and fit her crown securely through the coming weeks of rain and wind and weather. Today Our Lady of Mystery is a tiny stanchion of loveliness as she stands serenely in Park Cemetery surrounded by her silent city filled with many silent mysteries.
​
In coming days I’ll focus on practicing due diligence to solve the questions of Our Lady’s identity and history. In next week’s Art Notes I’ll share with you all that I discover.
​
For now, personally and on behalf of artCentral’s board of directors, I wish you and yours a most blessed midwinter. May beauty and pleasure and satisfaction fill your heart and your home through the magical celebrations before us. May your days be merry and bright. May your nights be peaceful and quiet.

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!

Though Hyde House is a bit quieter now, our lights remain on and twinkling to welcome the New Year as we move through this memory-making season. I’ll keep my camera close at hand, as I’m sure many of you will. Taking photos is a splendid way to document the magic of our memory making.

As we danced through our spectacular Carthage autumn I was kept spinning and my shutter constantly clicking. Every time I stepped outdoors photo memories were made and savored and archived in abundance. My heart warms when I see these precious photos on my digital screens or on my studio walls beside pictures sent from New Jersey celebrating the November birth of our new petite fille. Photos, photos and more photos! I love them! Now I have beaucoup images of the Holiday Boutique waiting for my editing!
Where would we be without photography to help us record and keep our memories?
​
Wikipedia provides a nice synopsis on how photography came to be “in remote antiquity with the discovery of two critical principles; the camera obscura image projection and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. Apart from a very uncertain process used on the Turin Shroud, there are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light-sensitive materials prior to the 18th century. Around 1717 Johann Heinrich Schulze captured cut-out letters on a bottle of a light-sensitive slurry, but he apparently never thought of making the results durable. Around 1800 Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented, although unsuccessful, attempt at capturing camera images in permanent form. His experiments did produce detailed photograms but no way to fix these images was found.

In the mid-1820s, Nicéphore Niépce first fixed a camera image that required at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera. The earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced and commercially viable photographic process requiring only minutes of exposure in the camera and producing clear, finely detailed results. The daguerreotype was introduced as a gift to the world in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.

The metal-based daguerreotype process soon had some competition from the paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. Subsequent innovations made photography easier and more versatile. New materials reduced the required camera exposure time from minutes to seconds and eventually to a small fraction of a second; new photographic media were more economical, sensitive or convenient including roll films for casual use by amateurs. In the mid-20th century, developments made it possible for amateurs to take pictures in natural color as well as in black-and-white.

The commercial introduction of computer-based electronic digital cameras in the 1990’s soon revolutionized photography. Photochemical methods were marginalized and the quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved. Especially since cameras became a standard feature on smartphones, taking pictures (and instantly publishing them online) has become a ubiquitous everyday practice around the world.”

Gifted photographer and artCentral board member Jane Ballard recently presented our board with a collection of her thoughts on the value of photographers as artists and photography as an art form.

In Jane’s notes, “The word photography is derived from Greek words meaning ‘drawing the light’. Photographers paint pictures, tell stories and record events with their images like painters do. A photographer captures a moment in time in its actuality. Although anyone who picks up a camera can be considered a photographer, to practice photography as an art form and to be considered a true photographer takes a lot of practice, creativity, imagination, technical expertise and knowledge about cameras, lighting, scenery and much more. The camera is just the most basic component of a photographer’s equipment. Photographers also use filters, flashes or strobes, various lenses and other apparatus to record an image then shape that image using editing software to look like the image they see in their minds’ eyes. Photographers are Artists! Photography is art!”

As you finish your shopping, reach out to one of artCentral’s talented Artist Photographers. Select one of their extraordinary images. Give a gift of photography! Give the gift of art! Give the art of photography!

While we go about our shopping and gift gathering some of us may find special packages arriving on our front porches. Yes, our expectant family is exquisitely blessed with the arrival of Alexandra Dean Galang, born the 20th of November in New Jersey to her parents Lex and Audrey, my daughter, and Alexandra’s big sister, Sophie. We are all thrilled and delighted to receive the precious gift of this happy, healthy baby girl. May the crèche of her new home be blessed. May her dreams be made sweet and beautiful. May all of Alexandra’s very best dreams come true.

In our jubilation we light our trees and windows. What a marvelous way to announce and laud Alexandra and all those newly arrived and arriving! We push back the winter darkness and make twinkling the paths of their arrival. Our local shop windows do this all so well, especially at Screen Door Antiques, aka Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited on the Square’s west side at 331 South Main.

Come with me now and I’ll take you into this enchanting downtown venue owned and operated by Dana and Gary Reed with the help their family. With love for artistic aesthetics of color and texture, Dana brings in the design talents of her more than two dozen vendors and consignors. Together they create a winter dreamscape.

Passing their twinkling tree-filled, holiday windows, we walk into a really good, living, breathing, bigger-than-life storybook overflowing with countless enchantments and wonders. Taking time to have a visit with Dana is one of the best wonders of all!

Raised in the Carolinas in an arty family of five, Dana as a very small girl dreamed of growing up and having her own magical shop—like the romanticized ones she saw in movies—filled with curiosities and collectibles. At age twelve she climbed onto a school bus with her music-minded parents and adventuresome siblings and their two cats. Off they went on their meanderings. Unlike the bygone “grand tours” that covered Europe in a year or two, their “grand tour” followed the coastline covering the southern states over several annums as they stretched out to Arizona then circled back to mid-America and Missouri. Kansas City then Springfield were their chosen ports of call.

While living her own road story (a genre favored by Dickens), Dana read voraciously. Throughout our conversation favorite authors kept popping up and dropping in—Poe and Steinbeck and Dickens among them. With her love for literature and language and story to know Dana became a teacher is no surprise. For twelve years while raising her family, she taught school.

Somewhere over her traveling miles and through her child-rearing years, Dana’s shop keeping dream faded away and was almost completely lost. Eventually she and her husband Gary leased a warehouse on Route 66, filled the space with vintage antiques and sold them. One day on the square in 2016, she pressed her nose against the plate glass window of the Screen Door’s storefront and thought, “I wish I had a shop like this”. They bought the store and then in 2018 they acquired Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited (opened originally in 1991) and blended the two ventures.

Late one night, working alone after store hours while setting objects in yet another display installation, Dana realized, “I had a dream when I was a little girl. My dream has come true. I’m living my dream!” Walking into the Reeds’ store is like walking into a dreamy book. There’s so much to see, to discover, to investigate and study. The vast space is set up with nooks and crannies, each a different chapter, each leading to the next and somehow related as they go forward and backward and sometimes veer to one side or the other. They cover many genres: primitive, mid-century, farmhouse, reclaimed and repurposed, vintage, antique and even shabby chic, home décor and gift items.

Dana and Gary and all their staff aspire to be open and friendly, helpful and flexible—the best antique store in the four state area with price points and something special for everyone. They’re succeeding beautifully! I’m enchanted by the art of their storybook venue and by their art-making of Dana’s childhood dream.

This is the season to celebrate the birthing of dreams and tiny babies, too! Dreams really do come true!

​

​dreams be made sweet and beautiful. May all of Alexandra’s very best dreams come true.
​
In our jubilation David and I are lighting the trees and windows of our home and artCentral, too. What a marvelous way to announce and laud Alexandra and all the newly arrived and arriving and the one who came to a manger so, so many years ago! Let use push back the winter darkness and make twinkling the paths of their arrival as we fill the spaces of our hearts with celebration.

Our beloved artCentral lives in my heart all the year through and especially in this glorious season. Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally! Our new baby has arrived and now another dream is about to come true, too. What we’ve all been waiting for—artCentral’s awesome annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction is opening! We are grateful for the generous underwriting of Old Missouri Bank that helps make our dream a sparkling reality.
I’m giddy with anticipation! I can’t wait to see you come up our drive and see Hyde House so spectacularly, elegantly festooned. Get ready to slip on your coat, grab your wallet and be first in line when the Boutique’s welcoming green door opens. Help us fulfill our mission to work on behalf of art and artists in Carthage and beyond. Your support makes a difference! Come shop with us and place your bids for one or more of the amazing artist-donated small canvases in our Silent Auction.
• November 29th, Thursday, 5-8 pm, is the Holiday Boutique Preview, Silent Auction launch and your first shopping opportunity.
• November 30th, Friday afternoon and evening, 3-8 pm, your shopping and Silent Auction bidding times continue.
• December 1st, Saturday, 9 am-4 pm, is morning and afternoon shopping with the Silent Auction bidding concluding at 3:00 pm.
You’ll be amazed at the plethora of artist-created gift items our regional artists have here for your choosing. Glass artist extraordinaire Jane McCaulley of Carl Junction offers her charmingly colorful glass ornaments. From Neosho Lee Ann Jack is bringing her exquisite woven bookmarks, and award-winning Dustin Miller is bringing his magical art prints, cutting boards and coasters, as well as small paintings.
Of Springfield Wayne Pycior has exquisite native American drawings, and Ann Butts has photo enhanced note cards, note pads, trivets and much more for your shopping pleasure. Becky Golubski of Pierce City will have art pillows and mugs and small paintings. From Oronogo and Mount Zion Illinois, Chadan Tomlin of Empire Market fame, has clay creations including mugs and vases and jars, and Wayne Walker has photographic offerings.
Charming fiber creations of hats and scarves, hand-built clay angels and much more will be offered by Joplin artists, Brenda Hayes and Christina Lorenzen and Todd Williams. Also from Joplin artists April Davis-Brunner, Mary L. Parks and Debbie Reed you’ll discover irresistible giftable treasures.
From Carthage you’ll find: beautiful color pencil created note cards by Lora Waring; photographer Koral Martin’s ornaments, mugs, cutting boards and coasters; quilter Barbara Montague’s and Ruth Potter’s quilted originals; talented gallery docent Emily Rose’s lovely rosaries; delightful pocket-friendly selections by graphic artist Teri Y. Diggs; and, of course, my own prints and cards from my own original paintings.

Featured again this year, in addition to artCentral artist creations, are artCentral’s signature potted and elegantly bowed scarlet amaryllis planted to bloom at the peak of the holiday festivities. Each limited edition amaryllis, modestly priced at twenty-five dollars, is presented in a sparkling container. Perfect for your own home, these beauties make lovely gifts for everyone on your list and support artCentral’s work on behalf of art and artists
Remember, dreams really do come true when you: 
​
*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 when you make their dreams come true!

The Silent Auction is a Christmas miracle happening for the benefit of our unique non-profit arts organization and our mission to promote, exhibit, teach and foster the appreciation of fine arts in our community. I’m blissed with the unselfish generosity of our accomplished artist contributors, for all Silent Auction proceeds raised by these artists will go toward artCentral’s work and programming on behalf of art and artists throughout southwest Missouri.

Don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to select fine art and support the arts and artists. Bid (starting as low as $5), purchase and take home one or more of these truly amazing artworks from the hands of artCentral’s awesomely talented artists—our marvelous constellation that includes international art stars, regional luminaries and emerging artists just beginning to twinkle. Each of these artists is shining at their very best through their Silent Auction gems.

Even mega star Andy Thomas is making the time to contribute a Silent Auction treasure. What is he painting this year? I’m eager to discover! Two years ago his canvas depicted the passion of a rising up stallion. Last year his canvas brought us the image of the jolliest Santa I’ve ever seen. For both these small works the bidding was vigorous and artCentral was made sustainably stronger by the dollars Andy brought in to support our work.
 
As you likely know, Andy was recently publicly recognized and praised by our country’s President and consequently made known around the world as “the painter of presidents”. In spite of his jettison into the highest heights, Andy remains our beloved and always modest local artist super hero. Even cast into the bright lights of international media coverage, our home-boy-made-famous remains true and his work ethic uncompromised. Though he’s been hard pressed to guard the sequestered studio hours he values, he’s committed to spend the time needed to create yet another Silent Auction treasure. Thank you, Andy!

Thank you! goes out to all our artCentral artists who are stepping up to make this year’s Silent Auction the best ever. The newest members of our board of directors, Jane Ballard and Jason Shelfer, are signed up to contribute their talents. Former board member Helen Kunze again shows her joy in her warmly painted duet of pomegranates titled “Pom Poms”. Former board member Brenda Sageng will also contribute a canvas. My own, “If the Shoe Fits”, wire on canvas, will be included, as will be the “Tiny Dancer” rendered in oil by artCentral’s prepitor (art handler), my husband David Greenwood-Mathé. The shimmering old-masters beauty of Karolee Blanchard’s “Spring Iris” will bring tears to your eyes.

Volunteers extraordinaire Lora Waring and Emily Rose will have their 5x7’s on offer. Lora’s “Fistful of Flowers” is a brilliant bouquet created in color pencil. Emily’s “Golden Nautilus” is painted in oil. Chris Raredon is donating a charming rendering of a precious puppy. Many more Silent Auction contributing artCentral member artists and friends are putting the finishing touches on their canvas creations.

This year’s 5x7 Silent Auction onsite bidding begins at Hyde House at 5:00 pm Thursday, November 29th at the Holiday Boutique Preview. Bidding closes at 3:00 pm, Saturday December 1st.

Treat yourself to the ultimate experience in happy holiday shopping for your loved ones, friends, teachers and business associates. Mark your calendars now for November 29th and 30th and December 1st. Admission is free for all three Holiday Boutique days.

Plan to visit artCentral’s elegant Hyde House filled with beauty, inspiration and one-of-a-kind 5x7 canvases and pocket-friendly presents.

• November 29th, Thursday, 5-8 pm, is the Holiday Boutique Preview, Silent Auction launch and your first shopping opportunity. 

• November 30th, Friday afternoon and evening, 3-8 pm, your shopping and Silent Auction bidding times continue.

• December 1st, Saturday, 9 am-4 pm, is morning and afternoon shopping with the Silent Auction bidding concluding at 3:00 pm.