THE BACK ROAD IS THE AESTHETIC WAY I like to take a back road when departing Carthage. The route is slower, but the visual pleasures are plentiful, for this aesthetic way is well populated with unique communities. Heading west on a clear winter’s morning, naked street side sycamores dance high their white branches, making a laced etching against the backdrop of a cobalt sky. Their delicate beauty causes me to smile and start looking for what comes next. |
Seeing these pastorals, I think of two of our artCentral artists, Helen Kunze, who serves on our Board of Directors, and her studio sister, Kristen Huke. They both so skillfully paint hay bales, vast skies, open fields and cows, I want to step into their canvases, lean on a fence, smell the aromas and feel the sunshine on my face. Soon, with Sarah Huntley, they’ll be relocating their Drawn Together Studio from beside the train tracks to just off the square. I’m guessing that even though moving downtown, they’ll still paint countryside and broadly stroked vistas to feed our senses!
Like the triplets of Drawn Together, the sensually twined sycamore branches, grazing cows and gathered bales, the artists of artCentral make a rich tableau of community—a community uniquely woven together by our love of art and acts of creating.
While our artCentral home is a bit of a back road destination, Hyde House is certainly worth the detour. Here in our elegant surroundings we have our gabled Artist Salon and Attic Atelier, the Sally Armstrong Lending Library and our fully equipped Robin Putnam Pottery House. We have spacious galleries for showing our work and the Board Room Boutique for our guests’ shopping. We have workshops and classes. We have artCamp teaching opportunities. We even have our own Great Wall out back, quietly waiting for our reimagining.
If you’re an artist or know one looking for a place to gather with other creatives, we invite you to join artCentral (417-358-4404) as an Artist Member. The benefits are many including recognition in our Newsletters and on our website as an Artist in our community.
Come for these last few days of our PASSION Exhibition in our galleries through this weekend. See what a community of artists can make and then make art with us!