Welcome to this new feature at The Crittenden Press Online. For the past few years, we've held off on the creation of a news and commentary blog, but it appears this type of information stream is becoming ever more popular.Part-time Press contributing writer and online consultant Matthew T. Patton, formerly of Dycusburg and creator of http://www.dycusburg.com/ now of Pennsylvania, has been encouraging this move for a time. Readers can expect regular updates, so check back often.
On the home front, I can tell you that about 9,000 Crittenden Countians missed an enlightening cultural event Thursday night at Fohs Hall where the Community Arts Foundation sponsored a fireside chat with Kathleen Guess, a local artist and former school teacher.
While Fohs Hall's Nunn Room glowed from the hues jumping off the gas fireplace logs, Guess spent a solid hour and a half discussing art from the Enlightenment to the contemporary "American Gothic" painted in 1930 by Grant Wood. It was a bit cool inside the historic old building as temperatures dipped to near single digits outside, providing a perfect backdrop for Guess' warming presentation.
"American Gothic" is one of the most recognizable and most parodied pieces in American art history. The painting depicts an Iowa farm couple in front on a Carpenter Gothic style home. Does anyone know who were the real life models for the work?
For a small town, Marion offers a great number of opportunities to polish our cultural intellect. We can thank the Community Arts Foundation for many of those opportunities. Some of those in attendance Thursday were Mayor Mickey Alexander and his wife Susan, Nancy Paris, Linda Schumann and Kim Hunt.
