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- Title
- Justin Morrill Letters to UVM President Matthew Buckham
- Date Created
- May 18, 1872 - November 30, 1898
- Description
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Justin Morrill (1810-1898) served as a US Representative (1855-1867) and Senator (1867-1898) from Vermont, following a successful business career. His signature legislative accomplishments were the Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, which used the proceeds from the sale of federal lands...
Show moreJustin Morrill (1810-1898) served as a US Representative (1855-1867) and Senator (1867-1898) from Vermont, following a successful business career. His signature legislative accomplishments were the Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, which used the proceeds from the sale of federal lands expropriated from tribal nations, to create land-grant colleges. The purpose of these land-grant colleges was to teach agriculture, military instruction, and mechanical arts such as engineering in addition to the traditional science and classical education that was generally taught in colleges at that time. The second Land Grant Act, passed in 1890, funded colleges in the former Confederate states and required each state to offer race blind admissions or set up a separate land-grant college for persons of color, which led to the creation of several of the historically Black colleges and universities. An additional act passed by Congress in 1887 funded agricultural experiment stations under the direction of the land grant colleges.In 1865, the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College was incorporated, after a great deal of debate about whether a land-grant college in Vermont should be a separate institution, or attached to the University of Vermont, Norwich University, Middlebury College or even possibly a merger of those three institutions. Despite the 1865 incorporation, these debates would continue in Vermont for many years to come. With the establishment of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Morrill became a trustee of the University, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1898.
Matthew Buckham (1832-1910) became President of the University in 1871 and continued in this role until his death in 1910. He had previously graduated from the University in 1851 and served as a faculty member from 1856-1871. His time as president saw the admission of women to the University, the addition of several notable buildings to campus such as Williams Hall and the Billings Library, and the development of the State Agricultural College which had admitted no students to the agricultural course in the six years before he became President.
Morrill and Buckham were frequent correspondents and eighty-two of Morrill’s letters to Buckham, along with three to George Benedict and one to Albert Cummins, are preserved in Buckham’s papers at the University of Vermont and are digitized and transcribed in this collection. The letters included here discuss a wide variety of topics, mostly related to the agricultural college and include: federal support for the University, possible donors, military instruction, Morrill’s views on the development of agricultural colleges around the country, competition with Middlebury and Norwich, Vermont legislation such as the 1890 “divorce bill” which would have separated the State Agricultural College from the University, the experimental farm, the academic progress of Morrill’s son James at the University, and the construction of Billings Library along with the potential acquisition of the library of George Perkins Marsh.
Buckham’s letters to Morrill are with the Senator’s papers at the Library of Congress. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms009307
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- Title
- Vermonters in the Civil War
- Date Created
- January 1, 1861 - February 28, 1864
- Description
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Vermont soldiers in the Civil War wrote an enormous quantity of letters and diaries, of which many thousands have survived in libraries, historical societies, and in private hands. This collection represents a selection of letters and diaries from the University of Vermont and the Vermont...
Show moreVermont soldiers in the Civil War wrote an enormous quantity of letters and diaries, of which many thousands have survived in libraries, historical societies, and in private hands. This collection represents a selection of letters and diaries from the University of Vermont and the Vermont Historical Society.The collection includes materials dating from 1861-1865. Materials were selected for digitization to provide a variety of perspectives on events and issues. The voices represented in the collection include private soldiers and officers, as well as a few civilians. All of the extant Civil War-era letters or diaries of each of the selected individuals (at least, all that are to be found in the participating institutions’ collections) are included; each adds a certain experience and point of view to the whole.
Officers in the photo above are (from left to right): Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Stoughton, Colonel Edwin H. Stoughton, Major Harry N. Worthen. All are from the Fourth Vermont Infantry Regiment.
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- Title
- 5. Post CD
- Date Created
- 2010-2021
- Description
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This collection includes 6 color cartoon images that were created between 2010-2021, after the publication of the books and CD.
- Title
- Selected Published Works
- Title
- Rebuilding the Vermont State House (1857-1859)
- Description
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In the winter of 1857 the Vermont State House was gutted by fire and a special session of the legislature convened to discuss rebuilding. The legislators appointed three commissioners and a superintendent of construction. George Perkins Marsh of Burlington, Norman Williams of Woodstock and John...
Show moreIn the winter of 1857 the Vermont State House was gutted by fire and a special session of the legislature convened to discuss rebuilding. The legislators appointed three commissioners and a superintendent of construction. George Perkins Marsh of Burlington, Norman Williams of Woodstock and John Porter of Hartford were named to the commission; Dr. Thomas E. Powers of Woodstock was to act as superintendent. A young Vermont sculptor, Larkin G. Mead, Jr., was commissioned to design the statue to top the dome.
Thomas William Silloway, a young Bostonian who had trained under Ammi Young, creator of the previous State House, was appointed architect. Silloway consulted Marsh, the most knowledgeable of the commissioners on design issues. However, Silloway and Powers were soon at odds. Their disagreements led to Silloway's resignation which he quickly rescinded. In the interim, however, Powers appointed another architect, Joseph Richards, to redesign several key features of the building. At Silloway's behest, a House investigation concerning the dispute was held to examine Powers's charges that Silloway was incompetent. The trusses supporting the dome, the portico columns, and the heating system came under particular scrutiny. Silloway was vindicated by the House committee but construction had proceeded too far to restore his design. Powers then published a pamphlet with his own defense. The State House re-opened in October 1859. Since it had been completed with due speed and under budget ($150,000), most observers declared it an unqualified success.
The letters in the University of Vermont Collection date from March 11, 1857, when Marsh was first appointed to the Commission, and continue to the end of 1859, when the legislature moved back into the building. Most of the letters were written by Silloway to Marsh and discuss his ideas and the problems he faced, both technical and personal, in implementing them. In addition, we include selected published reports that document the original intent of House members and spirited defenses by Silloway and Powers justifying their actions.
For a detailed history of the 1858 reconstruction, see Daniel Robbins, The Vermont State House. A History & Guide (Vermont Council on the Arts, Vermont State House Preservation Committee, 1980).
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- Title
- State House Statues by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr.
- Description
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Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr. (1835-1910), was a prominent American sculptor in the nineteenth century. The son of a successful attorney, Mead grew up in Brattleboro and at the age of eighteen went to work as a studio assistant to the sculptor Henry Kirke Brown of New York City. He first drew...
Show moreLarkin Goldsmith Mead, Jr. (1835-1910), was a prominent American sculptor in the nineteenth century. The son of a successful attorney, Mead grew up in Brattleboro and at the age of eighteen went to work as a studio assistant to the sculptor Henry Kirke Brown of New York City. He first drew national attention when in 1856, on New Year's Eve, he and some friends surprised Brattleboro residents by creating an eight foot snow statue called "Snow Angel." The incident was reported in the national press and immortalized by James Russell Lowell in his poem "A Good Word for Winter."
While still a young man, Mead was chosen to design "Agriculture," a monumental female figure, to top the Vermont State House dome. As these letters show, Mead conferred with George Perkins Marsh, one of the three State House Commissioners, about the design and symbols for the figure. In sending Marsh three alternate sketches he wrote, "I wish you would inform me what you think will be the most proper design, for I should prize your opinion more than any ones else from your thorough experience in all pertaining to Art.
Responding to Marsh's suggestions, Mead produced a more finished drawing: "Your letter was received this morning and I have made a sketch, trying to introduce proper symbols of Agriculture. Also the scroll (or Laws)."
Johann Henkel, a German-born woodcarver living in Brattleboro, carved the original statue in pine. By 1938 "Agriculture", now badly decayed, was replaced by a copy.
In 1858 Mead also submitted a design for a statue of Ethan Allen to be placed at Allen's grave in the Green Mount Cemetery in Burlington. In a letter to John N. Pomeroy of Burlington, head of the Statuary Commission, Mead included a drawing of the figure representing Allen demanding the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of the Continental Congress and the Great Jehovah." At the time, Burlington residents were unable to raise enough money to pay for the monument, but the Legislature appropriated the necessary funds in 1859 and it was installed on the State House portico in 1861. A replica of the original took its place in 1941.
In addition to his work at the Vermont State House, Mead is best known for the series of figures he designed for the Lincoln Memorial in Springfield, Illinois. A variation of his "Ethan Allen" is in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington, D.C. In 1862 Mead emigrated to Florence, Italy where he became a permanent member of the American expatriate community.
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- Title
- George Perkins Marsh - Hiram Powers Correspondence
- Description
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George Perkins Marsh and Hiram Powers (1805-1873), the most famous American sculptor of the nineteenth century, had been boyhood friends in Woodstock, Vermont. They lost touch when the Powers family moved to Cincinnati but resumed contact in 1847 when Marsh and a former governor of Vermont,...
Show moreGeorge Perkins Marsh and Hiram Powers (1805-1873), the most famous American sculptor of the nineteenth century, had been boyhood friends in Woodstock, Vermont. They lost touch when the Powers family moved to Cincinnati but resumed contact in 1847 when Marsh and a former governor of Vermont, Charles Paine, wrote to Powers about commissions for the Vermont State House. By this time Powers was an established sculptor in Florence, where he had emigrated in 1837. The two men renewed their relationship after Marsh visited Italy in 1849 en route to his diplomatic post in Constantinople, and maintained close personal ties until Powers' death in 1873.
Powers began his artistic career in Cincinnati, excelling in portrait busts. A wealthy benefactor financed several trips to Washington, where he made portraits of President Andrew Jackson, Chief Justice John Marshall, and other statesmen that were highly praised. When he moved to Italy with his family, he continued with portraiture as well as full length figures taken from history and myth. His "Greek Slave" (1841) was undoubtedly his most famous work. A standing figure of a nude woman in shackles, done in the Neo-classical tradition of the day, it inspired both praise and condemnation and established his international reputation.
Powers had a long and bitter relationship with members of Congressional committees who selected work for the new U.S. Capitol. This and other commissions are fully discussed in his correspondence with Marsh. The two men also shared an interest in Classical sculpture. Powers' letters describe in some detail the thinking that underlay his approach to art.
In addition to artistic matters, Powers and Marsh wrote frequently about the Civil War, its personalities, conduct, and significance. The letters also contain descriptions of the Powers family and of their circle of friends, including Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Also figuring in the correspondence are Caroline Crane Marsh, Marsh's wife, and George Ozias Marsh, his son, as well as Longworth Powers, Powers' son.
The letters in this collection date from 1847 to 1871. They are housed in the Marsh Collection at the Special Collections Department, Bailey-Howe Library, University of Vermont; the Powers Papers at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, and the New-York Historical Society.
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- Title
- George Perkins Marsh - Spencer Fullerton Baird Correspondence
- Description
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A leading 19th century authority on North American wildlife, Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887) is now remembered as a science administrator. He was the first director of the United States National Museum, second secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and founder of the U.S. Fish Commission,...
Show moreA leading 19th century authority on North American wildlife, Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887) is now remembered as a science administrator. He was the first director of the United States National Museum, second secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and founder of the U.S. Fish Commission, the forerunner of the Oceanographic Institute at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He placed naturalists on all major government-sponsored expeditions, and created an international network of scientific exchange for the United States.
Baird met Marsh through his wife, Mary Churchill Baird, who had known the Marshes when she was a schoolgirl in Burlington. Baird and Marsh shared many professional interests, worked hard to further each other's careers, and corresponded regularly from 1847 until Marsh's death 35 years later. As a member of the governing Board of Regents, Marsh recommended Baird for the position of assistant secretary at the Smithsonian, collected specimens for him during his term as U.S. Minister to Turkey, and furthered connections between the Smithsonian and learned societies in Italy and elsewhere.
Most of Marsh's letters are housed at the Archives of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC while Baird's letters are part of the Marsh Collection in the Special Collections Department, at the University of Vermont. Biographical information can be found in William H. Dall, Spencer Fullerton Baird. A Biography. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1915) and E. F. Rivinus and E. M. Youssef, Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1992).
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- Title
- George Perkins Marsh - Thomas W. Silloway Correspondence
- Description
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The architect commissioned to design the Vermont State House, Thomas William Silloway (1828-1910) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he also lived and worked as an apprentice to a house carpenter. He moved to Boston and worked in the office of Ammi B. Young, the architect of the...
Show moreThe architect commissioned to design the Vermont State House, Thomas William Silloway (1828-1910) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he also lived and worked as an apprentice to a house carpenter. He moved to Boston and worked in the office of Ammi B. Young, the architect of the destroyed Vermont State House. The courthouse in Woodstock, Vermont, also designed by Young, was destroyed by fire in 1854, and Silloway was chosen to design a new courthouse, under Thomas E. Powers, the superintendent of construction of that project as well. Following his work on the Vermont State House, Silloway studied for the ministry and, in 1862, was ordained as a minister. He went on to design numerous churches, including Montpelier's Universalist church in 1865, as well as various public buildings, including the Goddard Seminary in Barre, 1866-1870, and the Jenkins Memorial Library in North Conway, New Hampshire. He was also commissioned as architect of buildings at Buchtel College in Akron, Ohio. His published works include Text-book of Modern Carpentry, (Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co., 1858), and, with Lee L. Powers, The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland, and Scotland: a description of cities, cathedrals, lakes, mountains, rivers, and watering places, (Boston: A. Williams, 1883).
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- Title
- George Perkins Marsh - Albert G. Peirce Correspondence
- Description
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A Burlington businessman, Albert G. Peirce ran J. S. Peirce and Sons, a grocery and agricultural supplies store on Church Street. When the Marshes left for Italy, the family looked after their house and forwarded their mail.
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- George Perkins Marsh - Charles Eliot Norton Correspondence
- Description
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The friendship between Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), the American scholar and professor of art history at Harvard, and George Perkins Marsh began in the winter of 1860-61, while Marsh was lecturing at the Lowell Institute in Boston. When Marsh was appointed Minister to Italy, he wanted Norton...
Show moreThe friendship between Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), the American scholar and professor of art history at Harvard, and George Perkins Marsh began in the winter of 1860-61, while Marsh was lecturing at the Lowell Institute in Boston. When Marsh was appointed Minister to Italy, he wanted Norton, who had spent some time in Italy, appointed secretary of Legation, but the choice was not Marsh's to make.
During the early period of the correspondence, Norton co-edited the North American Review(1864-1868) and helped E.L. Godkin to found the Nation (1865). Norton was also a committed abolitionist and the conduct of the Civil War figures prominently in many of the letters. In the summer of 1868 Norton returned to Europe with his family and visited the Marshes. Marsh helped Norton obtain material for Norton's prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1891-92).
The correspondence continued intermittently until Marsh's death in 1882. At that time Caroline Crane Marsh asked Norton to return her husband's letters for a projected biography. In consequence, most of the correspondence is now in the Marsh Collection at the University of Vermont; the remainder is part of the Norton Papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
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- Title
- (Iris)
- Description
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(Iris’) original collection in the Archive spans 8 years, 1978-1986, from ages 5 years to 12 years and 9 months. The full collection contains 1,544 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Iris’) work is full of people. Both the visual work and writing reveal a deep...
Show more(Iris’) original collection in the Archive spans 8 years, 1978-1986, from ages 5 years to 12 years and 9 months. The full collection contains 1,544 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Iris’) work is full of people. Both the visual work and writing reveal a deep sense of wonder about human activity, the internal life of people and the nature of relationships. (Iris’) figures are highly expressive, full of movement and emotion. (Iris) captures human qualities, like wickedness, in details of clothing, hairstyle and facial expression. Portraits of striking women appear throughout the work, some with mysterious, dream-like qualities. (Iris) also tells stories, first with drawings of favorite fairy tales, then writing her own. Houses also appear. Drawings of exteriors show an interest in structure and design, and cross-sections revealing the “story” of each room through furnishings and activities of characters. Houses also hold secrets, concealed staircases, and hidden treasure. Humor runs through the visual work and writing with a particular emphasis on mischief and trickery. Drawings made with marker and pencil predominate. The line is quite varied, and color ranges from vibrant to drab. Painted landscapes and perspective appear later. (Iris) uses a form, the arch, for multiple purposes. It appears as window, door, face, and repeated pattern. (Iris’) writing begins as simple journal entries about school, friends and family. Over time it expands to include poems and other reflective pieces on time, change, history, war and peace, and the natural world. There are also lengthy serialized stories. Conversation, and especially dialogue, dominates the writing during (Iris’) fifth year (age 9). Stories read like scripts. In the later years, poetry becomes a means of expressing complex moral/philosophical ideas concerning human nature, which remains a persistent interest for (Iris).
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- Title
- (Emma)
- Description
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(Emma’s) original collection in the Archive spans nine years, 1976-1985, ages 5 to almost 14. The full collection contains 1588 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Emma's) work is colorful; characteristically these colors are lush rather than primary and the color...
Show more(Emma’s) original collection in the Archive spans nine years, 1976-1985, ages 5 to almost 14. The full collection contains 1588 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Emma's) work is colorful; characteristically these colors are lush rather than primary and the color combinations can be offbeat. Small imaginary worlds, landscapes, and, from her third year of school on, abstract designs (symmetric early on, later more syncopated), are favorite subjects. A charged atmosphere is sometimes created through such means as scribbled lines or transparency. “Light shining through” recurs. Her style includes fine but quick detail and qualities of lyricism and rhythm along with humor. The consistency across the collection is part of the evidence of persistence, of sustained effort. Each year shows increasing technical command of a widening range of media, with an explosion of productivity and emotional power in the later years. The later years include many drawings from life. (Emma’s) unassigned writing throughout the file is often in the style of a fairy tale in which (Emma) is the storyteller describing small worlds, magical transformations. There are also reports of historical events retold in quick, conversational style. Poetry and fictional work often rely on a strong sense of animation, sometimes making subjects out of colors or mundane objects, often in the context of family-like relationships. Some of the later writing shows a more self-reflective side. Throughout the file there is a breathless vivaciousness.
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- Title
- (Gus)
- Description
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(Gus’) original collection in the Archive spans 8 years, 1972-1980, ages 5 years and 4 months to 13 years and 4 months. The full collection contains 870 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. Houses and dwellings are prominent in (Gus’) work, often elaborated with...
Show more(Gus’) original collection in the Archive spans 8 years, 1972-1980, ages 5 years and 4 months to 13 years and 4 months. The full collection contains 870 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. Houses and dwellings are prominent in (Gus’) work, often elaborated with strong color applied in contiguous blocks or patterns ofstripes or grids, with variations in chimneys and other elements that indicate the form is a structure for variation. Ghosts, monsters, robots, and vehicles appear in his work, although with inattention or ambiguity as to setting or narrative. He experiments with ways of using visual media to represent invisible forces in physics and spirit. In pictures and stories, sports and popular culture are a motif. In stories, as well as in visual work, there can be a shift from the particular and present, to a more ambiguous space/time. An implied largeness is worked, as it were meditatively, through ordered repetition and variation of color or elements. Number, pattern, and color are important and serve as means of relationship, though relationship may also be conveyed by, for example, a tree leaning into another. The largeness and general absence of story or continuous action evoke a sense of archetypal forms or ideas and of incipience, beginning, or promise. Non-figurative work is particularly abundant at ages 8-9, 10-11, and 12-13. The quantity of visual work falls off in the last two years of the collection, but suggests involvement with large ideas of space, time, and spirit. His production of writing increases somewhat. In writing and in visual works, he explores themes of world citizenry and personal self-determination. His writing style remains lean, spare.
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- Title
- (Virginia)
- Description
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(Virginia’s) original collection in the Archive spans 10 years, 1974-1984, ages 4 years and 6 months to 14 years. The full collection contains 2,185 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Virginia’s) work is notable for its high-intensity, high-detail depictions of...
Show more(Virginia’s) original collection in the Archive spans 10 years, 1974-1984, ages 4 years and 6 months to 14 years. The full collection contains 2,185 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Virginia’s) work is notable for its high-intensity, high-detail depictions of homes and other settings filled with light, and for the lavish, intricate, and colorful detail with which she adorns her figures and settings, both interior and exterior. Home and family figure largely and so do courts and royalty, fairy tale and myth. Relationships between people are expressed through varied body postures and facial expressions. Her writing is often bound up with her visual work, telling dramatic stories of home relationships, adventures, royalty and myth, lively with conversation. Works call to mind illuminated manuscripts, in their close connection between visual art and written expression. She was a prolific drawer, often with marker. The characterizations of her figures and the explicitness of the settings generally imply the telling of a story. Valuing of competence, in part conveyed by knowledgeable depiction of tools and in part by the artist’s own skill with various mediums, toughens the emphasis on drama and relationship, and humor heightens the spirit of the work. Decorative and functional detail grow during the first six years of the collection. The visual work becomes simpler thereafter, with more instances of a single girl in a setting in year 7 (age 11) and more variety of relationships and emotions around age 12. By age 13, there is overall simplification of content and design and work with a widening range of mediums. Fantasy decreases in the later writing, with more probing of deep feelings and big ideas, more personal reflection. Narrative increases in complexity, further extending richness of detail.
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- Title
- (Sean)
- Description
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(Sean’s) collection spans nine years, 1971-1980, ages 4 years and 9 months to 13 years and 6 months. The collection contains 1,140 items, which are reproduced in full on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Sean’s) work is marked by a spirit of experimentation, a sense of the artist himself as a...
Show more(Sean’s) collection spans nine years, 1971-1980, ages 4 years and 9 months to 13 years and 6 months. The collection contains 1,140 items, which are reproduced in full on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Sean’s) work is marked by a spirit of experimentation, a sense of the artist himself as a medium, and continuing preoccupation with such ideas as transformation, doubleness, reversibility, magic, trickery, disaster and rescue, the hidden world, and befallenness. In visual work, (Sean) used every physical medium available, from paint to prints, photography, and sewing, with preference given to plain pencil. His experimental attitude is further visible in lots of reworking and preliminary and marginal sketches. He is a virtuoso of line; his rare use of color is charged. In both visual and written work, work within the same year veers from great sophistication to less accomplished pieces. Overall, he seems to privilege experimentation over finished statements. Figures are singular, generic. The eye and the self-portrait are two continuous, striking motifs in visual work. Mirroring, images within images (a hand drawing a picture), figure-ground ambiguity, and forms of trickery, punning, magic, and tantalizing/provocative ambiguity, often with an edge of sly humor, are characteristic. In writing, (Sean) also practiced many genres. Unnamed, singular characters and un-located events abound—the boy, the deer, the lady, the cowboy, the river. His language is spare and economical, with occasional stunning adjectives. Action consists of movement and progress is dream-like. Compositional structure is by repetition, recurrence, parallelism, alternation or reversals, which often confuse figure and ground. In the later years, a new lyricism appears, especially in watercolors of land- and seascapes, or, in writing, descriptions of nature.
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- Title
- (Alva)
- Description
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(Alva's) original collection in the Archive spans eight years, 1976-1985, ages 5 to 13. The full collection contains 952 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. The collection stands out for (Alva's) attention to composition. She uses boundaries, framing, corner...
Show more(Alva's) original collection in the Archive spans eight years, 1976-1985, ages 5 to 13. The full collection contains 952 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. The collection stands out for (Alva's) attention to composition. She uses boundaries, framing, corner treatments, and lines to divide the space of a page. Pattern, repetition, symmetry, and layering appear across the collection and within individual pieces. Lines, bands, panels, and columns recur, with a preference for the vertical, but also intersecting lines and bands. (Alva) uses a variety of media, including chalk, cray-pas, pencil, crayon, colored pencil, watercolor, tempera, printing, rubbings, marbling, and collage, and she mixes media within a piece of work. Consistent motifs include natural and outdoor scenes, animals (often in groups), hills, suns, water, houses with trees and flowers, bursts of color, and patterned or geometric forms. Vivid color permeates the visual collection. Much of (Alva's) written work deals with relationship, with strong feeling at the core. The strength of feeling is contained by a style that is structured and attentive to detail and by a straightforward tone. Animals (especially horses and mice) in her written work experience changes of relationship and feeling. Relationships among people are explored as well, and in her later work values of equality and justice come to the fore.
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- Title
- (Mick)
- Description
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(Mick’s) original collection in the Archive spans eight years, 1975-1983, ages five to thirteen. The full collection contains 2,511 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Mick’s) persisting preferences include multiple fields of action covering vast expanses,...
Show more(Mick’s) original collection in the Archive spans eight years, 1975-1983, ages five to thirteen. The full collection contains 2,511 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Mick’s) persisting preferences include multiple fields of action covering vast expanses, sometimes covering both sides of a large sheet of newsprint; overviews, often with huge sky and tiny figures; and cross-sectional views depicting actions on the surface of the water and below; in writing, stories may be told from two perspectives. Gesture and intensity is depicted in energetic activity with favored motifs being sports and physical activity including kickball, skiers, motorcyclists, soldiers, Vikings, explosions, bursts, and swirls of brilliant color. Action often exceeds the boundaries of the page and ground lines tend to be omitted. In counterpoint, there is a penchant for precision and detail as in maps, diagrams, football grids, insignia, uniforms, and equipment. In play with this attention to detail is an emphasis on practice in both visual and written work. Vikings have a storehouse for their supplies and practice their swordplay. (Mick) himself practices forms and shapes that serve multiple purposes: an extended “v” shape, upright or on its side used for the legs of kicks and the prow of a ship. Ships, houses, and trees recur across the collection. Writing about animals introduces most directly an element of sweetness that can be inferred elsewhere. Humor, verbal play, visual jokes, and verbal facility span the collection. Later works, especially landscape paintings, have a lyricism not visible earlier. Writing as a preferred medium takes off at age nine, producing adventure stories, drama, and descriptive writing.
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- Title
- (Neil)
- Description
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(Neil’s) original collection in the Archive covers 9 years, 1970-1979, ages 5 years and 2 months to 13 years and 11 months. The full file of originals numbers 324 visual items and 186 written items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Neil’s) work is notable for these...
Show more(Neil’s) original collection in the Archive covers 9 years, 1970-1979, ages 5 years and 2 months to 13 years and 11 months. The full file of originals numbers 324 visual items and 186 written items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Neil’s) work is notable for these persistent themes: mapping, overview and landscape; patterning, and schematics; machinery and equipment, both invented and realistic; mystery and hiddenness; adventure, conflict, and threats of danger; dwellings, both interiors and exteriors, home, representing safety and comfort; subtle humor running throughout work; deep interest in nature. Some enduring characteristics of his style include preference for line,particularly pencil; outline, but also selective and fine details and shading; humorous inventiveness both in machinery and people in costumes and poses; interest in tools and history; color used sparingly for emphasis; and rhythm and movement conveyed within compositions. An overall characteristic is his eye for detail and upbeat approach. Changes in his work are characterized by a growing variety and range of content; increased use of other mediums, including pastels and water color; bright colors, geometric design; a light, impressionistic touch, as well as realistic illustrations of texts; more writing: long travel/adventure narratives that end in safe refuge at home; story development with understated emotion, and dry humor.
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- Title
- (Leo)
- Description
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(Leo’s) original collection in the Archive spans 10 years, 1975-1985, ages 4 years and 11 months to 14 years and 8 months. The full collection contains 1,907 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Leo) primarily used markers to create narratives in line, with color...
Show more(Leo’s) original collection in the Archive spans 10 years, 1975-1985, ages 4 years and 11 months to 14 years and 8 months. The full collection contains 1,907 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. (Leo) primarily used markers to create narratives in line, with color highlighting or adding to the action. Narratives are often adventures, voyages, journeys, or paths of discovery, including encounters with the unexpected. Mapping, large space, and distance are characteristic of the settings in which adventures occur, with copious detail and motion as well as extreme variation in the line unifying the work. (Leo) appears to be gathering, recording, and explicating experience. Treatment of scenes implies events preceding and following, as opposed to studies of single moments. Over the 10 years, (Leo’s) work evinces increasing interest in and capacity for control and precision of line and decrease in ambiguity about space and perspective. Cartooning begins to appear in year 5, linear perspective in year 6, humorous treatment of previously serious subjects in years 7 and 8, with more character study, less narrative, and increased range of mediums and of color and form in years 8 and 9. (Leo’s) early written stories are transcribed from dictation, often as captions for the adventure drawings. As he increasingly writes the stories down himself, he continues adventure stories in a variety of settings, often blending elements from history, folklore, or legend. He also writes descriptions, reports, and opinion essays. Humor permeates much of his writing (including word play, captioned cartoons, exploration of idioms). His later adventure stories are full of action and conflict, with detailed and descriptive language.
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