33rd Gathering Begins.

The thirty-third Midwest Gathering of the Artist is scheduled to open in Memoial Hall this morning at 8 o’clock.

The show was founded thrity-three years ago by Bob Tommey, Lowell Davis, and Danny Hensley.

"When this all began they told us that we couldn’t sell a painting for $4 let alone one for $400," says Bob Tommey. But we’ve had gross sales of over $95,000.

"But the show is really for the artist. We have 150 people that want to participate but we only have room for around forty. So we have to pick and choose. We like a combination of what sells and what’s different. We have to keep in mind that we don’t want to get too big for our audience."

The artist donate a piece of their work as an entry fee for the show to be sold at the auction. What ever it sells for, the artist gets 60% and 40% goes for prizes and awards.

"The show is for the artist," Tommey emphasizes again. "We like to keep them happy and keep them coming back."

The free art show is today until 10 p.m. and tomorrow from 8 a.m. to noon. The hall will reopen at 6 p.m. for the auction.

It should come as little surprise that some of the sewer lines in the downtown area are needin’ some attention. A good portion of ‘em prob’ly were put in around the time the Courthouse was built. Most likely some of the first indoor plumbin’ in Carthage.

‘Course there are those that speculate that some folks just poked a hole in the top of the underground cavern we’ve heard so much about and dumped sewage into that.

What’s really amazin’ is the fact that those original underground pipes are still usable at all. A friend a mine was found a sayin’ "in a hunderd years, nobody will no the difference anyway." Guess he wasn’t around when they planted the Carthage sewer system.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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Weekly Columns

artCentral

ART NOTES from Hyde House

by Sally Armstrong, Director of artCentral

Fall seems to be in full swing, and so will artCentral be when we open our new exhibition on the 24th of this month! Invitations will go out next week, but let me tell you a bit about this all new photography show to be presented September 24th to October 10th entitled "GRAFFITI". The artist is Linda Teeter of Joplin, and if you follow art news you know that she is the force behind the beginning of the Joplin monthly artwalks over there on the third Thursdays of each month downtown. A number of artCentral and Carthage artists participate in that monthly, and it has been a huge boost to both the local art scene as well as to the downtown Joplin visibility, and for that they are grateful to Linda! In this current body of work, Linda presents to the viewer a group of unique photographs taken in a number of different cities that she has visited, with one subject in common--- graffiti! This urban art form is seen in cities and towns large and small, in railway yards, along interstate highways and on bridges, anywhere there is a person wanting to express himself through what many would consider vandalism, but others are recognizing as its own art form. In some of our major cities, individuals have emerged as recognized contemporary painters who began with this format. Be that as it may, whether or not you might agree that graffiti is a form of "art", it is common in the landscapes of the international arena and has been documented here by Teeter in a series of most interesting photographs in this offering. Her process includes digital enhancement of what begins as a "good bones" photograph through a computer process called photo impressions. She sometimes manipulates the image until she gets the look she seeks to interpret her feelings of the subject. She began not as a photographer but as a trained artist in the medias of paint, charcoal and pencil. She has recently been using photography as her new medium in the described process. You may remember this artist’s work in two prior exhibitions here, the last being GALACTIC WARS in 2008 and a prior one in our Member Gallery in 2007. Our thanks go out once more to Beimdiek Insurors for agreeing to underwrite this exhibition. On another note, a correction from last week. I wrote of a special artist event the Cherry’s Gallery & Frame is holding, and said it was prior to the MGA, which would be this week. It is in fact an "Artist’s Paint-Out" scheduled for Maple Leaf week, October 14-15, and informational forms are available to artists at Cherry’s or online if you contact her. Sorry for the confusion. More on our new show next week!