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Do you ever wonder what would happen if suddenly, one day, you didn’t show up in your usual spot?

How many people would miss you? And how many of them would miss you enough to ask where you went? And when you were coming back?

In the case of Ann Jones, 66, that will be about  27,500 people this year. Granted, the majority know Jones only as  “the hat lady.” And most can barely reach the sign-in book where she welcomes them to  ArtQuest, the Green Hill kids’ studio, caught with its nonprofit neighbors in the big nonprofit budget squeeze.

Jones, who was let go Christmas Eve from her full-time position after 12 years, has a base that would be the envy of any politician in town — along with a supernatural ability to remember the name of every kid in Greensboro who visits the studio at the Greensboro Cultural Center.

And though Jones’ fans are not firing off e-mails to the United Arts Council (they haven’t been following the budget process) or lining up to sing ArtQuest’s praises at the City Council (it’s past their bedtime), they miss her. And how.

“He wants to know where the hat lady is. Where’s Miss Ann?”  Preeti Shah of Jamestown was saying of her son  Shanay, 5, on a typically busy Wednesday evening, when ArtQuest has free admission after 5 p.m. for families. “She’s like a grandma to us. He always makes something for her.”

Inside the studio, ArtQuest was buzzing as usual. As a mix tape veered anywhere from reggae to bluegrass to Simon & Garfunkel’s “At the Zoo,” parents chatted about their workdays while children fanned out to make art, with everything they needed laid out: puppets, gingerbread men, a clay studio, painting, a weaving loom, a zoetrope and “morph-it.”

This is where guides such as  Alice Drake and  Jaymie Meyer show children how to make art from what they find — even what’s in the trash.

Ironically, it was a family night just like this when a woman named Ann Jones literally came to take out the trash and clean the bathroom in 1996.

So began the career of “the hat lady,” the lady who in the ensuing 12 years would shake hands with a ninth-generation Twinings  Tea heir, have her picture taken with Greensboro’s own Olympic speed skater, have her portrait painted by an artist who is in the National Portrait Gallery and be on a first-name basis with former Bennett College President  Johnnetta Cole — and 27,500 Greensboro children.

But back to that night when she came to take out the trash. Jones was working for her friend,  Willie Mae “Boss” Benton, whose cleaning company had a new job called ArtQuest. The trouble was, they were having a kids’ birthday party, and it was running late. The director, Mary Young,  came out to apologize to Boss Benton, saying she was short on help.

“What do you need, Mary Young?” Jones interjected, and Young explained that she needed “a body” to be with the children, then someone to clean up the brushes and supplies. “When do you need it?” Jones asked.

“Now.”

Jones was hired, and she loved it. The lady at the front desk, with a different hat for every day, welcoming everybody in, arranging tours, signing up members, making people feel at home in a place where kids from all over town learn to make art from nothing, from anything.

And the portrait? Betty Watson, the Greensboro artist, was having a one-woman show, a retrospective, and walked into Green Hill one day and announced her intention to paint Jones. That, my friend, is found art.

“Here I came to clean the toilet and end up being there 13 years,” Jones says. “And Betty Watson walks in one day and says, 'Oh, Ann, I’ve just got to draw you today.’”

And so she did, the result being a Betty Watson oil portrait on the wall. But the rub? NO hat lady at the front desk. Jones is home, missing the children as much as they miss her.

But with corporate and foundation support down, Green Hill’s decision to lay off Jones was one that public and private employers recognize too well.

Says  Young: “She’s part of who we are. Green Hill had to make some very difficult decisions to stay afloat.”

But grieve not — on Feb. 1, there will be a “hats off” reception at Green Hill for Jones and the children to make art (and wear a hat) and raise a few dollars for her unexpected send-off. Chances are, she will know a few of their names.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn @news-record.com