The framed picture sits on Brandon Anschultz’s desk. It is a small abstract drawing, featuring neatly outlined, colorful globes. Anschultz created it when he was 5 or 6 years old, an age when most budding artists are in their Scribble Period. “You can’t get away from yourself when you’re doing artwork. You always fall back to what you do. I’m still doing the same things as an artist that I was doing when I was that little kid,” Anschultz laughs.

For contemporary painter Amy Sheppard Morose, an artwork’s significance reaches beyond the image, inspired by the collaboration of stories each one encompasses.

Tucked away on a quiet street in Festus is a shop whose unassuming owner is the last person one would expect to be hobnobbing with Hollywood royalty and automotive kingpins.

“It’s so easy to do too much, but I have to be selective with the glitter. Just a highlight,” explains Susan Medart, owner of Knollwood Lane. And just like that, with a gentle stroke of glue and sprinkle of fine indigo glitter, a delicate shimmer is added to the manger scene on one of her vintage-inspired Christmas cards.

Like so many ingenious ideas in this world, fractal painting originated by accident. Helene Slavin compares her discovery to the story of toasted ravioli in St. Louis, when ravioli pasta was mistakenly boiled in oil, creating the crunchy, browned noodle, at Angelo Oldani’s on the Hill in the 1950s. Slavin was mixing blue paint when it splattered. She noticed how the forces of nature spread it into a pattern of its own across the white lid of the paint can.

It’s a bright, breezy day, but the chickens are nervous. A hawk’s screech is stressing them out, far more so than the blowtorch roar or cement mixer growl that usually booms from Marci Davis’ workshop. We drop everything to guide the hens to safety, and I can’t help but notice the metaphor. Whether we’re talking about her unique art medium, “Ferrocement Faux Bois” or her agitated poultry, Davis is singularly, fiercely focused on preserving nature’s beauty.