Jody Hemphill Smith Obituary, Death – The soirees were spectacular events, evenings during which artists, friends, and collectors crammed themselves into the rooms of Castle Gallery Fine Art on West Wayne Street. There, they had a glass or two of wine, mingled with a crowd of people, nibbled on canapés, and perused the gallery in the hopes of purchasing a work of fine art.
The grand piano was usually always occupied by a pianist, and later on, guitars and banjos were added to the ensemble. The art gallery will close after 25 years, but the “Castle,” as it has been called ever since it was constructed in 1905, will be purchased by a new owner for the proposed price of $1.29 million. The Brandon Steffen Group is the Real Estate Agent.
Jody Hemphill Smith stated on Friday that “it’s going to take a while to sell this place,” despite the fact that the 10,500-square-foot mansion features hand-wrought ironwork, massive oak beams, inlaid hardwood floors, stained glass windows, and a Tiffany fireplace. Additionally, the mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is zoned for a gallery. There is a cottonwood tree on the site that is estimated to be 300 years old.
If someone were to carry on the gallery’s long-standing practice, it would make Hemphill Smith extremely happy. Currently, Hemphill Smith is continuing to sell inventory, interact with collectors, and represent artists, the majority of whom have been working with her for a significant amount of time, according to Hemphill Smith. “I adore each and every one of our artists.
We are going to be selling the works that they have created. Yesterday (Thursday), I was able to sell three of my paintings. She explained that all we are attempting to do is show respect for the coronavirus. Hemphill Smith stated that she and her husband, Mark Paul Smith, a criminal defense attorney and novelist, made a brief effort to sell the Castle in 2012, but they did not put up a sign for the property.
We changed our minds about a week later,” she explained. Mark Paul Smith noted that since then, Hemphill Smith has sponsored two national art shows that were extensive in scale and made her understand that she had to calm down. These shows were the Oil Painters of America in 2016 and the National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society “Best of America” Exhibition in 2017. Both of these exhibitions took place in 2017.
The pair has maintained their commitment to the West Central Neighborhood and are currently in the midst of relocating into an Italianate estate that was purchased by Hemphill Smith in 1976 and is located three doors down from the location where they first met. Smith will have a writing studio inside of a single-family home that is being slowly converted from the home’s seven units into a single-family dwelling. The carriage house serves as the location of Hemphill Smith’s studio. Hemphill Smith is a painter who focuses on floral, still-life, and landscape subjects, and he has no plans to stop.
