Mark your calendar for artCentral’s five star HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE! On December 5, 6 and 7 artCentral’s elegant, enchanting historic Hyde House will be filled with art, gifts and holiday décor created by sixteen talented artists for your shopping pleasure. Fundraising Amaryllis will be featured as solos and duets in chic, vintage-styled galvanized planters modestly priced ($25 for a single and $30 for two bulbs) and ready for decorating homes and gift giving for your family and friends and business colleagues, too. The fundraising 5×7 SILENT AUCTION featuring more than four dozen original creations will be offered for your choosing one or two or more. Classic cookbooks will be available for $5.00.
How very quickly November has come and won’t be slowed. Yes, this month of seasonal transition continues to briskly march on toward Thanksgiving as we begin to realize the brevity of the shopping days we have left to choose greeting cards and wrap special presents and send holiday boxes to love ones who are far from here. Our annual twirling time is upon us when some of us will end up whirling like dervishes!
Shall we pause for a moment and collectively breathe to quietly center ourselves before we get to spinning?
Those of you who meditate are likely to know the practice of choosing a simple, calming mantra to help you focus and relax as you still and clear your busy mind. Perhaps you like to use a singular object or an image to anchor your wandering attention. My husband, David, finds looking to a gently flickering candle flame leads him into an interior place where thinking is silenced and a sense of well-being expands and prevails.
I invite you to just such a place. Follow the gently twinkling lights to Hyde House on the Hill. There you will find paintings to carry you into lovely dimensions where the beauty of our natural world will beckon you and surround you and center you like a mantra that will settle and comfort even the most restless spirit.
Jodie Sutton’s ENCAUSTIC AUTUMN LANDSCAPES exhibition will be on view in artCentral’s galleries at Hyde House through this coming and final weekend. Gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. The display of these 112 stunning paintings made with hot wax is generously underwritten by Sirloin Stockade. For more information call (417) 358-4404.
Come see Jodie Sutton’s ENCAUSTIC AUTUMN LANDSCAPES. Be settled. Be soothed. Maybe find a gift for yourself or another, then you’ll be ready for the holiday pace that’s picking up already.
In times past—before big box venues and frantic Black Friday online trafficking—holidays seemed distinctive. End-of-summer Labor Day brought back-to-school. Pause. Halloween brought pumpkin cutting and costumed trick-or-treaters meandering through their hoods. Pause. Turkeys decorated classroom bulletin boards and family tables. Pause. Christmas gift shopping got started and a few lights were strung on rooftops; store windows were decorated and the big tree went up on the courthouse lawn; churches around town set up scenes of the Nativity with mangers awaiting the arrival of their babies; bell ringers stood beside kettles on the square; carols were sung and the babies arrived in their mangers along with Santa and his presents; and wrappings were cleared. Pause. New Year’s Eve parties and a welcome day off work. Pause. Winter slowly unwinding into spring.
Today many of us live without pauses, always planning, always looking months ahead with seasons and celebrations constantly bumping into each other and overlapping a lot. Many of our mostly benign environments can get super agitated. About the time Lowe’s finished installing the scary, gigantic Halloween blowups, they started displaying lighted faux Christmas trees just across the aisle. Our very sensitive Australian Shepherd, in training as a therapy puppy and usually a fan of practicing good behavior at puppy-friendly Lowe’s, gets overstimulated now before she ever walks through Lowe’s front door. I’m amazed we all don’t go bonkers. Our world is a fast-forward one. Like living in New York City, you have to jump into the pace lest you get run over or left behind.
artCentral is no exception. In early October David, our artCentral prepitor (art handler), and I carried the Hyde House holiday decorations down from the attic, and Board president Betsy Flanigan and I had the exterior bedecked with greenery and red bows before the wee ghosties and ghoulies paraded down Grand Avenue. When the question arose of setting up the Christmas tree, my dear husband adamantly declared, “Really? Halloween’s not even over!”
We have many other preparations to make before setting up the tree. I promise we’ll be finished completing our last tasks and be happily ready to greet you when you come through our vibrant green door for artCentral’s beautiful HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE!
