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.

 HAPPINESS RUNS IN A CIRCULAR MOTION 

David, my artist-musician husband, is a walking encyclopedia of songs. He can instantly call up lyrics he sang and played fifty years ago. All I have to do is give him a phrase. He picks up his guitar and the words and cords flow as memories poetically unwinding.

If I sing “happiness runs”, David responds with my favorite lines penned and released in 1969 by the talented, Scotsman Donovan:
​
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.

Practicing the art of happiness is on my heart every day. David and I begin by setting our tone with happy, spoken intentions, the ringing of our Tibetan singing bowl and a bit of our own singing. Early mornings, after David leaves for his day job, I take Lasyrenn our Aussie pup to the Carthage square where we practice happiness together and do her social training. While I go inside Mother Road Coffee, she waits patiently outside tethered to a bench hand-crafted by shop owner Ed Hardesty. Returning with a cup of ice for Lasyrenn and my floral thermos filled with steaming red berry Rooibos tea for me, we settle in to practice our greetings as customers arrive for cups of warm beverages and a tasty breakfast wrap or pastry.

When approaching people ask me, “How are you today?” mostly I answer with my favorite mantra “I’m happy!” There is great truth in the wisdom: “You get what you think about and what you speak.” I’ve learned even if my day feels a little “off” because I’ve encountered an unexpected bump or I have something worrisome on my mind, when I declare, “I’m happy!” I have the greatest chance of getting to happy faster.

At almost fifteen months old, our Aussie lives in a perpetual state of exuberant happiness. While she’s still refining her art of saying “good morning”, mostly she remembers to sit, even though her people-loving instinct is to jump up with kisses to show her pleasure at seeing old friends and meeting new ones, too. Of course, when photographer Koral Martin walks up from her KOKA gallery just down Main Street, Lasyrenn just looses all sense of learned etiquette. She wiggles her backside so hard her whole body vibrates, as she nuzzles and presses into Koral’s caressing hands and delighted laughter. She keeps wiggling until she melts and rolls herself over for one of Koral’s blissful belly rubs. These two have a happiness thing for each other!

There’s a post going around on Facebook that goes like this:
Happiness is the new rich.
Inner peace is the new success.
Health is the new wealth.
Kindness is the new cool.

Yes, all the good stuff begins with happiness. We know the happiness and richness of life when we enjoy the inner peace, health and kindness that bring us success, wealth and cool.

I experience this circularity of happiness every day as executive director-curator of artCentral where I’m collaborating with my board of directors and our amazing bevy of artCentral artists as together we create the magical happiness that is our Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction set for November 29th and 30th and December 1st.

Already Jackie Boyer, board president, and board member Jane Van Den Berg are festooning our elegant Hyde House with the red and green and twinkling lights that make our hilltop sparkle and glow. While our artists put final touches to their unique gift items to be offered for your shopping pleasure, board members Jane Ballard, Betsy Flanigan, Lonnie Heckmaster, Doug Osborn, Lee Pound, Jason Shelfer and Gail White are making their share of happy magic. They’re preparing our signature potted and bowed amaryllis for your purchase while they schedule volunteers, get the word out through the media that reaches you and stir up delectables for your sampling pleasure. When you see these imaginative, happy magic makers out and about beyond artCentral, please join me in saying “thank you”.

Mark your calendars now: November 29th and 30th and December 1st for artCentral’s Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction. Happiness will fill your heart and set the tone for your holidays when you drive up Hyde Hill and walk through artCentral’s welcoming green door to find an artfully perfect, unique gift for everyone on your shopping list.
​
In the meantime remember the “Art of Quilting” exhibition gracing the gallery walls of artCentral at Hyde House remains on view through November 18th during weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free. For more information call (417) 358-4404.

Yes, our gusty breezes have done their best to tease the lingering clusters from our magnificent maple trees. Gentle showers have twirled them down and added them one-by-one to the multitude of shimmering leaf carpet littering our lawns like nature’s best confetti. Soon we’ll hear old winter’s song, though I’m so, so reluctant to see this season go.

​Have we ever had a more gloriously colorful autumn? To drive through Carthage—down Grand or Garrison Avenue or almost any street or even any alley—is like traveling through a movie set that’s decorated to saturate our senses. On sunny days the glow has been dazzling. On cloudy days the wet tree trunks have looked like sturdy, blackened, upright columns supporting crowns of glistening dazzlement. Reds in crimson, scarlet and aubergine. Yellows from pale lemon to dandelion to bright and burnished golds. Oranges and coppers to make our eyes pop. This year the vibrant palette of our trees has been more resplendent than ever!

What shameless glory! What magnificent showing off has unfurled for our delight! Mesmerized and distracted into a state of sustained, low level delirium, I’m almost disoriented. I have so, so much to do to get ready for the coming twirl of the holidays just ahead, and yet I’ve been endlessly inclined to play hooky, as though my life depends on running outdoors to plunge into the beauty swirling all around us. When my husband, David, comes home to tell me he has the luxury of a couple of unexpected days off, I chorus with him, “Let’s use this time to make art and have fun!” We do. We give ourselves a stay-cation and follow the flow of our creative impulses.

Filled up and brimming with the good fortune and joy of our free time to-spend-as-we-please, I want to use some delicious moments to reach down into my little purse of words and images. I want to use them to tell the world that we live in a land of awesome amazement—a wonderland of wonderment. I want to share our abundance with everyone, and so I go out with David to meander about to look and sniff and see. I want to photo document the gifts we find and post them on facebook for all to savor. I do.

I photo and post and the world responds. Julie Yokey, director of our Carthage Library, is delighted with my photos of our autumn afternoon in Ma Chéri Amour, our beat up old john boat, floating along the colorfully, reflective shoreline of her beloved Lake Lamar. My facebook friends in Florida and California message me, “We don’t have your colors here. Please share more of yours there.” I do. Sharing makes my heart sing as I say my good-bye-ing to this gorgeous Carthage autumn and turn my attention to the approaching delights of winter, just around the corner.

Already I’ve started celebrating on my easel, for I’ve just received a lovely commission to make a painting on canvas of a grand old Carthage house that was my patron’s home. The best news is her desire to have the depiction rendered to reflect the Christmas season. Lucky me. Just what I need to focus my attentions away from fallen leaves and onto the bright reds of poinsettias and amaryllis, the deep greens of hollies and the twinkling lights festooning the doorways of the magical yuletide we’re approaching.

Of course all my creative, artistic urges always circle round and lead me back to artCentral where at Hyde House magic happens the whole year through—most especially at this changing-of-the-seasons time as our physical world dramatically transforms from the stunning lushness of autumn’s colorful abundance to the subtle serenity of winter’s beautifully bare landscape. While twirling leaves finish falling to serenely blanket our campus outside, behind artCentral’s green door of hospitality exciting preparations are unfolding for our fourth annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction featuring an enchanted plethora of artist created gift items.

A recent post I made on artCentral’s facebook page tells best of my mounting anticipation:
​
This Christmas…
*Buy local.
*Buy handmade.
*Buy from people you know.
*Buy from self-employed.
*Remember, the big stores don’t do a jig when they make a sale.
*Make someone jig this year.
*Put smiles on the faces of everyone on your gift list!
*Shop artCentral’s Holiday Boutique and Silent Auction.
*Then watch our artists do their happy jigs!

free 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 through November 18th.

Soon after Thanksgiving artCentral will be filled with new art made with love especially for your holiday shopping and gifting. The annual Holiday Boutique and 5x7 Silent Auction will take place November 29 and 30 and December 1. Mark your calendar now and visit www.artcentralcarthage.org for more details.
 
While there’s a lot of art made with love and shown at Hyde House, there’s a lot of art made with love at my Paradise house, as well. I’m an artist. My husband David’s an artist. Lucky I am, for David’s also a trained chef which means every morning I get an artful, made-with-love breakfast in bed.
 
Recently coming back up the stairs with a breakfast tray generously laden, David brought a story that goes like this: “You know how people say, ‘Food always tastes better when it’s made with love’, well, this breakfast was made with a lot of love! The eggs were made with my dragging around our Aussie puppy with her front legs wrapped around my leg while I shuffled from the frig to the stove top. The egg scrambling was done with one hand while I played tug-of-war with a towel with the puppy tugging on the other end. The juice was made with the puppy jumping up on me with a squeaky toy in her mouth going squeak, squeak, squeak and the toast was made and saved with my grabbing away the slices just in time as the puppy put her front paws on the counter and opened her puppy mouth wide to steal the toast waiting on our plates. So you see, this breakfast was made with a lot of love.”
 
There’s been a lot of puppy love infusing the creative efforts made at our house and with our arty friends, too.
 
One of Lasyrenn’s God-given puppy traits is her capacity to chew up any attractive object that catches her Aussie eye or tempts her Aussie nose. In our storeroom we’ve collected a huge pile of Aussie-loved leftovers. Among these are puppy beds decorated with huge holes; bouncing balls sadly deflated and torn into remnants; pieces remaining from tethers and halters chewed clear through in moments of boredom; stuffed animals missing limbs and noses; and solo shoes that once belonged to nice matching pairs. While we talk of someday making a puppy collage using all these random, well-loved treasures, we do quake at the prospect of tallying the mounting costs of our puppy-created assemblage.
 
Just ask artCentral gallery docent, Emily Rose. A cat-lover herself, Emily knows all about the personal costs of being the object of puppy love. This time last year Emily was at artCentral doing her weekend gallery tending. She was also completing her sketching on the canvas she was preparing to paint and donate for the Holiday Boutique Silent Auction that features artCentral artist-created canvases. David and I popped in to say “hello”. While we visited with Miss Em, she turned away from her sketching. Lasyrenn seeing an alluring object to chew upon helped herself to Emily’s unattended art-in-the-making. Happily Lasyrenn chewed away a corner of the canvas and wooden stretcher then left her signature toothy, puppy markings all over the rest of Emily’s lovely drawing. Before our puppy was discovered, the damage was thoroughly done.
 
Emily’s quivering lower lip and streaming crocodile tears were so, so sad to see. Shaken but not discouraged, with her love for artCentral and her skilled strokes, Emily rallied and rendered another canvas for her donation. David took Emily’s damaged canvas and painted a portrait ode to Lasyrenn. On one edge “No! No! No!” was boldly lettered. On another edge: “DROP IT!” was painted like a shout.
 
The Silent Auction came. Bidding was brisk. David put in the winning bid and now has an original Emily proudly displayed in our music salon. I bid high and brought home David’s portrait of our puppy.
 
Soon you’ll have your own opportunity to bid on the stunning collection of 5x7 artist created canvases in this year’s Silent Auction. These and all the art in artCentral’s Holiday Boutique at Hyde House are guaranteed to be made with love.
​

among darkly mystifying hints of mysteries. They’re​ telling us the sacred day of Halloween is next on our calendar of seasonal celebrations.

While we lay in stores for trick-or-treaters and the small and youthful citizens of our community are getting costumed up for school parties and going from door-to-door down Grand Avenue, some are mindfully beginning a three-day observance of Allhallowtide—the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs and all the faithful departed.

What better way to remember those passed over than to tell their stories? Yes, this is a storytelling time of year when we pass down family tales both fact and fiction—headless horsemen and folks-a-flyin’ all bound up with lace-encrusted ancestors and cracked photos of nameless children posed in most peculiar settings! Our local shop windows remind us of such carrying-ons, 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.

Passing their story-filled, bewitching 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 bewitched by the art of their windows and by their art-making of Dana’s childhood dream.

Don’t forget: “The Art of Quilting” exhibition remains on view at Hyde House through November 18th.
​

Witches still appear in autumn windows. All decked out in their signature black, I’m spying them in some of my favorite storefront displays that ring around our enchanting, historic Carthage Square. These witches are charming and amusing. They’re all artsy. Some are downright funny.
​
Two of these beguiling dark-clad crones have recently caught my attention to beckon me through front doors into shops full of delights and overflowing with curiosities. Bewitched by these window wonderments, I’ve met and grown to know two Carthage women, both visionary shopkeepers. Both have followed their instincts and intuitions. Both have worked hard and successfully created family owned and run businesses that are great sources of customer satisfaction, the kind that creates a loyal base of patrons that repeatedly return.

Come with me this week and I’ll introduce you to Sharon Coffee, owner of Colonial House at 348 Grant Street on the east side of the square. Next week we’ll visit with Dana Reed at Screen Door Antiques, aka Oldies and Oddities, Curiosities Unlimited on the Square’s south side at 331 South Main.

Sharon, a native of Monett, Missouri, and her husband, David, a son of Detroit, originally met at their Christian College in Tennessee. After their marriage, they moved about with David’s work until settling, first in Mt. Vernon, then in Carthage in 1979 to raise their family—two daughters and a son—who’ve grown up to make their own families. These days their youngest pre-school grandson spends weekday afternoons “helping” Sharon in the shop.

Together Sharon and David opened their Colonial House eleven years ago. For seventeen years, Sharon had worked as a secretary in the library at Carthage High School, before deciding to launch out in a new direction. She was inspired witnessing the success of her sister Cindy, who owns the 6,000 square foot Cobblestone in St. Charles, Missouri, outside of St. Louis.

What a pleasure to walk into Colonial House and find a Carthage grown original—an artistically designed home décor store specializing in only American made furniture and home accessories. The day Sharon and I set aside time to visit, after she put her “helper” down for a nap, we chatted quietly at a sturdy dining room table, festooned with an assortment of enticing gift and decorating items. Each time the bell at the front door jingled to announce the gentle stream of arriving new customers coming to browse and shop, we paused our conversation for Sharon to offer her greeting and welcome. Feeling relaxed in the shop’s serenity, we easily picked up the threads of our talk.

Since inception, Colonial House has been filling a niche market that’s unique in our four state area. They carry colonial and primitive style furniture and every imaginable accessory to decorate your home—handmade lighting, rugs, prints, harvest tables and chairs, upholstered furniture, bedroom suites, candles, curtains and lots, lots more. You can find Americana accessories all year long with many historical reproduction prints.

I’m not a big fan of faux adornments that are made to look like foliage and flowers, but the ones I find in Colonial House keep me going back for more, especially the seasonally sweet bittersweet wreaths embellished with small cutout metal stars. Sharon’s flame-less candles with flickering wicks are mesmerizing!

At Colonial House the possibilities seem limitless. You can custom order a chair from a line of 200 designs. You can customize a table any way to suit your liking from the table top to the table legs, from the kind of wood to the finish. Each wood piece is hand made by Amish artisans in Ohio. With a myriad of styles from which to choose, all upholstered furniture pieces are also handmade by the Amish with hand-constructed frames of hard maple. Each artful creation is guaranteed for the lifetime of the purchaser.

As we enter our Maple Leaf Festival season and begin moving fast forward into and through the holidays be sure to stop in often at Colonial House where you’ll always find an abundance of seasonal décor. Handmade Santas are already in stock—the Arnett Santas as collectibles since 1976.

The shop’s annual Christmas Open House will take place the first weekend in November—the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Do drop in and as you’re leaving take another delightful look at Sharon’s bewitching witch in her window, then pay a visit to artCentral’s Hyde House and see the amazing “Art of Quilting” exhibition on view through November 18th 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.



​

have a brief meeting on the condition Jinny meet us on the sidewalk on the square.

​For days David and I had been down on our knees and derrières working our way around the perimeter of the courthouse. While we painted one fire hydrant and then another with swirls of maple leaves and poufy white clouds floating over a cerulean sky above vibrant green grass below, the sidewalk pavement was, as the old timers say, “hot enough to fry an egg,” as temperatures soared through an end-of-summer heat wave.

In spite of the sweltering conditions we had to multi-task and meet with Jinny while we kept painting. We were on a deadline—determined, with the help of a bevy of plein air artCentral artists, to have all the hydrants dressed up and spiffy along the parade route for last October’s Maple Leaf Festival. 

Jinny arrived, sat down on the midday hot, hot sidewalk alongside us and made her pitch for a quilt exhibit at artCentral. A month later in artCentral’s pleasantly cool, upstairs library, we met again—Jinny and I and members of the quilt exhibit committee including Barbara Montague, Ruth Potter and Sandy Swingle.

​After months of planning and preparing, quilters hand-delivered their treasures to Hyde House, and David and I spent a couple of evenings working into the wee hours installing this colorful exhibition of fiber arts with their individual story cards. Barbara Montague filled the shelves in the chandelier gallery with her personal treasure trove of quilts and fibers paired with selections from her crockery collection. The door prize quilt, “Lone Star” (valued at $500), made and donated by Jinny Hopp and Barbara Montague, was wall-mounted and made ready to receive five-dollar donations for tickets available at the opening and through the exhibition’s run. Additionally two dozen artful fiber items were displayed with their cards for visitors to make their silent bids. All proceeds from the Silent Auction and Door Prize donations will go to fund artCentral’s work on behalf of art and artists.

Michele Hansford spent an afternoon selecting award winners for outstanding entries based on their artistic, compositional and technical qualities. Michele’s husband, Gary Hansford, himself an accomplished quilter, lent his insights based on his years of experience and technical expertise. Award placards and ribbons adorned with quilted medallions handmade by Ruth Potter were paired with envelopes filled with cash prizes and set aside for the announcements to follow.

The Art of Quilting opened with last Friday night’s festive celebration! Guests arriving at Hyde House were greeted and treated to seasonal pleasures created by Joplin Globe food columnist, Amanda Stone—ice cream floats served “with and without”. When I asked Amanda for her recipe to share she replied, “Ummm…I don’t have a real recipe. The ingredients are apple cider, an array of spices, sugar, optional caramel vodka, club soda and vanilla ice cream.” No exacting recipe was needed. Amanda’s creations were heavenly!

At last the time for the long anticipated announcement of awards arrived. Best in Show: Jinny Hopp for “Full Bloom: 4th and 6th Designs”; Gold: Mary Thornton for “Hourglass of Life”; Silver: Sue Swindle for “Peach—Anyone”; Bronze: Joan Banks for “The Snowy Day”; and Judge’s Choice: Francis McDaniel for “Basket of Flowers”.

The honey-haired quilter, that so caught David’s and my attention when we first saw her at Cherry’s Art Emporium on the Square, was present for The Art of Quilting opening. Still seated and framed within “The Wedding King Quilt”, she continued working silently, beautifully rendered with oils on canvas by Roy Lee Ward.

During weekend gallery hours or by appointment at (417) 358-4404, come see this lovely, honey-haired quilter as you view this wondrous fiber arts exhibition. All remain at artCentral through November 18th.

​*******************************************************************************************

GOLD · Mary Thornton · "Hourglass of Life"

Time ticks on in small bits.
But each bit has the power to take large bites of ones being.
Time seems to move effortlessly through space. 
It is paced at being the present between the past and the future.
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.

With such power that nothing can halt its progression,
It is cursed, it is envied, it is abused, it triumphs. 
It adds balance to music, rhythm to dance, flow to words. 
It has the power to crumble tall mountains, erode the strongest structures, diminish the greatest efforts and achievements.

Propaganda speaks that time has the power to heal but in whose life time. 
Time has withstood all before it, 
and the barriers that tried to hold back its passages
have all crumbled into nonexistence. 

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. ​

*******

JUROR’S CHOICE · Francis McDaniel · "Basket of Flowers"

I got this pattern about 2014 from a dear friend, Doris McCall, from Golden City, Missouri. The Basket of Flowers quilt she made for a full size bed was gorgeous.

I decided I wanted to make a miniature of Doris’s quilt. Using 2,249 hexagons, getting my Basket of Flowers made took all this time.

I was sorry Doris passed away before I got my miniature finished. For this reason, Basket of Flowers is precious to me.
 ​

Autumn! Oh, how I do love this crisp season with so much to enjoy. Signs of celebration are appearing all around us. You can see them in the imaginative windows of Mother Road Coffee on the square. Enlisting the artistic ingenuity and talents of Terri Bunn, at MRC Kara and Ed Hardesty go all out to decorate for each new season. For now, among a plethora of colorful delights tucked into a forest of birch tree trunks (or are they aspens?) there’s a stack of books perched on a shelf.

Descriptive words are neatly printed on the book spines, as though they’re song lyrics on the staff lines of sheet music. Collectively they perfectly describe this magical season. They poignantly express my autumnal sense of wonderment as together they sing a sweet shout out for the joys of this time of year: Autumn; jeans; crisp air; football; hot cider; good books; coffee; bliss. I’m tempted to sneak in two more volumes placed at the tip top of the stack. The text on my volumes would read “art” and “quilts”!

Yes, art is at the top of every stack of books in our house and at artCentral’s Hyde House, too. Art is what makes this and every season special. The art of nature. The art of gathering with family and friends. The art of slowing down so not to miss the comfort this season brings to all of us. The art of seeing another splendid exhibition filling our gallery walls with the beauty of quilted fiber creations.

The current exhibition, “The Art of Quilting”, at artCentral, in the galleries upstairs and down is made possible by the generous underwritting of Edward Jones Financial Advisors in Carthage: Darren Collier, Kristi J. Montague, Joe Ryder and Garrett Stramel.

This exhibition offers us the best of autumn—color, imagination, comfort—on the walls of Hyde House waiting for your viewing all through our Carthage Maple Leaf Festival and beyond to November 18th! Quilters with outstanding entries have been selected by juror, Michelle Hansford. Their ribbons and awards hang beside their creations.

These aren’t just old-fashioned or ordinary quilts. These are fashion-forward fiber art. They come with stories told by the creators who give us written windows into their art-making.
Exploring how others see her is the foundation for Mary Thornton’s “Quintessence of the Heart”. Using a drawing a friend composed of her after she wore outlandish leggings to her friend’s home, she broke free of her friend’s constraints to radiate her soul outwards with the colors of hope, life, love and creative synergies. Some free motion flowers are enhanced to be a rebirth of ideas.

Fiber artist, Andrea Luliak, says about her “Oklahoma Earthquakes”, “Oklahoma has experienced an unprecedented rash of earthquakes caused by wastewater disposal during fracking operations. I strongly felt two earthquakes where I live and the impression they made on me was intense. No one knows the extent these earthquakes will have on Oklahoma, but I needed to show the displacement of the earth in this piece.”

“Peach – Anyone”—cream on one side, peach on the other—by Sue Swindle is an oval, reversible table runner with a satin stitch edge.

Lillie Eaton usually looks for a appliqué pattern. Appliqué patterns are her love. When she saw the “Snow Village” pattern she was instantly drawn to the the colors and houses. She altered the original pattern, adding her own appliqué bird. She feels the quilt is very inviting and would be a great entry piece in someone’s home.

Joan Banks likes the dimension that a layer of organza gives to an art quilt. “The Snowy Day” feels almost as if you could step into her woodland setting and sink into the snow.
Through the weeks ahead, before our own winter descends, all the quilts at artCentral are hanging like open windows singing colorful welcomes to autumn and to you. Come see them soon and often during weekend gallery hours at artCentral: 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.
We think for sure you’ll hear autumn singing through our windows and on our walls in our big, old Hyde House.

​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.
​
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!”