War & Johnny Carson's Shirt Size
I was going to tell my happy husband and Handsome Prince when we retired - a huge list of neat things women "keep in their hearts". Fun things to share when we were white-haired and satisfied, enjoying the view from the porch in our rocking chairs: like why I watched "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson long past the time one does. Can't do that now. He died before retirement. And so I must share it with you:
a true story from the 1960's dedicated to deployed military and their loved ones at home.
I was going to tell my happy husband and Handsome Prince "when we're old" - a huge list of neat things couples "keep in their hearts". My handsome Prince got home from war just fine and to a fine successful life in work and love and fatherhood, but I'll never get to tell him these things I saved. He died suddenly one morning, well before retirement age. But I can share it with you:
He was an officer, with USACEngineers, Black Diamonds special ops - showing Army Engineers how to NOT to use the horribly carcinogenic Agent Orange to clear foliage. Just graduated with a degree in Chemistry, a healer - He loathed all Chemical Warfare. He enlisted before his draft notice arrived in July, because, if he did so, he was promised that he could choose his job.
It was worthy , but it was war.
The news shared a list of horrifying new war words daily, with "body bag" at the top! I'd blanche and take a chair. No Norman Rockwell and John Wayne easy patriotism - no. Unable to sleep, the popular "Heeerrre's Johnnny!" called my attention and tried to not be "one tough audience" to get a laugh from - though things for us were grim.
Replying to audience comments and questions, he told us his shirt size ! What a guy won't say, to get a laugh! But if you are Johhnnnnny, you can say ANYthing and bring down the house - even his shirt size won the moment. OK, funny!
But NOT for me; Hypersensitive from love and fear, the mention of "fourteen-and-a-half / thirty-two" made me jump up - Though my husband was taller, the shirt size was the same. And suddenly for a moment I smiled in happy peace , remembering the first time I bought him a shirt, the first time I pressed one up for him for a fete, and the first time I trashed a worn out one that he loved secretly and replaced it with a spotless twin. Oh dear, I WAS missing him so much!
It was 1968 - there was no media - no internet - no SKYPE - no email - nothing to bring reassuring live images of my deployed husband. There was Silence, and often lost or delayed mail. Food and other goodies I'd send were raided and never reached him.
I praised our baby, whose health made me NOT hold onto stress that would upset the infant in my arms. Being a good mommy meant NOT hugging our son tighter than I should over it.
But the silly moment worked and after that night, I'd watch Johnny Carson and fix on that shirt size, over and over - for the power of a factoid to generate connectivity. It worked, somehow, till my husband's tour was done. It was a way of poking fun at my own fears.
My late husband's homecoming from war remains the happiest day of my life - surpassing our wedding, our children's births, and even my art at the White House. Till then Death was there constantly taunting me with promises to destroy all the work and love of my own birth and development to make a fine adult life. Fear taunting constantly, no matter how cool and good and brave and busy I could be.
But, NO - you won't win this one....LIFE this time. My Lieutenant USACE Black Diamonds - some months later, walked through that door at LaGuardia - HOME - "all ten fingers, all ten toes", and the love better than ever for the test!
No Johnny Carson story for him - NOT that day. Time - the gift of time was ours - no rush. My husband had plenty of stories, as well, but one look at one another and we exulted : "We'll talk about it when we're old! We're not gonna have a problem ." And we didn't! Boundlessly grateful there was no PTS for us! Life - we won our right to a good life - with a down-payment on the mortgage for it.
Even years later, with our babies half grown and softly sleeping in the next room , curled up safe and sound, "watching Carson" with my husband - I'd sometimes remember the time of his deployment and that night when I was saved by "Johnny Carson's shirt size" on tv; and I'd feel "moreso" blessed for a moment, by comparison to those late nights alone, with nothing but a fixation on a "shirtsize-in-common" to help me hold onto my mind. Grateful praise !
Even widowed, years later I am fine and thriving for the goodness of the many years we made and enjoyed so well!
To all who serve and to all who love them, l send a good wish and a prayer that the Angels send at least a helpful bit of silliness, like "Johnny Carson's Shirt Size" to help any who need one.
Patriot pages
"The Constitution was not perfect when it was framed.
It is not perfect today.
Our Constitution, even our Bill of Rights,
Provides no set formula that fits all peoples around the world.
But they do offer an inspiring example of ageless ideals realized and made to work,
with the eternal message that men and women everywhere
were intended to be free to shape their own destinies."
...Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-1986) at 200th Anniversary of the Bill of Rights, from the Bowling Green, Kentucky "Daily News" January 27, 1991
Patriot Pages ~ May you find, here, patriotic inspiration, refreshers and helpful links ! ~ elle
THE VOTE FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a holy thing and Voting Day almost here - November 8th. Many places have extended the registration options, in their desire to make it easier to vote, so if you forgot, there may still be time. Check with your local government registrars or League of Women Voters or - "Voters Page" some basics and links to Voting and Elections IF you already feel fine about your own vote, get busy helping others - we are the family of Man and if we can, we should! -elle
LINKS from this page :
- GALLERY OF PATRIOTIC IMAGES FOR PURCHASE
- "Patriots Primer" link to Basics for Americans
- "Veterans Page" of helpful links and other contents
- "Voters Page" some basics and links to Voting and Elections
- Elvis the Wrecker - an Mid-Century, All-American TRUE Story
American Flag by Elle Fagan Price on Request - contact artist. These and other patriotic images and symbols are for sale here at the site and for your enjoyment at the Gallery of Patriotic Images link, above.
Great Seal of the State of Connecticut, my Home State - central to our State Flag, the motto means "They who tranasplanted sustain", a reference to our success as transplants in the New World , symbolized by the grapevines, whose transplanting has always been holy.
Love of Country,
Please do not skip these quotes from Great Men & Women
"...its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty laws, people, and manners.
My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessing they are in possession of,
and which no other people on earth enjoy!" -Thomas Jefferson
"All I can hope to teach my son is to tell the truth and fear no man.
The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think...
that ,and the sanctity of the courts.
Otherwise it's not America" -Edward R. Morrow
"...when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule,
And universal peace
Be like a shaft of light
Across the land"
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
"God grant, that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the Rights of Man,
may pervade all the nations of Earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot
anywhere on its surface, and say, "this is my country."
-Benjamin Franklin
"He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
-William Makepeace Thakeray, and the Bible
"The Constitution was not perfect when it was framed.
It is not perfect today.
Our Constitution, even our Bill of Rights,
Provides no set formula that fits all peoples around the world.
But they do offer an inspiring example of ageless ideals realized and made to work,
with the eternal message that men and women everywhere
were intended to be free to shape their own destinies."
...Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-1986) at 200th Anniversary of the Bill of Rights, from the Bowling Green, Kentucky "Daily News" January 27, 1991
Patriot and the Arts
Grants for the Arts make the news . One headline stated that the President asked for much more than was granted, especially for a Major Project to help America become more familiar with its own Amazing American Artists . I think the project is important to America and the World; the American Arts History. ENJOY MY BLOG ENTRY: "Art in America - a Timeline"
POWERED BY SQUARESPACE
Artwork at the White House - Easter 2007
I'd been very good - above average to honors often enough in every way and yet, here I was -injured and disabled and broke and moved to a safe 'she-shack' that would keep me safe at least. Alone. I thought me done - and praying for grace to handle it nicely. Online work and coding and new friends online refreshed my soul, and the local church was new and nice too. Then one day, learning some new skills online I found the WhiteHouse.gov site. The ancient tales say that dwarves would wrought from the depths and let the results shine at the heights: was this precedent? I guess that's how this story unfolds - you tell me:
I'd been very good - above average to honors often enough in every way and yet, here I was -injured and disabled and broke and moved to a safe 'she-shack' that would keep me safe at least. Alone. I thought me done - and praying for grace to handle it nicely. Online work and coding and new friends online refreshed my soul, and the local church was new and nice too. Then one day, learning some new skills online I found the WhiteHouse.gov site. The ancient tales say that dwarves would wrought from the depths and let the results shine at the heights: was this precedent? I guess that's how this story unfolds - you tell me:
To be a bit clearer: I'd gotten the children off to college with the last cent of our young estate, after sudden widowhood from my soulmate, and had stopped crying and started dating, and glad of my arts/response duality, I had helped a lot with recession crises with my old group, American Red Cross and some private ones and the new shelter system, in my homestate Connecticut. Family roots for over a century , a river runs through it to the sea and it cascades along lovely hills, down to the beach. After twenty years away with war and corporate, the day we drove home "for good - for now" was a lifesaver - I was not healing from the losses and was becoming profoundly frightened by the feeling of "bleeding out" . But the rush of new life at old home healed me quite bit!
My future on my own, restarting from broke, still looked fine - still in my 30s - bright and accelerated, as were both our children, in school, and now off to college, it was not so bad now. I'd made new honors, and restored my health and desire to live to be a hundred. To stay active I found new paths and lots of refreshed skills. The last cent from the estate sent the children off to a safe start and busy again, a Small bank account balance grew a bit each month.
But then, a new bad surprise: a crippling accident at the hands of an ailing loved one "in the throes" - just after the ODS work with ARC. This time I was furious! Dear Lord, just what do you think you're doing? Now, I was Broke and in chronic pain, nearly immobile, burned out and grieving the death of my loved Father. and hot flashes topped it off. Benefits, after a bit, found me moved to a new place - a lovely bungalow of quality construction - sunny, nice, safe, and with a little garden. Of course, it was strange at first - and even unsafe, till friend found out and helped me get protective arrangements made. Still I should have been very upset and was not - I was glad I thought to call on the Lord and cashed in on a lifetime of good faith with some calm thru it all and enjoyed happy days, anyway. An odd new strength and peace descended and acceptance: be still and wait upon the Lord and be content with this permanent disability. One does. And I did.
AND then, something unexpected happened - a basketful of somethings!
- Dad left me a new Apple G3 PowerBook - just one a family of techies - my immobility opened up the world online!
- Son, Peter, IT super pro, flew in from parts west and taught me code and helped set up my first website.
- A disabled friend gave me time at his desktop to do more and learn to web-surf and not panic over freezes and code-mess.
- New friends offline saw me crushed and heard me and told me to cut it out with quitting and try again
- Arts folk worldwide cheered me online, also, to try and try and "get there", though getting across the room was work
- New names: Angelfire, Photoshop, Text Edit, hex colors, web-safe, graphic art, extension,suffix, url, Saint Isadore
- New church at my new bungalow where an apple orchard once stood - with garden- just a few blocks away.
- The late Father John White - the living Bing Crosby in "Going My Way" for a pastor - truly lit up my life.
- Mother and daughter for lunch and help a lot
- Bob'n'Tony, Tony'n'Bob - there will be their page here soon - chef and maestro CoffeeShopGallery sold my art!
- The Mill on the Hill - and its amazing waterfall! And its aging owner - all five feet of her - "you make art - no quitting!"
- AND ART AT THE WHITE HOUSE - the cherry on top!
- Medical upgrades and therapies - all nonsurgical, I was thrilled to be again empowered... so grateful!
- The Manchester Road Race, when they'd said my injuries would mean wheelchair - I WALKED it just fine! Praise!
- 2002 web surfing, I found the White House online and the State Easter Easter Egg Display -
- Submitted for three years - but got no response and then discouragement.
- Knowing I was fine for it, in 2005, I applied once more - for the mommies who taught me egg-crafting.
- They still did not want to let me in, disabled - overqualified or not - NO, I would not acquiesce - not this time...
- I told my Congressman at the time, Rob Simmons, who suggested to them otherwise and was accepted at the Federal level.
- Then CPA, the state and the local egg board screened me and approved.
- With a cash grant for expenses, to work ( see Technical Notes, below ). Done and shipped in its custom-fit box from AEB.
- Christmas 2006 and media and travel itinerary to the event done, it was about family fun.
- April 3, 2007 - daughter and I trained to the White House Opening, luncheon, tour and fun afterward - Sunny Day!
And that's all there was to it! (humor)
Sponsored by the American Egg Board , since 1994, the event appeared indoors at the Visitors Center in tandem with the Historic Easter Egg Roll outdoors, but is inactive at the moment. Hope they restore it. It was a chance for 'The American Artisan' to be represented in Spring - the White House does something similar at Christmas with tree decorations. Just Splendid!
The presentation and opening of the Display found each of us briefly personally hosted by First Lady Laura Bush. I was flattered to see my egg near the top of the Lucite Pyramid of eggs from each state in the union! And my daughter with cell phone cam very busy a few feet away . Security rules there meant clearances but for this moment it was fine and not at all stressed. My only sorrow was that I was still disabled and in stitches in my mouth, distorting my face and braces under my spring green suit. Still, I would not have missed that moment -ever!
ohhhh.... I don't even look like me in stitches and braces under the clothes - but ohhhhh
Some days just glow in the memory - this Sunny Day in Washington, DC was one.
The event included a visit "en group" with each state artisan bringing one to four guests. Two from CPA and my children, then. But my son could not leave work across the country at the Chronicle, so we found him on the cellphone to join us virtually at least. Then my daughter and I made it girls' day! She was more thrilled to accompany me than she'd been since puberty. What fun we had , with a sunny day on the White House tour and more.
After the luncheon and presentation, and show opening, we strolled the Capitol in April with the famous, newly-upgraded cherry trees and grounds security at the White House - Laura Bush's project. I called up Memories of trips to the Hirshorn and Phillips and more as a girl. Then later, I'd take the Eastern Airlines shuttle military standby $20 - to visit my late husband; at the time - at nearby Fort Belvoir in 1966, the home of Engineers at the time - he'd signed on, a scientist to help get rid of Agent Orange in Viet Nam - such proud days - and tense with the danger but readying. And then our Daughter laughing remembering our family trip to Washington ten years later, for the Capitol's way with the Bi-Centennial! Oh Yes... every moment pure gold - and sidewalk cafe and ice cream and we were back to Connecticut by bedtime. Thank yous to all who helped followed, joyfully shared and then "back to normal life".
And at the White House in memory any time we wish forever after!
Connecticut Egg 2007 photo by White House photographer, Sheila Craighead
Technical Notes:
My design for the 2007 White House Easter Egg, From Connecticut, incorporates state symbols in miniature.
- The item is created in a real chicken egg shell.
- The outside is done in Connecticut sky blue.
- A front-facing opening, in the shape of the Connecticut State Armorial Bearings
- to aid interior light - some of the gold mylar used by NASA- gift from DuPont Dad
- opening trimmed in tiny real pearls , one for each state - 50.
- state and national flags atop, made with stained glass medium.
- flags enjoy pole finials of real gold nuggets from Connecticut Gem & Mineral Club
- historic diorama within - mills empowered our independence in 1776 - this one still stands.
- scene of waterfall that once powered the mills, and famous New England stone fences
- scene outlined by flora and fauna in mixed media: paints, papers, foil, glazes, "gallery glass", three glues.
- scene gems: danburite,zircon,aquamarine,garnet,chrome diopside, emerald.
- ...and love - for country, history, the mills that won our American Autonom and ...
- crafts and the mommies who taught them - in memoriam Julia Maciedulski Feb1906-Sept2003
Such events always share an afterglow - I normally do art with honors and for sale as well as I am able to market it. And my "Art With Heart" is very helpful, now that I do NOT run to Ground Zeros in person.
This event was no exception for related things and afterglow - extras:
- It helps my health and spirits, and safety, since girlhood, to "get some sunshine" - always ready to be grateful to all who help on such projects in civic and social and arts.
- I learned new things about the EGG! the living symbol of the cell, and life source. The American Egg Board had complained that badguys were overdoing it re: eggs and health - and AEB won some eggs-oneration, too, sharing more up-to-date reports of the wonders of the egg and wise use not overuse for fine benefits.
- I found new friends all over the country who do similar work with eggs, and even the fundamental wax resist things I learned as a girl - the modern eggs are done not with a candle stick and pin as I was taught but with an electric kistka to draw with wax in color.
- I do up miniatures of eggs in every way, mostly paint and draw right now, and am always ready to share what I learn.
- I was able to show my amazing mommies that I did, too, realize how grand they are, with this event - and told them in action !
one of the watercolor egg mins I do - fun
There is more, but let it be enough for now with my gratitude for the opporunity that saved the day - doing it again.
elle
Saving Connecticut's Old State House - Petition to Sign, Please
"The oldest State House in America is now closed to the public amid Connecticut’s budget problems. In addition, millions of dollars worth of artwork could be removed from the building." Google - WNPR link
Please click and sign the petition to save this wonderful site from closure.
Connecticut's Old State House with a golden statue of JUSTICE atop - needs some herself!
UPDATE August 2016
"The oldest State House in America is now closed to the public amid Connecticut’s budget problems. In addition, millions of dollars worth of artwork could be removed from the building." Google - WNPR link
Please click and sign the petition to save this wonderful site from closure.
July 28, 2016 - Sign the linked petition here BECAUSE:
today's paper tells that the artifacts are being removed from the recently closed down site to protect them better at the Atheneum and the Connecticut Historical Society. Sad news but good news for their safety. This move is said to be temporary as new leadership hopes to do a LOT better job of keeping the key historic site self-supporting. LIARS - that building should be done like Sturbridge Village, since it's unique funnctionality in Colonial Days absolutely Dazzles but NO ONE has been promoting it AT ALL. I think they mean to kill her.
IN JUNE 2016, while closing down my computer for the night, the breaking news alert notification kept me on a new job till late. Whyyyyy just at Independence Day , would my beloved homestate close this icon site, which has only recently been renovated ? The golden statue of JUSTICE, symbolically, is barely visible in this official photo, though her new gold paints normally gleam proudly in the sun and brighten a rainy day. Funding and cutbacks were cited as the reason, but not very convincing. The Petition lists ways to fix.
Please click and sign the petition to save this wonderful site from closure.
This site WAS Connecticut's capitol, till the larger one was built a century or so later. It stood and served all life in the area and in early America. And with not much else around, one block from the Connecticut River, the Old State House was the nearest to the river life line in those days. Rules were made and important history to all of America - not just Connecticut- happened there and the building is used daily today. Not profitably enough, but that's easy to fix.
This video will tell you more - click here for it.
Personally, I developed just a silly love for "OSH" as she is called - when I first visited Hartford back to my home state, after 20 years in the big world, it was like seeing a lot of it for the first time, and often seeing old sites with new eyes. And especially OSH.
Suddenly I saw her in a personified light: My paternal Grandmother was alive again, a tiny dolly , surrounded by her many tall children and grandchildren! The anachronism she presents, in the landscape, making her just that more wonderful, sitting pat, on that spot, among companions two centuries newer. She is my Grammy and I simply felt too personally upset by the news to NOT act.
Old State House is a genial Happy Cat on a carpet before a fire, much-loved by her companions.
What on EARTH would make anyone think it is okay to change that? We need her in this world. And why hurt this historic site AT Independence Day, America's Historically Proud Birthday!
The petition has some signatures already and I have done only modest promotion. More to come. Comment here or on the petition. Those with power to change the closure will be getting updates - it is part of the petition's machinery. Make it count!
elle
Photo Stories for my Soldier 1968
A friend shared her firstborn son's four-month baby photo story at Facebook this morning and improved Monday measurably! Thanksomuch, Jessica ! Mother and child are a gift to life itself! It reminded me of our own son's baby days! May this post help do my part for veterans and all loving parents.
A friend shared her firstborn son's four-month baby photo story at Facebook this morning and improved Monday measurably! Thanksomuch, Jessica ! Mother and child are a gift to life itself! It reminded me of our own son's baby days! May this post help do my part for veterans and all loving parents.
The story: My new husband and Corps of Engineers Lieutenant liked my Red Cross work as he prepared for deployment with work as Assistant Brigade Adjutant at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Partners in it all, and now parenthood too! Our new marriage was getting really good! So he obtained an extension on his departure date so he could be there for the birth and the early christening, and then off to war, when our son was 22 days old. But we had run along with our cameras as sweethearts and newlywed, and promised to let photos continue to help us stay close.
I'd plan the photo shoot and get busy - back and forth as photographer and with a drafted helper, then, into the photo myself for my mommy role. Then the editing: I’d assemble the stories with captions and send them on to his Daddy in Viet Nam.
With his degree in Chemistry and hatred for Chemical warfare, he was proud to be with His USACE Special Ops group, "Black Diamonds", bridge-building and getting rid of Agent Orange. To be sure to get that job, my late husband took on Construction work as a summer job and was required to enlist before his draft notice arrived. They would be sent at birthdays, and his was in July, so not much graduate partying in June, but running to Army Recruiting to get in on time.
I don't know what sort of mass hypnosis we use to make it bearable, but war is "like, dangerous" and they were not showing enough John Wayne movies! His job was not especially combat of any sort, but they all took their turn at duties with guns. I was twenty-one and in love; I pretended it was just “post partum” stuff when I swooned from horror at the dangers he faced...he and friends and neighbors' sons and soon, my Brother. The wonderful new Playtex baby nurser with super safe disposable bags was fun. But an innovation called "body bags" was not. I never stopped getting sick at the idea of bagging people. They needed a much more respectful term for it, and insistence use of that term. Both soldiers and newscasters were awful in their deliberate disrespect when they used the term.
Unable to cry, desperate to do something to help, all I could do, was find the good perfumed stationery and send the photo stories and pray a lot, and " not make waves" . There was no SKYPE and no digital imaging, but now the photo stories for my lieutenant got serious in their mission. Keeping up morale when those who were supposed to do and say supportive things were NOT. And what if my pathetic efforts got lost in the famously-horrible mail? The popcorn and cookies I sent NEVER got there. Once his letters did not get to me for weeks and once mine did not reach him and the letters back were full of his concern as were mine to him, by the time they arrived, it was frustration to read them, since the issue had passed.
Young and low-budget or not, there was money for at least two copies of the photo essays. Head and heart in the production to keep it light and helpful for all the best fun. The christening and the bath time stories remain my favorite - wiggly before, splashing during, full of delight. And after? One he'd love with happy, sleepy, clean and dry baby and happily wet and messy Mommy. His Father's letters in reply were full of love and praise for the joy the stories brought in the middle of a war. The highchair mealtimes, the fun in the stroller and other photo stories - easy! How good to know that they helped!
And, thanks to the extension on the deployment, Daddy was home in time for his son's first haircut and baby's first Christmas - Father and Son together "all ten fingers - all ten toes" - my favorite baby picture story of all!
Art in America - a Timeline
ART IN AMERICA ~ HISTORICAL OUTLINE and a MYSTERY
I posted this timeline in 2003 at my first site. It made a good thing to share and handy reference for me. But in the loss of things from the old site hacking, is the loss of the SOURCE of this neat post. In trying to find it, I found ten newer ones but none so simple, elegant and easy to USE. Will continue the source search and will add a few links to other good sources. Thanksomuch - Elle
ART IN AMERICA - A TIMELINE
March 2, 2016 SketchcrawlHartfordConnecticut USA 8-15 esf
SketchcrawlHartfordConnecticut USA 8-15 esf
ART IN AMERICA ~ HISTORICAL OUTLINE and a MYSTERY
I posted this timeline in 2003 at my first site. It made a good thing to share and handy reference for me.
But in the loss of things from the old site hacking, is the loss of the SOURCE of this neat post.
In trying to find it, I found ten newer ones but none so simple, elegant and easy to USE.
Will continue the source search and will add a few links to other good sources. Thanksomuch - Elle
Art in America of course begins with Indigenous Art - long before the 1600s, the land now called America 1000 BCE or Early Ancient Period already shares pottery and leather crafed goods, and it goes on from there - I am sharing this resource for a great overview I found, for you and for my own updates and reference. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/ancient-art/american-indian.htm
Colonial Period: 1607-1788
With survival uppermost in the minds of our earliest settlers, the arts were slow to take root, but there are always crafted items for practical use, made from materials in the New World - I think they sold well “back across the pond” immediately . The earliest painting, primarily portraiture, was accomplished by untrained artists called limners, whose main task was to record the likenesses of the stalwart colonials.
The first artwork was, naturally, derivative and found its inspiration primarily through imported prints that reflected styles then prevalent in England, Holland, and Spain. Many artist/artisans divided their time between attempts at fine art and designing utilitarian objects, such as signs and carriage decoration. Our first glimmerings of serious sculpture, for instance, were done by gravestone carvers.
The earliest trained painter to come to the colonies was John Smibert, whose hefty portrayals of landed gentry and merchants derive in style from the seventeenth-century Dutch realists. Our first native geniuses of the brush, Benjamin West of Philadelphia and John Singleton Copley of Boston, found it necessary to leave the colonies in order to fulfill their artistic visions, although Copley's highly illusionistic colonial work surely remains a monument to American ingenuity. West eventually became painter to King George III and opened his London studio to a continuous stream of emerging American artists.
Early Republic to 1812: 1789-1812
A new nation, the United States of America, continued its reliance on Old World artistic traditions, especially with few opportunities for training in this country. American artists John Vanderlyn, Washington Allston, John Trumbull, and others sought instruction in London (under our own Benjamin West) and in Paris but also sojourned in Italy, where they absorbed that country's rich classical style and subject matter.
Upon their return, these artists and enlightened American citizens recognized the need for creating institutions where artists could be trained and where art could be exhibited. Trumbull was instrumental in the running of the New York Academy of the Fine Arts (founded 1802), with its imported casts of antique sculpture, which offered a definite teaching tool to eager students. Boston followed suit with a cast collection located at the Athenaeum (founded 1804) and exhibitions that began in 1827. Charles Willson Peale was a pioneer in creating Philadelphia's art circle, establishing the first art gallery in 1782 and the first American museum in 1786.
An awareness of our history inspired the nation's leaders to recognize the need to capture images of leaders in significant portraits by Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Samuel F.B. Morse, and others, but history painting itself made little headway until later in the 1800s. When sculpture was needed for the neoclassically-inspired government buildings in Washington, D.C., Italian sculptors were hired to embellish them. Home grown sculpture, however, always flourished due to its ties to functional objects such as gravestones, ship's mastheads, and practical decorations.
The first glimmerings of landscape painting surfaced at this time, thanks to trained artists who came from abroad (for example, Robert Salmon), who concentrated mostly on recording the emerging cities, harbors, picturesque places, and native inhabitants of a new world. The unique talents of John James Audubon elevated the recording of America's flora and fauna to unprecedented artistic levels.
Jacksonian Era through Civil War: 1812-1865
With the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, an era of democratization and equality swept America and with it a period of vast expansion of creativity in the arts. Landscape artists Thomas Doughty, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Church, and George Inness strove to document the untouched look of the "new Eden," blending their individual styles with the Old World romantic traditions of the sublime and the beautiful. It was the American landscapists who first captured the symbolic features of the new nation. Instead of ancient ruins, these painters found history in spectacular land and water formations and, especially, in the inclusion of Native Americans within their scenes. Unleashed waterfalls, soaring eagles, and other emblems of liberty came to represent the country's image.
A narrative or genre tradition of depicting everyday experiences began in the Jacksonian era when artists like John Quidor matched imagery to Washington Irving's History of New York or when William Sidney Mount committed the rural life of Long Island to canvas or when Lilly Martin Spencer explored images of her own household. An expanded audience for landscape, genre, and another relatively new Jacksonian subject, the still life, came with the mid-century explosion of magazines, newspapers, and journals, and with prints produced from original artwork, distributed through organizations like the American Art Union. Lush beautiful still life paintings by Severin Roesen, John Francis, and others celebrated the American harvest, offering little indication of a major civil war on the horizon.
The 1820s and 1830s saw the first cluster of American sculptors working in Italy, where marble was readily available and trained artisans could carry their designs to fruition. By mid-century the colony, which also included painters, was larger than ever and included Horatio Greenough, Hiram Powers, and Thomas Crawford.
Civil War to End of the 19th Century: 1866-1899
The 1860s brought to American landscape painting several options. Artists could concentrate on the tiny details of nature in close-up studies recommended by the American followers of Ruskin such as Aaron Draper Shattuck or William Trost Richards. They could expand their subjects to include highly dramatic views of the West, such as those portrayed by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, or scenes of the arctic by William Bradford and others. Or they could concentrate on quieter views that explored the full potential of light, a style known as luminism. Gradually the extreme detail of Ruskin's adherents and the dramatic subjects of late Hudson River landscape painters turned inward, capturing the spirit rather that the topography of America's natural views. Inness's conversion to Swedenborgianism, William Morris Hunt's adherence to Barbizon influences, Albert Pinkham Ryder's and Ralph Albert Blakelock's choice of dream-like subjects--all reflected the nation's somber mood at the end of a devastating internal war.
Beginning of 20th Century to World War II: 1900-1940<br><br>
The twentieth century has been one of continued emulation of European styles, exploitation of those styles into unique American trends, and, beginning in the 1950s, leadership in the contemporary art world. A group of Philadelphia journalist/artists later known as the Ash Can painters--Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn--began the century with a new brand of realism, their subjects drawn from the street life of New York, where they ultimately settled. The first decade also saw the initial glimmerings of European modernism in American art in the work of Alfred Maurer, Max Weber, John Marin, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley-all members of the New York circle around the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. A groundbreaking event was New York's 1913 Armory Show, where Americans saw in huge numbers the work of Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp.
Between the world wars, however, American art took a more conservative bent, echoing the nation's isolationist posture. Pride in our industrial architecture-skyscrapers, grain elevators, barns, machines-found a visual counterpart in the work of the American Precisionists Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Charles Sheeler. Other realist movements between the wars were Studio Realism in the work of Kenneth Hayes Miller, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Eugene Speicher, Leon Kroll, and the Soyer brothers. American Scene painters Charles Burchfield and Edward Hopper explored the sometimes lonely existence of town and rural living. Regionalists Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood celebrated agrarian life and culture as no one had done before them. Social Realism flowered in the Depression era in the scenes of heavy labor, shopgirls, and the unemployed as shown in the work of William Gropper, Ben Shahn, Philip Evergood, and, later, Jacob Lawrence, who, like many American artists, received his first incentive as an artist through the Federal government's Works Progress Administration (WPA), organized in 1935 for artists on relief.
Abstract art was kept alive in this country during the 1930s through groups like the American Abstract Artists association. A huge explosion within the American art world came in the 1940s and 1950s with Abstract Expressionism, a New York movement concerned with the process of painting itself. Painters Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko, and sculptor David Smith were all pioneers in this new instinctual method of working.
A reaction to abstraction came with the precise geometric imagery of Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Richard Anuszkiewicz in painting and Donald Judd in sculpture. The 1960s brought Pop Art, suggesting in its title a celebration of the commercial world; practitioners were Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, George Segal, Roy Lichtenstein, among others. Sol LeWitt's conceptual art and Robert Smithson's earthworks also evolved in the 1960s, focusing on the idea and less so on the product, if one were produced at all.
The Post Modernist era has capitalized on the art movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Abstract Expressionism in all its manifestations, pure geometric styles, the art of the absurd--have all opened up a new artistic exploration of our world. The human body, long the basis for representation, has now been fragmented and super-analyzed from both within and without. Our gender roles in society have become grist for the artists' mill; private worlds have been exposed for all to see and imagine. Democratization is key to the understanding of the new art, whether created by the professional, the untutored, or other "outsider" artists. It is important today to understand how the viewer thinks and how people learn in order to form a more engaging dialogue among the artist, the onlooker, and the art itself. A healthy questioning of the past, quoting from it with skepticism at times, has also created an atmosphere out of which new art can develop for the future
In Art, writing, patriotic, American Art, ConnecticutTags Elle Smith Fagan, Patriotic Art, Patriot, Writing, Connecticut
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