To the community supporters of artCentral’s nineteenth artCamp we send out an appreciative “Thank You!” Their help makes possible the two weeks of summer magic beginning very soon at artCentral! This year’s generous artCamp donors include the Helen S. Boylan Foundation, the Carthage Council on the Arts, Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio, the Ruth I. Kolpin Foundation, Leggett & Platt, Inc., the Rotary Club of Carthage, S&S Computers and Walmart.

The artCamp teachers have delivered their class sample projects. They are all really awesome and fun! So many great ideas are on display. All are created with an amazing variety of media and imagination. You can see them at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage, during weekend gallery hours Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Come view these cool creations and register your artCamper soon!

Curriculum and registration forms may be picked up at artCentral and at Carthage venues including Cherry's Art Emporium, the Carthage Public Library, KOKA Art Gallery, Mother Road Coffee, The Palms Massage and Day Spa and the Carthage Deli and in Joplin at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. Forms for artCamp are also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

When you are at artCentral to pick up or drop off your artCamper registration be sure to take in the 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition which will be on view through all of June, during weekend gallery hours, as well as through artCamp. Viewing in July will be by appointment. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org.

Yes, during artCamp’s two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019, artCentral’s aspiring young artists, ages 8-14, will be surrounded by great art made by the accomplished artists of Carthage as well as talented artists from neighboring towns.

Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is our very best ever. Four unique classes are offered for each artCamp day. Here is a look at the choices for all Week One Classes:

MONDAY, July 8:
ANI-MUGS with Alexandra Burnside - Create a clay animal mug masterpiece using hand building techniques.
GOURDS OF FUN with Cheryl Church - Learn to create farm animals out of Sculptey clay and gourds. 
AMAZING ANIMAL HABITAT DIORAMA with Anne-Marie Gailey - Draw and paint! Sculpt and construct! Waterfalls and mountains and forests!
WATERCOLOR PAINTING with Tom Jones - Get the paper wet. Add exciting splashes of color for a sunflower and a ladybug, too!

TUESDAY, July 9:
PILLOW PETS with Alexandra Burnside - Draw and sew and stuff your special fabric animal or imaginary creature.
CLAY HOMES FOR WINGED FRIENDS with Cheryl Church - Learn hand building techniques as you create a clay bird house.
CHARCOAL PORTRAITS with Tom Jones - Humans are creatures, too! Have fun with this slightly messy medium!
BARNYARD ANIMALS IN GLASS (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley make a glass rooster+cow+pig+maybe more!

WEDNESDAY, July 10:
CLAY PINCH POTS with Cheryl Church - Learning cool techniques, you make clay whistles and flutes and even drums!
COLORFUL STONE PAINTING with Teri Y. Diggs - Learn simple steps and layouts for stone painting your favorite critters.
3D MODEL TREE HOUSE with Anne-Marie Gailey - Design and build a unique model tree house for viewing nature and animals.
WATERCOLOR ABSTRACTS with Tom Jones - Learn fun and super cool techniques and tips for abstract beauty and backgrounds.

THURSDAY, July 11:
NATURAL 3D BUILT ENVIRONMENT with Deb Bentlage - Collaboratively construct a mixed media natural habitat on photo canvas.
SCULPT BABY ANIMALS with April Davis-Brunner - Shape, sculpt and create your favorite babies.
COLORED TISSUE PAINTING and COLLAGE with Tom Jones - All creatures are possible to create with colorful tissue painting!
UNDER SEA GLASS CREATURES (Ages 10-14, campers wear closed toe shoes) with Jane McCaulley - Make glass jelly fish, starfish and more!

FRIDAY, July 12:
LACEY AND PRETTY ZENTANGLE with Teri Y. Diggs - Learn Zentangle drawing and create beautiful butterfly wing designs. 
JAPANESE SHADOW THEATER with Anne-Marie Gailey - Learn about unique Japanese creatures. Build a theater. Make jewelry, too!
ACRYLIC ABSTRACTIONS and POURS with Tom Jones - Explore new and unique acrylic techniques!
ACTION FIGURE DIORAMA with Sarah Serio - Create an animal filled adventure world for your action figures to roam.

​Yes, Week One at artCamp is packed with an awesome array of innovative creative opportunities and sure-to-be favorites for every artCamper. Classes are filling up fast. Don’t delay. Sign up your artCamper today!
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An end-of-artCamp Reception and Exhibition will be held in the Main Gallery at Hyde House on Friday, July 19, 2019, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Everyone is invited. Mark your calendar and plan to come celebrate our artCampers and their two weeks of exciting creativity! I look forward to having you join us! 

artCamp is coming! Get your aspiring young artists registered today!

Yes, artCentral’s artCamp is coming for two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019! Curriculum and registration forms may be picked up at artCentral and at Carthage venues including Cherry's Art Emporium, the Carthage Public Library, KOKA Art Gallery, Mother Road Coffee, The Palms Massage and Day Spa and the Carthage Deli and in Joplin at Spiva Center for the Arts, Cleo’s Picture Framing and Design and Crackpot Pottery and Art Studio. Forms for artCamp are also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

​Inspired by this year’s artCamp theme, “All Creatures Great and Small”, our 2019 curriculum is composed from proposals submitted by the individual teachers. Presently the teachers are perfecting their lesson plans and preparing samples of their class projects which will be on display at artCentral as artCamp registration is underway.
 
Our 2019 artCamp Teachers are the best! All teachers selected as artCamp instructors are either recognized working artists, experts in their media, or public and private school teachers having professional credentials. Many are both practicing artists and school teachers, too. I am very grateful for these talented souls who choose to spend their precious summer days guiding and nurturing the young creative spirits who come to artCamp. I am proud to introduce to you these highly skilled art makers.
 
DEB BENTLAGE – Having returned to her Missouri roots, photographer Deb and her dog, Pete, and their cat companion live in The Little House which she renovated on her family’s old farm. She teaches in southwest Missouri and is a successful author of self-published books filled with her beautiful photographs.
 
ALEXANDRA BURNSIDE – Alexandra grew up in El Paso, Texas. She loves her musical husband, cats and playing with clay! She teaches elementary art at Fairview Elementary and loves making art with kids and watching their creative minds at work. For Alexandra, drawing and doodling are fun and relaxing.

​ANNE-MARIE GAILEY – Anne-Marie is a longtime participant as an artCamp educator. Art was the emphasis of her Bachelor degree with a minor in Art Education. Anne-Marie‘s teaching experience includes high school and elementary art programs in this region and at the Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin.
 
ALICE LYNN GREENWOOD-MATHÉ – I am an artist and the Executive Director-Curator of artCentral. I LOVE artCamp! With my artist husband, David, I like to go for vintage boat and motorcycle rides to discover inspirations. Together we travel, garden and share a big, old house filled with our art and our furry and feathered companions. We're training our high energy Aussie in French.

SARAH SERIO – A native of Neosho, Sarah is a professional artist/printmaker and returning artCamp teacher who enjoys teaching kids to be creative thinkers. Sarah’s prints are shown regionally and exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. She serves on the Neosho Arts Council Board of Directors.
 
Yes, artCamp teachers are the best! Very soon these gifted and dedicated instructors will be teaching artCampers in the terrifically inspiring setting of Hyde House’s beautiful, spacious galleries transformed into classrooms where the walls are filled with remarkable artworks by artCentral’s talented artists showcased in this year’s Annual Membership Exhibition.
 
The 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition will be on view at Hyde House through all of June, during weekend gallery hours, Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m., as well as through artCamp. Viewing in July will be by appointment. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org. Treat yourself! Come visit soon!

​Thirty years ago, in 1989, to the community of Carthage, Katherine Hyde bequeathed her family’s historic foursquare farmhouse as a home always to be used for sharing fine arts. My studio-office is at the end of the second floor hallway. This former sleeping porch has two window walls overlooking the spacious lawn spreading beneath old growth trees, the carriage house transformed into teaching spaces and the Great Wall painted by a bevy of artCentral artists and artCampers.

Naturally, I work at my computer and projects facing outside. Whenever I look up from my tasks I always catch a glimpse of inspiration. Hanging behind me a very large calendar charts yearly exhibitions and events and paper streamers of invitations celebrate the talents showcased in artCentral’s galleries over the last ten years. In every available space you’ll see paintings—some old, some new—that my husband David and I have made.
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The first time Joplin artist Andrew Batcheller came upstairs to visit me, he peeked through the door and exclaimed, “Did you do that with acrylic? How did you get the skin tones to blend so well?” He had cast his gaze on the portrait I made of Sophie, our granddaughter as a tiny, one-week-old babe tenderly held in her mother’s arms.

No one garners admiration better than Andrew Batcheller—as a caring person, as a rock star painter, as a good friend to all fortunate to spend time with him. The largeness of his heart and life and presence are irresistible. That Andrew paints large is no surprise! He paints with courage and with power. His paintings can take your breath and invoke your tears with fierce and poignant beauty. With hope they soothe your soul when aching and lift your spirit to new heights.

Batcheller states, “My greatest inspiration is derived from stories—specifically tales of how people traverse the landscape of this life. Stories of sadness, tragedy and pain are the most powerful for me, for they enhance my gratitude and lead me to greater appreciation. I always try to find the silver linings in these stories. Around these revelations, I focus my work.”
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Andrew tells stories in oils on textiles—canvas and linen and tee shirts and bed sheets and pillowcases, too. Many are stretched to the limits to accommodate the vast scopes of the narratives he brushes upon them.

​Now on display in artCentral’s 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition, Andrew’s painting, “The White Birds That Preside in the Heavenly Days”, offers up a stunning landscape, four feet by six feet, filled with revelations represented by his signature iconography—birds of splendor—in an exquisitely detailed, majestic setting.

When the exhibition’s distinguished jurors—Beth Simmons, Director of the McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation and an avid collector of art and patron of artists, and Jerry Ellis, AWS, NWS, our Carthage hero and famous watercolorist—stood before Andrew’s painting each expressed their awe and amazement for Andrew’s remarkable achievement. Beth recognized his excellence with the Underwriter’s award. Jerry paid tribute by bestowing Andrew with the Gold award for the most outstanding artwork in the collection of forty-three on display.

Other outstanding art was recognized. Recipients selected by Jerry, included Silver to Jane Ballard for “Sunflowers”, a digital photograph uniquely rendered as a layered shadow-boxed diorama. The Bronze award went to Karolee Blanchard for her intimate, atmospheric, stroke-perfect “Inception” in oil.

Honorable Mentions given by Beth included April Davis-Brunner for “Scooby”, Aurelia Burr for “Disneyland Dreams”, David Greenwood-Mathé for “Àshe. Namaste.” and Jesse McCormick for “Out of the Red”. Jerry’s Honorable Mentions went to Linda Teeter for “First Communion”, Debbie Reed for “Gracie in Spring” and Helen Kunze for “Claiming Our Spot”.

Both jurors told me I should be very proud of the high quality of all the art now hanging in the galleries of Hyde House. I am proud and very grateful to each artist sharing their talent so generously. Thank you! to our award recipients and to artists Diana Bray, Jim Bray, Maddie Capps, Valerie Cummings, Dan Curry, Mary Datum, Sherry Fobair, Brenda Hayes, Diane Heisner, Barbara Hicklin, Nina Johnston, Janice Kinman, Melody Knowles, Philip Ledbetter, Lori Marble, Koral Martin, Dan McWilliams, Connie Miller, Dustin Miller, Margie Moss, Mary Parks, Sandra Parrill, Percilla Penner, Tyla Raredon, Richard Reed, Emily Rose, Janiece Siebert, David Storm, Kerry Sturgis, Wayne Walker, Lora Waring and Bonnie Young.
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Come see remarkable artworks by artCentral's talented artists! The 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition will be on view at Hyde House in June during weekend gallery hours, Friday and Saturday, 12:00-5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00-5:00 p.m., and by appointment during July. Detailed information is at www.artcentralcarthage.org

To view all 2019 Annual Membership Exhibition art by artCentral artists please visit artCentral's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pg/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/?ref=page_internal

Soon David arrived and off we went on his vintage 1997 BMW 650 Enduro. Stopping at the Carthage Deli on the Square, over an early dinner we chose our ride’s destination then headed east. Gliding past Kellogg Lake and her lively fountain sending up a bevy of sprays, I happily remembered another eastward trip we made some months ago to the same destination as this evening’s.

Back then on a late January afternoon with light fast fading, two or so miles northeast of Carthage, just off Route 66, David and I arrived at of the old home place of Belle Starr. We were there to fetch one of our well-known local celebrities.

According to Wikipedia, “Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, better known as Belle Starr, was a notorious American outlaw who associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws. In 1883 she was convicted of the serious crime of horse theft. In a case that is still officially unsolved, Belle Starr was fatally shot in 1889.
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Obviously we were not there to pick up Belle. Rather we were waiting for another of our town’s best known personalities. Our mission was to gather and to deliver him to be honored at the Carthage Chamber of Commerce Annual Awards gala.

Dressed in a subduely stunning silver lamé tea-length sheath, Rose, our celebrity’s lovely wife, was first to emerge onto the porch of their home, Belle Starr’s restored house. Lowell Davis, soon to be named Artist-of-the-Year, then appeared in his signature flat driving cap, a woolly plaid muffler draped above his sport coat and black turtleneck he had paired with jeans. As Sophie our granddaughter would say, the two together “looked quite fashion-y!”

At the Awards Banquet, another local artist hero, Andy Thomas, gave a touching tribute as he called Lowell to the stage to the applause of a standing ovation. “He’s done so much for Carthage!” Andy declared. “His work has depicted farm life in America. Thousands and thousands of people from across America have come to Carthage to visit him. They still visit him. You can’t go out and visit without being interrupted by someone who wants to meet him. He is in my eyes the greatest artist I have ever known. He’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some great people.”

Great people attract fans. Lowell is no exception. Lowell is a magnet! On almost any day you can visit his Facebook page and see new photos of Lowell at home spending time with guests. They come to see Lowell, and they come to see Red Oak II, the enchanting, artful village he has created.

Red Oak II (located about eighteen miles from the “old” Red Oak) exists today as Lowell’s painstaking re-creation of the original, where he spent his boyhood before going out into the world. The first Red Oak, Missouri, like many other rural agricultural towns across the country, started to fade sometime after World War II when people began to move to the cities. In the 1970’s, Lowell returned home to find his beloved hometown all but vanished.

What did he do to assuage the loss of the place and the simpler times so dear to him? He made art—his paintings and sculptures and Red Oak II. Lowell found and bought homes and businesses from the original Red Oak town site and other lost villages; he moved them to Red Oak II; and he restored their “grandeur”.

With respect for their evening privacy, David and I left off paying a call to Lowell and Rose and began our walkabout. We admired the old vehicles randomly scattered about as though frozen in time; their Belle Star House, a Phillips 66 station and an old schoolhouse; a feed store, the church and a diner; and a town hall, jail and several homes. Two buildings of special personal significance for Lowell are the General Store run by Lowell’s father and where he learned to sculpt and paint and the blacksmith shop where his great-grandfather once practiced his trade.

​As Lowell’s chickens scurried back and forth across the dirt track before us, we were reminded that our own flock would soon be ready to be shut in their coop for the night. Donning our helmets we climbed back on the Beemer. Passing the Belle Star cottage we delighted at our celebrity sighting. Lowell was sitting on his porch, wearing his flat driving cap and a cravat smartly knotted at his neck. He smiled and raised his fly swatter in a wave as we passed by to start our journey home.

I don’t know. I’m too early dinner hungry to make a choice, so we stop in at the art embellished Deli, place our order with ever-friendly Christina and Nathan Brown and sit in the sawed-in-two, chrome-loaded, fin-tailed, hot pink (‘60?/’61?) Chrysler where we admire the fabulous hot pink colors of the potted bugambilia sitting in the giant picture window framing a sumptuous view of our majestic Jasper County Courthouse.

Our wait on the Chrysler’s bench seats was brief, but did we really order all the food that’s delivered to our table? A grilled Reuben to share (another as a half-price special to take home), two bags of chips (sea salt are our faves), a complimentary Tuesday brownie with colorful sprinkles, two of Christina’s homemade, mouth-watering cookies, two pieces of homemade pie—crusted cherry and creamy mint chocolate—because we couldn’t decide, two cappuccinos in clear glass mugs and a cappuccino ice cream shake topped with a scarlet stemmed cherry for David. Oh, my! Oh, my! How we do like to eat!

We finish up and pack our take home in the motorcycle carrier, strap on helmets and off we go…but I’m running out of word space to tell of our remarkable art adventuring. Our destination story will have to wait for a future Art Notes.

Today I want to tell you about another dining-and-art-viewing favorite this coming week. The exciting artCentral 2019 Membership Picnic and Exhibition will open Friday, May 31, 2019, with a celebratory feast beneath the beautiful canopy of old growth trees on the lawn of Hyde House backdropped by the enchanting artist murals painted on artCentral’s Great Wall including the newest mural by aspiring young artists at artCamp.

This is a much anticipated annual happening when the artist members of artCentral really strut their stuff and artCentral supporting patrons turn out to celebrate the wealth of talent that is artCentral. If you’re not already an artCentral member come to the party anyway! We’ll be happy to sign you up for a membership. The festivities commence at 6:00 p.m. with an al fresco spread at $5.00 for a dinner to best any other you’ll locally source. The tastiest fried chicken in all of Carthage will be the catered entrée from Sirloin Stockade complimented with sides and desserts brought by artCentral members who are definitely among the best of all regional cooks.

As the partaking and visiting wind down the evening’s big excitement will crank up with the announcement of the art and artists tapped for special recognition and receipt of generous cash prizes by artCentral’s distinguished jurors—our Carthage hero and famous watercolorist, Jerry Ellis, and Beth Simmons, Director of the McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation and an avid art collector with an astute eye for distinctive creativity.

This stunning exhibition is made possible by the generous underwriting of the McCune-Brooks Healthcare Foundation.
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Take your own arty ride to artCentral, and you’ll see why our excited anticipation is on the rise about art in our small town in mid-America!

While we are teaching children they are teaching us. As our young, treasured sages, they remind us how to look and see with our eyes and our hearts—eyes and hearts that are fresh and intuitive, inquisitive and curious. They show us how to say and tell what we see through our appreciating and making and sharing works of art informed by our feelings.

As grownups conditioned by experience and education, we may become more sophisticated in what we choose to see and in how we approach our looking and expressing, but always the heart of an uninhibited, lyrical child beats deep within each of us.
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At the Heart of artCentral is artCamp where uninhibited, lyrical children fill Hyde House with their love for art and their art-making laced with laughter. Yes! artCamp is coming for two weeks, Mondays through Fridays, July 8-12 and July 14-19, 2019! Curriculum and registration forms may be picked up at venues around Carthage and Joplin and at artCentral. They’re also available online at https://www.artcentralcarthage.org/artcamp-2019 where you’ll find all the fun artCamp facts.

At artCentral’s recent Board and Annual Membership Meetings officers were elected for our 2019-2020 year. With tremendous gratitude we extend appreciation to Jackie Boyer, who as president has led the board and artCentral to ever more expansion and strength during her past two-years in office. Thankfully Jackie will stay on to serve on the board and contribute with her unflagging enthusiasm. Our wise financial adviser, Lonnie Heckmaster, will continue in his role as treasurer, while many-talented Jane Ballard assumes the responsibilities of our secretary. Betsy Flanigan is stepping up to fill the presidency role.

Betsy’s positive outlook, her years of philanthropic experience, her “this isn’t hard” attitude, her beautiful smile and bright laughter and her multi-skilled tool box make tackling any task a doable pleasure with her, no matter how large the challenge or how steep the learning curve. With all my heart I thank Betsy for taking on artCentral’s presidency and sharing her time and talents so very generously.
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Betsy became my faithful side kick, or as her husband Bren likes to say my “work spouse”, as over the past several months we developed artCentral’s Give 4ART campaign that was rolled out for May’s Give Carthage Day sponsored by the Carthage Community Foundation with the expert leadership of Heather Goff Collier. Together Betsy and I wrote letters, crafted emails, developed posts for social media and attended educational workshops to help us enhance our fundraising skills.

At the Heart of artCentral are the generous artCentral Members and Community Supporters who stepped up to help artCentral continue to bring grand art to our small town. 

ZHANG HUAN
Three Legged Buddha | 2007
 
The work of Zhang Huan (Chinese, born 1965) engages with Buddhist philosophy and rituals and with the artist’s notion that the contemporary condition is continually revitalized through an engagement with the past. Three Legged Buddha—a copper and steel sculpture standing twenty-eight feet high and weighing more than twelve tons—represents the bottom half of a sprawling, three-legged figure, one of whose feet rests on an eight-foot-high human head that appears to be either emerging from or sinking into the earth. The work is comprised of nine sections of copper “skin,” each with an interior steel armature, held together with bolts and welds.
While the legs of Three Legged Buddha are modeled closely after fragments of bronze Buddha sculptures that Zhang encountered on a trip to Tibet in 2005, the sculpture’s face—visible only from the nostrils upward—is a self-portrait. Zhang folds himself into his creation, much as he took his own body as subject in the 1990s, when he came to prominence for performance-based work. Three Legged Buddha further alludes to performance and to the process of making a sculpture in both the perforations and hatches on the copper surface. Zhang designed the hatches to provide access to the sculpture’s interior so that incense might be burned inside, with the resultant smoke emanating through holes in the Buddha’s toes and through the head’s open nostrils and eyes.
https://stormking.org/artist/zhang-huan/

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STORM KING ART CENTER

Once upon a time not so very long ago, my husband David and I had an artful, giant-filled adventure when we visited Storm King Art Center, an expansive, 500 acre outdoor museum and sculpture park nestled on gently curated hilltops and in miniature patchwork meadows in New York’s idyllic Hudson Valley.
 
Since 1960 Storm King has been dedicated to stewarding the highlands, lowlands and forests of the center’s site and surrounding landscape. The first acquired sculptures were placed in a formal garden outside the Museum Building, originally a large, stone and slate-roofed residence built in 1935 as though modeled on a storybook illustration.
 
Storm King supports renowned giants of the art world—modern and contemporary artists and some of their most ambitious outdoor works. Each work is carefully sited as part of a vast visual fabric. More information on the collection can be found at collections.stormking.org.
 
Our spring day visit was fair with hints of blue heavens shining from behind dramatically jostling rain-laden clouds. Our hearts were happy. Our eyes eager for discovery.
 
Journeying north from Ridgewood, New Jersey, our east-coast-traffic-experienced driver speeded over the Palisades Interstate Parkway then slowed to wind on old two lane roadways threading through villages made quaint with Victorian cottages and stacked stone walls and brooks that seemed to be singing.
 
Our in-search-of-art-and-giants companions were our two granddaughters—Sophie, almost six-years-old, and Xandie, just six-months—and their adventuresome, art-loving mom, Audrey. We arrived early morning well-equipped with extra wraps and an all-terrain stroller for the baby. Yes, our family believes no one’s ever too young or too old to engage in artful adventuring and giant stalking. To find terrific art and giants outdoors is awesome!
 
Storm King Art Center’s new season was just opening. The old growth trees were just beginning to leaf out, so the vistas were wide and stretched far across the manicured park to the distant mountains. Young trees thoughtfully arranged—a copse here, a bosky there—offered bouquets of soft spring-green textures contrasting with the massive, heavy art works constructed of media chosen to endure outdoor elements.
 
Each in our art-seeking, traveling party had a special role to play. Mine was as family photographer and documentarian;  Audrey, our capable driver and guide to our artful destination, multi-tasked mommie duties while keeping us loosely organized and pointed toward must-see installations; Baby Xandie simply smiled, napped, cooed and was our all-day darling; Sophie, who always runs or skips and never walks, kept us briskly, exuberantly moving; and David provided tons of Grandpère fun while serving as Sophie’s personal Sherpa as he uphill-pushed the baby’s stroller on steep inclines.
 
Storm King is about the serious business of preserving art for future generations to come. There are even cautions posted in the lavatories explaining the “no touch” policy, because natural oils, dirt, sunscreen, bug spray, hand sanitizer or lotion on our hands can irreparably damage the surface of sculptures. Visitors are encouraged to look but not to touch or climb. As exceptions, there are select works designated for interaction.
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The interactive “Momo Taro” by Isamu Noguchi is the first sculpture to which Sophie ran for her initial photo op. Noguchi visited Storm King in 1977, ​surveyed the landscape, selected a site, then ​returned to his studio

​Another family favorite was Alyson Shotz’s “Mirror Fence”—a simple picket fence that magically reflects the minutia of the landscape.

​When from the top of a lawn sidekicks Sophie and David saw a sculpture below that appeared too far and slow to reach by following the long paved path, simultaneously they stretched out on the grass and began to roll down-down-down the slope, their arms and legs and laughter flying all around them as they 

came to rest ​​at the feet of our favorite giant in all of Storm King—the huge “Three Legged Buddha” (2007) by Zhang Huan!

​Yes, once upon a time not so long ago we visited Storm King Art Center with three most delightful companions. We’ve brought home many happy memories and pictures of art and giants—enough to fill a storybook!  We should write one!   

​Your donation can help in many ways:

$10 Every art journey begins with an art supporter!
$20 Brushes and paint and paper, oh my! Your gift provides for artCamp supplies!
$35 Your gift provides for one scholarship class for one artCamper.
$40 Your gift allows artCentral to train interns to take first steps towards careers in art education and leadership.
$50 Your gift helps with snacks for our always hungry artCampers!
$70 Your gift supplies an artCamp classroom
$100 Your gift supports a community workshop.
$200 Your gift provides for artCamp teacher compensation.
$200 Your gift supports artCentral’s satellite exhibitions.
$250 Mona Lisa smiles at your generosity!
$500 For the love of art and artists. Your gift supports artCentral in our outreach to artists and our community through exhibitions, awards and publicity.

Be sure to visit artCentral soon to see the amazing art of Connie Miller’s “Conversations in Color” on exhibit during weekend gallery hours now through May 19th. The walls of Hyde House at 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage are virtually vibrating with energy and with colors singing in spring. The pigments in this new collection are strong, bold and brilliant! They are bright, exciting and uplifting! They are happy, fun and inspiring!

While you’re at Hyde House sign up for Connie Miller’s Draw-and-Paint Studio Workshop. Plan to spend two delightful hours on Saturday, May 11, 2019, 2:00-4:00 p.m., learning from an experienced, expert practitioner. For Connie’s Draw-and-Paint Studio Workshop the fee is $20 paid in advance and includes all supplies and the promise you’ll be taking home lots of valuable instruction plus your own colorfully painted gourd birdhouse.

“Give 4ART!” on Give Carthage Day! “Give Where You Live” and make a difference! Visit artCentral and experience the benefits your generosity creates for our entire community!

decorations under magnificent Japanese tulip trees blessedly spared from late frosts. As dogwood blossoms are unfolding, many-hued redbuds and lilacs growing fragrant have joined the flowering trees of pear and crabapple and weeping cherry.

Mother Nature knows best! With her presentation of each new gift in turn, she gives us time to savor before we bid adieu.

At artCentral we are bidding adieu to three cherished members of our board of directors who have given tremendously of their gifts and are now departing for their next adventures in their work and philanthropic endeavors. To Jane Van Den Berg and Gail White and Lee Pound we bid our fond good-byes knowing we will see them again in future seasons.

Arriving to take their turns each of our three new board members brings unique and splendid gifts to share.
Madelynn Capps, a Carthage native known to many as “Maddie”, will graduate from Crowder College in May and begin studies at Pittsburg State University this fall. Double majoring in English education and photography, she aspires to be an English teacher, photography teacher and assistant tennis coach. While attending Carthage High School Maddie participated in 4-H and was the yearbook’s photographer in her junior and senior years. She’s been an intern/docent and artCentral member for four years. In April 2016, Maddie with Katie Watson debuted as a photographer-artist duet for artCentral’s first “Emerging Artists” exhibition. While studying and working part-time selling boots at the Justin Boots outlet store in Joplin, Maddie is growing her own small photography hobby-business one snap at a time.

Wendi Douglas, a Tulsa native, pursued an English degree at MSSU with a focus on technical writing. She has worked for the American Cancer Society, Girl Scouts and United Way in positions focused on public relations, recruitment and fund raising. Wendi served nearly ten years as the Executive Director of the Carthage Convention and Visitors Bureau. Married to Brad and living in Joplin with two daughters, Wendi has been honored as an Influential Woman by the Joplin Tri-State Business Journal and has served on the board of the Young Professionals Network of Joplin, The Missouri Travel Council and Missouri Association of CVB’s. She’s a founding member of Vision Carthage and Carthage Art Walk. She currently serves on the boards of the Joplin Sports Authority and the Carthage Council on the Arts where she volunteers for the newly created Art.A.Fair committee. Wendi’s also a member of the Public Relations Society of America.
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Kerry Sturgis, a longtime photographer, and his wife Bev, artCentral’s Membership Coordinator, have been artCentral members for ten years. They are master Gardeners and have served as Literacy Council mentors in the English as a Second Language program. A native of Florida's Tampa Bay area, Kerry with Oklahoma native Bev moved to Carthage in 2008 after seventeen years in Albuquerque. There they participated in the vibrant art scene of Santa Fe. Kerry worked as a journalist during his Navy years and today uses those learned skills in his contracted technical writing. His main professional focus has been on industrial health and safety. He is a RN registered in Missouri. He serves on the more than 5K member Missouri Stream Team composed of volunteers who monitor stream health for the Missouri Department of Conservation. He monitors our own Center Creek here in Carthage. Oh, yes! and Kerry knows his way around a guitar and has an amazing repertoire of vocal tunes. He and my husband David are terrific jam partners!

Please join me in welcoming these three amazingly-gifted, best-of-spring gifts who are enthusiastically taking their turns on artCentral’s board of directors.

our worldly belongings through the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River and right on into Midtown Manhattan with my two children hooraying and our two cats meowing—all of us ready to step out onto terra firma and a brand new life. We did step out and stepped up to accelerated expansion that continues to unfold.
 
We’re all still grooving on our evolutions begun on that remarkable day that sent my son to set up his family and outdoor adventuring and techno successes in the great northwest as my daughter does her Jersey-to-city work compute and raises our granddaughters with her husband while David and I create our art-centric shared experiences anchoring artCentral here in mid-America. Living life with our expanded worldviews across the continent is good for all of us, really good!
 
Going east or west to touch coasts and share time with those we love is a huge part of our life’s goodness. Taking a quick week to be in New Jersey to meet and hold our new grandgirl, Xandie, and play with her big sis, Sophie, is pure bliss. A day doing art in the city is a fabulous bonus, especially when the day includes taking in the current MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) exhibition “Joan Miró: Birth of the World”, the subject of The New Yorker’s art critic review by Peter Schjeldahl whom I first found soon after deboarding that UHaul truck.
 
Since our first introductions, I have always loved Schjeldahl’s writing in the same way I have always loved the art of Miró. Both are masters of their crafts they create with inventive intelligence informed with childlike delight and wonder. Schjeldahl uses a lot of five-dollar words, meaning I have to consult Siri when I need a good definition, but he doesn’t use those to be show-off-y but rather because the art he describes begs for more than plain and regular descriptors. As though just for fun Schjeldahl throws in fancy words from his vast personal lexicon. Apparently he has always done and continues to do what feels most natural.
 
In a similar way I feel compelled by my own “can-do” driving instincts. In this regard I like to claim a commonality of background with both Schjeldahl and Miró. We all three, guided by our aversions to expected conventions, have more or less stumbled into our life callings by running away from the expected into the greater unknown. (I just couldn’t bring myself to get a “safe” degree for a respectable profession, because I always only wanted to be an ARTIST!, never dreaming I would end up as the executive director-curator of a non-profit arts organization I absolutely adore!)
 
I like Schjeldahl for being the small-town Minnesota boy who, ravenous for sophistication and knowledge, dropped out of his close-to-home-college, worked his way east as a newspaper reporter and made his contributions to The Village Voice, Art in America, The New York Sunday Times, Vanity Fair and now The New Yorker and makes time to write books, his most recent being “Let’s See: Writings on Art from The New Yorker”.
 
Just as I admire Schjeldahl for his set-your-compass-on-your-true-north gumption, I’m impressed by Miró, the international Catalan. Miró, born in Barcelona in 1893, was by his goldsmith/watchmaker father shamed away from a career in art and driven to be a clerk. Miro’s response after two years was to have a complete nervous breakdown then finally enroll in a local art school. 

As Schjeldahl tells us, Miró “visited Paris in 1920 and…soon bedazzled the art scene with works like the energetically fragmented, blazingly colored ‘The Farm” (1921-22), which was bought by Ernest Hemingway. Miro joined the Surrealist group in 1924.” (The Farm is an oil painting made between the summer of 1921 in Mont-roig del Camp and winter 1922 in Paris—a kind of inventory of the masia [Catalan: a type of rural construction] owned by Miró's family since 1911 in the town of Mont-roig del Camp.)
 
Described by Schjeldahl, today Miró “is known best for his trademark lexicon of asterisk and scribble, petal and curlicue.” Alexander Calder’s mobiles took “Miró’s influence to literal heights, with variations on the Catalan’s repertoire of catchy, nature-allusive forms suspended in air.”
 
The Joan Miró works David and I stand before, relish and admire on our afternoon at MOMA, are summed up perfectly by wordsmith Schjeldahl: Miro is “given to timeless, simple pleasures of recalled childhood and artisanal tinkering. Miró is fun. He earns and will keep his place in our heart, rather exactly like Calder, with abounding charm.”
 
There’s no denying, I am thoroughly charmed by my charming husband’s exquisite artistic tastes that embrace the charming writers and artists I adore!