Looking ahead to what comes next as we move forward out of our community’s pandemic quarantine, we recognize transitions can be exciting and tricky times. Here’s a tried and true formula for success when taking transitional steps: LOOK AHEAD—PAUSE and BE STILL—REFLECT—THOUGHTFULLY FLOW into MOVING FORWARD.
LOOKING AHEAD from PAUSED STILLNESS—While Hyde House remains temporarily closed through July, artCentral’s board of directors safely, virtually held their May meeting online via Zoom. With president Betsy Flanigan presiding and the board’s technical guru Wendi Douglas facilitating, secretary Jane Ballard took minutes. A main topic of consideration among all the directors was artCentral’s judicious transition from a period of paused stillness into the staging of reopening events.
REFLECT—Before we go too far, too fast we want to contemplate where we have been and what we have learned and what we have gained from our past experiences together at Hyde House. We want to celebrate our successes! On artCentral’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ArtcentralCarthage/) I am posting how artCentral artists have creatively used their times in isolation, and I am posting happy retrospective memories of art we have displayed and celebrated at Hyde House! Visit and see how artists have made the most of isolation. Take a visual tour and be inspired by the amazing works of artCentral member and guest artists.
THOUGHTFULLY FLOW into MOVING FORWARD—With July’s annual artCamp postponed until 2021, there is a long, quiet stretch before us until the end of August when artCentral’s green door of hospitality will officially reopen to welcome you into the magical galleries of Hyde House filled with the Annual Membership Exhibition. Eager to offer an exciting and still safe transitional art opportunity for art-loving residents of southwest Missouri, our ever-creative directors are planning a unique artCentral extravaganza to miraculously pop-up in July. Exact dates will be announced very soon. In the meantime mark your calendars “JULY–artCENTRAL SPECTACLE!!!! and AUGUST–artCENTRAL ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION!!!!”
LOOK AHEAD—PAUSE and BE STILL—REFLECT—THOUGHTFULLY FLOW into MOVING FORWARD. This time of corona—this special time in our shared global and local experiences—has caused us all to take time apart. We have been sent to our homes to stay in our homes. We have been caused to live separately and to use this time wisely and well.
Alone and isolated is not an unfamiliar state for me. Over a life time I have found great benefit in pausing and reflecting while I am looking ahead to the future and to what comes next. Often I have sought out solitude—hours snatched here and there while raising a family and later relishing stretches of escape days, extended weeks of aloneness and the solitary wilderness years when times of transition drove me inward to seek, find and reestablish the sacred balance in my life—to identify, access and explore the resources within me, the resources needed to reinter community and to carry on in new ways.
While I have been working remotely on behalf of artCentral, as always the greater portion of my time and energy are focused on artCentral and my chosen work to support artists and art other than my own. Though my time to make my own art continues to be limited, I am snatching all I can. When a workman appeared to rescue water damaged floors in our old 1890’s house and the sawing and banging made concentrating at my keyboard impossible, I sought consolation in creative hard labor. I tackled the scraping and cleaning of our old, old windows encrusted with multiple layers of vintage dirt and dust. That creation is not complete, but the payoff so far of clear, inside-to-outside vision keeps me inspired. More than ever I appreciate the high value I place on the gift of clarity.
Like many artists, I have been making art in the ways that are most meaningful and nourishing for me— art made in our home cleaning windows, in my studio working on my entry for artCentral’s Membership Exhibition and outside in the treasured canvases of our gardens—art that gives me gifts, brings me solace and teaches me what I need to know.
As you come out of your own isolation, perhaps you will choose to look back, to better look ahead. What gifts have you received in solitude? What resources have you tapped to make your going forward ever sweeter and more rewarding?
