By Kathleen Swift • Photos by Tera Miller
You won’t find a couple more immersed in life and in art than David and Alice Lynn Greenwood-Mathé. This dynamic couple have turned their 1890s home into their personal studio and art gallery.
Both David and Alice Lynn are artists, and Alice Lynn works as executive director for artCentral in Carthage, Missouri, and David volunteers there. Married for three years, Alice Lynn says, “We might never had met had not Show Me The Ozarks Magazine brought us together.”
David recalls, “I was waiting in a tire shop and picked up a copy of the magazine in which Alice Lynn was featured in a ‘Single in the City’ article. I decided to go to an artCentral membership event to join and to meet Alice Lynn.”
Now, the couple live and work making their home a place of art and love. Art is their life, and they can take almost anything, from the tin cans that were on the back of their car at their wedding to a gaudy mermaid statue or broken pieces of old Carthage marble and turn it into a thing of beauty.
The front salon of their home is trimmed in beautiful oak and stained glass windows. “Someone knew how to situate this house,” says David, “because when the afternoon sun comes through the beveled glass windows, it casts a prism of rainbows the length of the room.”
“It’s magical,” adds Alice Lynn. “We even found a hidden window! We noticed a window outside the dining room wall, but we knew there wasn’t a window in that spot inside. We were able to cut away the sheet rock inside and restore the window to let in more light.”
Even though the house has multiple bedrooms, David and Alice Lynn say their overnight guests end up on a futon in the front salon because what would normally be bedrooms are used for art.
“We each have a studio upstairs along a long hall where we are working on pieces for our 2022 show, which we call Signs and Wonders,” says Alice Lynn. “But art making doesn’t stay inside in the studios! David even has a workspace outside on a workbench under an umbrella and one in the basement for messier things.”
This year, during the pandemic, the couple applied their artistic efforts outside their home. “We’ve created a shade garden,” says Alice Lynn, “and a meditation space outside. We’ve used discarded pieces of Carthage marble and old bricks to make walkways that lead to a bridge David built over a waterway in the backyard.”
David continues, “Here and there, we’ve tucked in little Buddhas in what look like small alcoves, and when the spiders build a web in front of them, raindrops look like a cave of diamonds.”
This couple sees all of the pieces of life as art. They even turned a galvanized umbrella into a birdbath by placing it on top of a rock in the shade garden. And everything in the yard has a name.
“We have a number of rock cairns, and Alice Lynn even names them,” says David. “When we walk through our garden, we say good morning to each piece in the yard by name, including our four chickens that live in a thatched chicken palace.”
Making art a part of their life is what brings the magic to life for David and Alice Lynn. “Our home,” says Alice Lynn, “is full of our art and pieces from other artists and friends. We have an eclectic style full of character, and we continue to create from what others might throw away. To us, that’s art!”