Arts & Culture

Each year there’s something new to see, and yet some components of the Fair date back from before Missouri actually had a designated State Fair. Let’s take a walk through time and look at some of the State Fair’s most proud traditions.

In 2014, with a board of five and a host of volunteers, the Rock House Center for the Arts gained nonprofit status with the mission “to enrich and educate the community through the presentation and support of live music and the visual arts.”

“The first piece evolved from me getting older, feeling vulnerable, thinking about the time that has gone by, my career, and if I’m good enough,” he says. “I think the work, all my work, as with all artists, evolved from a real personal place. And that place is usually some type of fear or loneliness.”

Country Boy is Mark’s second book, following his 2016 memoir, On the Eighth Day, God Made Baseball. Mark, who used to enter games to John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” describes his latest work as a coming-of-age nonfiction story about how his character formed while growing up in Missouri.

Artist Patty Carroll explores themes of women’s identifications to domesticity woven with photographs, fabrics and craft items.

A Kansas City graffiti artist applies his skills to a mural for Mercy Children's Hospital.

“You have brought more freshness, charm, and vitality to illustration than any other living illustrator.” Norman Rockwell wrote these words in a letter to graphic illustrator Al Parker in 1948.

They say the family that plays together stays together. For the past quarter century, the Haygoods have been living that adage while delighting thousands in Branson.