WHITE HOUSES I’ve a number of white houses I know well. Some modest. Some quite grand. Of all my white houses none feels more like home than Hyde House on the hill. No other gives me a greater sense of belonging. The wee post-World War II white clapboard, where I spend my childhood, is in a small village incorporated within greater Little Rock above the Arkansas River. When my brother and I walk to our elementary school, we pass the Village Store, the combo fire-police station and the Community Hall--the essential components of our all-in-one tiny city. |
While I live in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, I have autumnal use of a two-story, white Vermont farmhouse belonging to generous Arkansas friends. Tall and straight she stands, with views over the pond and the dirt road that descends, past the Rockefeller mansion of their cousins and the graveyard of tilting stones, then over the covered bridge into Woodstock.
Returning to my roots from NYC, I settle briefly in a green-shuttered, white Dutch Colonial on a street sloping to the Medical School. Here I see my parents through their end times. Later in Fayetteville, I pass several months semi-setup in a white, porch-wrapped landmark on Block Street from which folk music perpetually pours.
Today I’m all about Hyde House, the big, beautiful, elegant home of artCentral. This white jewel is a treasure entrusted to Carthage by our benefactress, Katherine Hyde. Ms. Hyde, an aspiring painter, wanted her home to be used in perpetuity to promote, exhibit, teach and foster art in our community. Every day artCentral’s Board of Directors and I aspire to honor Ms. Hyde’s wishes. Please, won’t you join with us and make Hyde House your home, too?
Become an artCentral Member! Your Membership donation helps support our daily operations and the expansion of our Classes, Workshops and Activities for children. You can pick up a Membership mail-in envelope at supporting businesses around Carthage or at Hyde House or visit our website and join online at http://www.artcentralcarthage.org/membership.html. Call our Membership Chairwoman, Gail White at (417) 310-7262 to join, or call me at (417) 358-4404.
Our grand, white Hyde House is here to be shared and spacious enough for everyone. There’s definitely room for you. Don’t hesitate. Join artCentral today and make this art-filled house your home where you belong.