PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST: GREG JONES; ARTIST/ARTS ADMINISTRATOR IS INTERESTED IN HOW IMAGES CHANGE AS WE GET TO KNOW THEM

One day, Greg Jones stuck his left hand in a box and with his right hand painted the effect.

Jones' art always has been personal.

"That's how I felt, stuck in a box," he said.

But Jones didn't stop there. Late one night he took the painting to two different color copying shops to see what they could make from it.

Now the three views are exhibited side by side as "Migrating Images."

Images change the more we get to know them, Jones says. "That's how our image of people changes."

Southeast Missouri artists are just getting to know Jones, who became executive director of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in August. He is married to Dr. Jenny Strayer, director of the University Museum.

In the late '80s, Jones had a life most artists dream of. While living in the Midwest, he procured gallery representation in New York's SoHo district, was working part time -- for UPS -- and spending most of his day in the studio.

But the halcyon days in New York when many artists could make a living were ending. He sold three or four paintings per year. "It wasn't profitable," he said.

"... I couldn't do things that were market-oriented."

Then in his mid-30s, Jones attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, leaving with an M.F.A. Graduate school was a turning point, he says.

"Really for the first time, I began analyzing art. And that gave me an infinite amount of options.

"I already had the skills to do it," he said. "What I needed was directions."

The direction he chose afterward was hands-on and educational in Iowa City, Iowa, where he ran an art studio while Strayer pursued her Ph.D. His job was to train students in such skills as metalsmithing.

Jones will teach a class in metalsmithing at the Art Academy at Southeast Missouri State University this fall.

As the new administrator of the Arts Council, he says, "I'm interest in providing arts education as something that is worthwhile for the community. It gets back to where I started."

An Ohio native, Jones said he's wanted to be an artist since he was 8 years old, when he began taking Saturday art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

"I am hooked on art and art education," he says. "I believe in the need for education at the earliest possible levels."

Jones' father was a builder whose son was interested in his leftovers. "I was always making ad hoc sculptures," he said.

He realized early on that he was good with his hands and in addition to art, has studied furniture design and fabrication.

"As an artist you need to have multiple skills," he says.

Jones currently is rebuilding the porch of the 91-year-old house he and his wife bought in downtown Cape Girardeau.

He doesn't have to rebuild the Arts Council, which former executive director Beverly Strohmeyer left in solid condition, he said. "This is run as professionally as any business."

As for new projects, he says the Arts Council is interested in organizing an arts fair, an idea that was in the works before he was hired.

"We want it to be inclusive of all the arts -- dance, music, theater -- and draw on many audiences," Jones said.

But if his tenure has a byword it probably will be education.

Providing arts education in the same facility as the gallery space is one of his goals. And having three different gallery spaces -- one community-oriented, one for national shows and a third to bring in a completely different audience, such as quilters -- is another.

Despite continuing political attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts, Jones perceives widespread support for local arts programs.

"There's a certain pride all communities take in having arts in the community," He says. "Even people who don't participate.

"When the arts are not there, I think it's obvious."