The Opening Reception for HEART & SOUL is here! Come celebrate with us Feb. 7, 2020, 6-8 p.m. For February and March, the art of the Joplin Regional Artists Coalition will fill the galleries of Hyde House, upstairs and down. For more information call (417) 358-4404 or visit www.artcentralcarthage.org online.
For another recent evening, a black and white invitation designed with the graphic influence of art deco read, “An Evening of Elegance”. Yes, elegance was the essence of this memorable evening in our small town of Carthage where more than four hundred gathered to celebrate and honor our business, education and community leaders.
Folks were beautifully dressed in individual interpretations of elegance—women in semi-formals and formals to shiny leggings and fashion-forward strappy stilettos—men turned out in ties and tailored suits and tux as well as big-brimmed cowboy hats over creased jeans and pointy-toed boots. A gourmet buffet was catered by The Red Onion for guests gathered around tables bedecked with wintry elegance by Bloom Boutique. Throughout the evening, ripples of uplifting words and happy laughter intertwined with waves of vibrant applause giving voice to a community expressing appreciation for those who lead and inspire us.
On behalf of last year’s 2018 Artist of the Year, Lowell Davis, and as Executive Director-Curator of artCentral, I was delighted to call to the stage and honor the 2019 Artist of the Year—Dan McWilliams. I presented him with his award—an original oil painting by Lowell Davis.
On an overcast January afternoon, Dan McWilliams had greeted my artist husband David and me in the chilly, unheated front room of his Studio One Eleven gallery in Jasper, Missouri. Wearing a hoody over a t-shirt and jeans, he explained that on wintry days when the sun is out the western exposure makes the gallery wonderfully warm and toasty. (On other days dressing in layers is advised.) We kept on our coats and hats and gloves.
David and I know Dan’s art through his participation in artCentral’s membership exhibitions. We have enjoyed discovering his paintings at Cherry’s Art Emporium on the Carthage square and on the walls when we have made a pilgrimage to Golden City for a piece of gooseberry pie at Cookie’s. He also shows at the Hawthorn Gallery in downtown Springfield.
A Missouri native son, Dan was born in Sheldon, Missouri, in 1956, and when in the fourth grade moved to Jasper with his family. He studied art at MSSU. More than once he has left Jasper, meandered and returned to his deep Jasper roots. He used his drafting degree to work in the manufacturing industry as a designer and writer. He took career detours, wandered and finally returned home to his heart. In 2000 Dan quit his day job. He opened a pizzeria and painted murals on the wall. His artistic talent was recognized and admired. Dan quit making pizzas and blissfully fell full time into his heart’s desire to paint.
Dan’s oil paintings can be understood as impressionistic realism. They call our attention to the beauty in ordinary scenes of life—those scenes we often overlook. The magic in his brushes is the way he uses the contrasts of light and shadow to celebrate what he wants us to see. He is in good company with Edward Hopper, the creator of “Night Hawks”. With confidently animated strokes Dan can paint water that seems to move and twinkle. With gentle brushing, his waters appear to rest in serene and glassy stillness.
Dan is always looking to find a new angle for seeing an old subject or an ordinary object—a child’s doll or a couple of cows or a line of yellow school buses parked in a shed or a hound dog resting with a pair of old cowboy boots.
Broadening the span and the vitality of the Carthage arts community, Dan works quietly and modestly in his studio. Without fanfare he is creating and contributing light and illumination that reaches far beyond Carthage and his own mid-American small town. He is well on the way to achieving the fame and recognition that have come to artCentral artists Lowell Davis and Andy Thomas. He will be another homegrown artist who puts our hometown on the worldwide map.
To recognize the well-deserving Dan McWilliams as the 2019 Artist of the Year is a great honor. Congratulations, Dan!
