Have you seen METAMORPHOSIS at artCentral? This stunning showcase of paintings and pottery created by Debbie and Richard Reed is on view August 6 through September 18, 2021. To preview the art in this elegant exhibition visit artCentral’s facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/photos/ and artCentral’s website at artcentralcarthage.org/events.
METAMORPHOSIS Weekend Gallery Hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. Visit early and select your favorite works to purchase and call your own.
The two accomplished exhibiting artists, Debbie and Richard, look forward to greeting you at their ARTIST RECEPTION on Friday, August 20, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Hyde House, 1110 East Thirteenth Street in Carthage. The public is invited. Admission is free. Libations and hors d’œuvres will be served.
When Debbie and Richard Reeds’ three children turned school age, Debbie chose to pursue her lifelong passion to be a practicing artist rather than follow the nursing path for which she had trained. Six years later, after attending art classes while caring for her family, she received her B.A. in Studio Art.
At that time, the art scene being rather quiet in Joplin, Debbie came to Carthage to take classes and workshops with Bob Tommey and Jerry Ellis and Andy Thomas. She still speaks with emotion today as she describes their generosity—their ready availability; their willingness to have students drop in and paint with them; and their valuable advice, guidance and encouragement for students they took under their wings. With great affection, Debbie speaks also of Sandy Higgins, the founding director of artCentral, whom all the artists cherished as their guardian angel watching over them and being shepherdess for the Midwest Gathering of the Artists (MGA).
Bob Tommey, seeing the quality and maturity of Debbie’s work, invited her to participate in the prestigious MGA. Accepting this coveted invitation, Debbie launched her first experience as an emerging artist entering her paintings in a major exhibition. Concurrently, Richard, while practicing dentistry full time, frequently came to Carthage and studied stone carving with Bill Snow and continued to develop his pottery making skills to express his personal aesthetic with works of precision and perfection and pristine elegance. When developing application of colors and glazing techniques he still tends to make many test tiles and to make notes on the outcome of each.
Today both artists have individual studios in their Joplin home. Richard is set up in the basement filled with wheels and kilns. The large room over their garage perfectly suits Debbie’s need for space to create and store her paintings.
Together they tell us: “The fun of metamorphosis in art is what keeps us creating in the studio!”
Debbie adds: “Metamorphosis means to transform, to have striking change. When creating art there is indeed a metamorphosis from the beginning of a painting to when I feel the work is complete. Often artists carefully preplan their work in order to avoid missteps along the way, and I do as well for commissioned pieces or competitive art. When painting every day in my studio, however, it’s a whole different process. I will start a painting with abstract under layers, often 6 or 7 layers deep. Then I ‘find or feel’ my theme from the abstractions and build from there, letting the art speak to me as I go. This is a very exciting way to create, and I enjoy the problems that can arise from this method. The painting becomes a puzzle or mystery for me to solve. This is a very joyful and challenging way to work.”
Speaking of his artistic process, Richard says, “Working with clay is also an exploration that leads to often surprising and welcome outcomes. Experimenting with form and glaze is never entirely predictable as you have ingredients and kiln firings that are always unique. Each piece undergoes extreme change under the duress of multiple firings and the outcomes are always exciting.”
Do come see the excitement and elegant beauty each of these artists offer to us in their art. See the Asian influence of Debbie’s childhood years in Japan with her Japanese stepmother. See the thoughtful refinement in each one of Rich’s exquisitely glazed plate and pots and jars and bowls. See their cumulative years of study and experience and practice that come to us transmogrified by metamorphosis into galleries filled with their expressions of pure joy!
