Cool! Awesome! Fabulous! These just about sum up artCentral’s 2019 inaugural exhibition “Arti Gras”, showcasing the terrifically talented members of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition. Come see for yourself! Visit artCentral in elegant, historic Hyde House, February 1 through March 17, 2019, during weekend gallery hours: Fridays and Saturdays, 12:00-5:00 p.m. and Sundays, 1:00-5:00 p.m. Next week I’ll tell you all about the “Arti Gras” award recipients and the celebratory Artists Reception taking place on my birthday! For now my musings are domestic, mostly.
In our own big, old house David and I have two offices. Mine shares space with my studio, since choreographing artCentral and making my art are virtually inseparable. David’s office at the end of the hall currently sports a “do-not-enter” note hanging on the gate. He tells me all my birthday presents are in there, and I “better not look!”
I most certainly won’t look! No way am I going to spoil any of the surprises my dear husband puts together. The anticipation is just so much fun. Oh, how I do love my birthday and cards and packages and presents and all the falderal that comes with celebrating another year on planet earth.
Lucky me! The unwrapping has already begun with a beautiful pair of colorful plaid gloves from Repurpose Boutique, because our Aussie puppy ate my old glove! Actually Lasyrenn only consumed the end of one thumb. She was hanging out with me in my studio/office while I was concentrating at my computer screen. Though my space looks like a toddler’s play room with puppy toys everywhere, Lasyrenn got bored with her usual favorites and went shopping. She happened to look in my open shoulder bag and scored big. She found my kibble-scented old gloves. (We use kibble as rewards when we’re gloved and hatted for outdoor morning puppy training in the cold).
Intent on my computer task, I got that feeling “she’s being too quiet”. Looking around I discovered Lasyrenn all curled up in a far corner blissfully nibbling. “Pas touche!” “Pa-too-shay”, Drop it!—we’re still training in French—I exclaimed. She did. The glove went into the mending basket with the wool throw sporting a puppy-created hole. I went back to work.
At seventeen months old Lasyrenn’s still indulging her love for chewing on any and everything. If she’s alone and on her own too long, she’s sure to look for entertainment. Chewing is her favorite soothing pleasure.
We have a sweet heirloom chest that was decorated decades ago by David and his mom and sisters. Today this treasured cabinet has three intact legs. Lasyrenn’s been whittling down the fourth as though to become a chopstick variation. What’s a puppy lover to do? David’s sister suggested using Bitter Apple—the spray guaranteed to discourage unwanted munching—but Lasyrenn seems to think this stuff only adds seasoning to whatever she has between her teeth.
“What about chewing?” is a question to put on our list to ask Jessica when we meet for our puppy behavior consultation—part of our “welcome to the family package” at Central Pet Care. We need to finish filling out the questionnaire the clinic sent us to prepare for our session. For days the paper’s been waiting for our attention while sitting on David’s and my shared table between our two reading chairs.
These well-worn reading chairs are our nests, our sanctuaries, our happy places. We never seem to spend enough time serenely ensconced in them with a book or a New Yorker opened wide. You see, we’re both a bit old-fashioned. We both LOVE to read and we love hard copy texts to hold in our hands. We essentially don’t watch television. Having a large screen hidden in the music room armoire, we occasionally check in with PBS, but we’d almost always rather read.
With our day jobs taking up so many hours, sometimes our beloved evening reading times are given over to those domestic tasks that always need doing. Though we both share mending chores, the stitching together of the thumb on my glove fell to me while David plugged the draft around the front door then untangled the bamboo chimes that greet us entering the back door. They were a mess. He considered throwing them away, but I couldn’t bear to lose them, so there he sat in his reading chair string by string, knot by knot freeing up the chimes to swish and sing again in the wind. They’re restored and hanging back in place to greet our homecomings. Success!
Success is mine, too, the evening reading times I’ve given to prep and send out artCentral’s “thank-you’s” to our new and renewing members. Are you a member? If not, treat yourself! Visit www.artcentralcarthage and click on JOIN or pick up a membership envelope in the information box by artCentral’s front steps and in businesses all around town. I’ll be sure to send you an appreciative “thank-you”, our quarterly newsletters and printed invitations to artCentral’s future, fabulous Artist Receptions.
