Inside Her Masterpiece
The most famous artist in all of Arkansas has never displayed a single painting in a gallery, never attended an opening reception, never accepted a commission, and certainly never worried about whether her work would sell.
Her name is Mother Nature, and every autumn, right here in Eureka Springs, she puts on the most spectacular exhibition imaginable. Her canvas stretches across the Ozark Mountains, her brushes are the wind and rain, her pigments are hidden inside millions of leaves, and her imagination is, quite frankly, beyond anything we human beings could ever hope to duplicate.
I have often wondered whether we truly appreciate the magnificent masterpiece surrounding us or whether we have simply become accustomed to it. After all, when you wake up every morning surrounded by bluffs, towering pines, winding roads, deep hollers, and the extraordinary beauty of these ancient hills, there is a danger that the remarkable becomes ordinary. We begin to see the trees without noticing their individuality. We admire the view without considering how it came to be. We photograph the colors without really understanding what they are telling us.
I grew up in New England, where autumn was practically a religion. In Medford, Massachusetts, the arrival of October meant crisp mornings, "sweatah weathah", the smell of fallen leaves, a warm bowl of clam "chowdah" and that unmistakable feeling that something magical was happening outside.
Years later, when Jeff and I made our way to Eureka Springs in June of 2018, I discovered that autumn in the Ozarks possessed its own autumnal personality. It was familiar, certainly, but there was something different about it. Something more intimate, more mysterious, and perhaps a little more theatrical.
In New England, autumn often announces itself with grand landscapes, sweeping vistas and truly vibrant color. They say the vibrancy in that part of the world has a direct link to ancient, mineral-rich bedrock (over a billion years old) that forms some of the most fertile soil on earth. With a forest dominated by such pigment-rich maples and other broadleaf species, and a climate and topography that maximize pigment expression all working together, New England produces one of the most striking fall foliage landscapes I have ever experienced in my entire life. It makes sense why thousands flock to see it when it happens each year.
Now, here in Eureka Springs, the experience feels slighly different for me than that of my own childhood. In Arkansas, when October arrives, Mother Nature, apparently dissatisfied with our level of attention, decides to redecorate. The hills fold into one another, the roads curve around ancient rock formations, and the trees seem to lean toward you as though they have something important to say. The colors do not simply appear on distant mountainsides. They surround you, envelop you, and occasionally make you forget where you were going in the first place.
There are mornings when the Ozark fog settles into the valleys and the sunlight slowly finds its way through the branches, illuminating individual leaves as though someone has carefully positioned a spotlight upon them. There are afternoons when the hills seem to glow from within, their reds, oranges, yellows, and golds blending into a magnificent tapestry that changes with every passing cloud.
And there are evenings when the setting sun catches the treetops just right, and for a few glorious moments, the entire landscape appears to be on fire. No artist could have planned it better.
What fascinates me most is that Mother Nature never produces the same painting twice. Every autumn is different. The timing changes, the intensity of the colors varies, the weather influences the final composition, and even the same familiar hillside can look completely different from one year to the next.
She is an artist who works without sketches, without deadlines, and without any apparent concern for our opinions. Yet somehow, she manages to create exactly what we need to see.
We are so very fortunate to live in a town that genuinely celebrates artistic expression. Our community attracts people who see the world a little differently, people who understand that beauty does not always follow convention and that the most interesting things in life are rarely perfectly symmetrical.
But step outside those shops in autumn, and you will discover an exhibition of an entirely different magnitude. Mother Nature has transformed the entire town into her personal studio.
The Victorian houses perched along our steep hillsides also become part of her composition, their colorful facades framed by branches dressed in crimson and gold. The stone staircases winding between streets disappear beneath carpets of fallen leaves. The gardens surrounding our historic buildings take on a quieter, more contemplative character, and even the familiar curves of our streets seem to possess a different kind of elegance.
At Thorncrown Chapel, the surrounding forest becomes an essential part of the architecture. The glass walls invite the changing colors inside, allowing the building and the landscape to participate in the same extraordinary performance. Near the Crescent Hotel, the trees soften the imposing architecture with their autumn colors, while the winding paths and historic surroundings take on an atmosphere that feels almost timeless.
Then there are the overlooks, those magnificent places where the hills unfold before us in layer after layer of color. From those vantage points, it becomes easier to understand the scale of Mother Nature's work. What seemed like a collection of individual trees suddenly becomes one enormous composition, with every ridge, hollow, and valley contributing to the whole. It is breathtaking, and it is quite humbling.
Perhaps that is what distinguishes Mother Nature from every other artist. She does not merely create something for us to observe. She creates an environment in which we become participants. We walk through her paintings, breathe her atmosphere, listen to her music, and carry her colors home in our memories.
A few years ago, I blogged about the joy of autumn, and I continue to believe that this season offers something profoundly restorative to us all. There is a wonderful contradiction in the fact that a season associated with decline and decay can produce some of the most joyful experiences of the year. Think about it. The trees are preparing for winter. Their leaves are approaching the end of their lives. The days are growing shorter, the nights are becoming colder, and the landscape is slowly moving toward dormancy. Yet we celebrate. We gather around fire pits, sip warm drinks, explore wooded trails, photograph the hillsides, and marvel at the extraordinary beauty of a world preparing to rest and reset.
I was age 16 in 1986, when my beloved Grandpa Joe died at the age of 60 in Medford, Massachusetts. It was the first funeral that I attended in my young life and, although my memory isn't what it used to be, I will never forget that experience as long as I live.
My Papa Joe died in autumn that year.
I was sitting in the back seat of our family car parked in front of St. Joseph's Church in Medford Square, looking out the car window and up at the church doors as visitors poured inside and the bells rang out. My two younger brothers, my parents and I were also just about to enter to pay our respects.
The colors of the leaves that day were nothing like I've ever seen, before or since. They didn't seem real to me. I vividly remember blinking my eyes and wondering if they were hand-painted. The thing I remember most was how each one fell in a surreal slow, beautiful motion, taken gently by the softest wind on that particular day. From the tops of the maples all the way to the pavement each one gently touched the ground. I couldn't stop thinking about how I'd never see my Papa Joe again and, being the oldest boy of the three boys, I was doing all that I possibly could not to cry actual wet tears on my face in front of my brothers and Dad, who just lost his Dad. Of course, my Dad was having a much harder time holding them back than I was, as expected.
After what I remember being "the longest exhale my Dad ever had," we all took his lead as he opened the driver side door to head inside St. Josephs. When my feet hit the pavement, I looked down and saw the most vibrant tri-colored leaf land on the top of my right foot and I picked it up, stared at it in awe and put it in my pocket as we all walked inside.
All during the service, I touched and caressed it. I talked to it in my mind. I thanked it for being there for me. I made sure I was gentle with it so it wouldn't break in my grip, in my pocket. I never imagined that a beautiful tri-colored maple leaf could do what that leaf did for me.
As the oldest grandchild on my father's side of the family, I was the grandchild that new Papa Joe the longest and I was very, very fond of him and him of me.
Today, I am age 56, and that particular relative, city, season, church, funeral and that stunning tri-colored maple leaf (which served as my security blanket in that special moment) are still with me each autumn. That one single leaf changed my outlook on autumn forever and since that day this season reminds me of my very first funeral experience and my wonderful Papa Joe.
It's taken me years to discover and really undertand and appreciate the raw beauty that took place that day in 1986. Now, each autumn, as I watch the leaves fall in our yard in Eureka Springs, I remind myself that endings are not always ugly or sad and that change, even when it involves loss, can also possess tremendous beauty.
A leaf does not cling desperately to its branch forever. When its work is complete and the time is right, it falls. It returns to the earth, gradually decomposes, and becomes part of the nutrient rich layer that nourishes the forest.
That maple leaf, that day, had a special job and I am forever grateful to Mother Nature for giving me that moment.
We human beings are not always particularly good at letting go. We hold tightly to familiar routines, relationships, expectations, possessions, and ideas about who we are supposed to be. We resist change because it threatens our sense of certainty, even when the very thing we are holding onto has stopped helping us grow.
Often, what appears to be an ending is actually a contribution to something larger. I know now that it was this very mindset in 2017 that journeyed us from Dallas to Eureka Springs. There is a delightful elegance to that process that I now find deeply moving.
Mother Nature seems to understand something we frequently forget. Renewal requires release. Every autumn, she demonstrates this truth without apology, without fear, and without a single motivational seminar. And somehow, standing beneath a canopy of color in the Ozarks, the lesson becomes easier to understand.
Perhaps joy is not found in keeping everything exactly as it is. Perhaps joy comes from recognizing that life is constantly moving, constantly changing, and constantly offering us opportunities to begin again.
Autumn isn't just special to me because of my childhood in New England, it is special to me because it reminds me that beauty is not always something we create. Sometimes it is something we discover, something we protect, and something we learn to appreciate more deeply with the passing of time.
When I think about the little boy I once was in Massachusetts, running through fallen leaves, enjoying my mother's homemade soups, attending Papa Joe's funeral with my leaf, and experiencing the uncomplicated joy of an October afternoon, I realize that the same sense of wonder still lives within me. Only the landscape has changed.
Today, that same little boy finds himself in the Ozarks, surrounded by a town he loves, watching another autumn unfold with the same excitement he felt so many years ago. And that, perhaps, is Mother Nature's most remarkable accomplishment. She has the ability to return us to ourselves.
She reminds us of who we were before the world became complicated, before responsibilities crowded our calendars, and before we learned to measure our lives by productivity rather than experience. She invites us to notice, to wonder, to appreciate, and occasionally to stand perfectly still in the presence of something beautiful.
Her exhibition changes every hour, and the artist never asks for recognition. Yet every October, thousands of people travel into these Ozark hills hoping to witness her latest work.
Some will arrive with cameras, some with families, some with people they love, and others simply seeking a little peace. They will walk our streets, explore our trails, admire our historic buildings, and discover that the beauty of Eureka Springs is not confined to any one inn, landmark, or scenic overlook.
Beauty is everywhere.
And when the last brilliant leaf finally releases its branch and drifts toward the forest floor, Mother Nature will quietly begin preparing again. And here in Eureka Springs, we have all been given a beautiful gift ... to live inside her masterpiece. ❤️
(Dedicated to my Papa Joe.)
