Patriot pages

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 

Click here for entire article

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:

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. 

Visit the AEB site and neat free educational downloads, funthings and a shop where ou can purchase neat eggy funstuff!

elle

---

---

---

Art in America - a Timeline

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Reproductions and Imprinted Items

• Art With Heart 

• Spirit One

• Patriot

• Friends

• MY ART at the WHITE HOUSE STATE

• Small Items, Discounts and Clearance

• Salon Des Réfuses - overflow

• Let's "en plein air"

• Winter Holiday Blog

• Elle "Fracture" - images on glass.  

• Poetry

• Multi-belief Inspiration

• CLASSES AND GROUPS

• FEEDBACK 

• CURRENT DISCOUNTS -    

• FREE US SHIPPING: enter code FREESHIP at checkout      

• Ask about unadvertised specials and promotions

• As most do, this site uses cookies.    

• This site does NOT share your data

• no third party sharing

• Many thanks to SQUARESPACE, my host since late 2014! New York City, Portland Oregon, USA and Dublin Ireland!

GIFT ELLE FAGAN ART

...since 1999

          © ELLEN SMITH FAGAN 2020

POWERED BY SQUARESPACE