No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass

No Green Berries or Leaves is a collection of autobiographical essays by Paul J. Stankard, one of the world's master glass artists. Stankard is particularly renowned and respected for his flameworked floral motifs expressed in crystal paperweights, rectangular columns, and orbs. Paul was trained in scientific glassblowing and worked in industrial scientific glass during most of the 1960s. Challenged by an inner sense of cretivity and the need to establish his creative independence, he started making paperweights in the early 1970s. Attracted to the emerging studio glass movement, recognized as a maker of fine paperweights, and driven by an intense and incessant pursuit of excellence, Paul was -- by the 1980s -- recognized as a highly accomplished glass artist, a member of the pioneering generation of glass art in America. As the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of his art matured, and as he continued to develop new techniques for expressing his art, he also assumed more prominent influence in the development of educational programs and institutions that celebrated and expanded art in glass. Throughout his life, Paul also wrestled with, and learned how to succeed in spite of, a lerning disability -- dyslexia.
 No Green Berries or Leaves presents the author's record of his life as a struggling, then highly successful, artist; reveals insights into the challenges he faced as a dyslexic and how he came to understand, then circumvent, his disability; and records his perspectives on the history of the studio glass movement in America as he witnessed and experienced it during the past fifty years. This book will be of value to readers interested in the life of a major American artist and the history of the glass art movement in America, as well as to those looking for an inspirational story of how, in one man, the human spirit faced, addressed, and outwitted a learning disability and climbed the steep road to success to become a master artist in glass.

Arts & Photography

Paul J. Stankard

History & Criticism

McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company

Mr. Lincoln's Chair provides an interesting and engaging look at the Shakers, one of the most complex but largely ignored religious groups and one of the most unusual and successful Utopian communities in American history. The book tells the story of the Shakers from their tumultuous beginnings in the eighteenth century to the present day. It provides a broad overview of Shaker history, culture, religion, life, and work, and presents the Shakers against the backdrop of the Civil War, contrasting their peaceful and productive lives with the carnage of America's bloodiest battles. The book details the Shakers' struggle to obtain legal conscientious objector status, a quest that led them all the way to the White House and an audience with President Abraham Lincoln.
 Mr. Lincoln's Chair is for anyone interested in the Shakers, their unique way of life, and their world famous furniture and architecture. For Civil War buffs, or for anyone fascinated by the rich life of Abraham Lincoln, the book takes a look at Lincoln from a different point of view the Commander-in-Chief of America's bloodiest war seen through the eyes of America's first conscientious objectors.
 The book also includes brief up-to-date descriptions of all Shaker sites, listed state by state from Maine to Florida. It describes the museums and restored villages, archeological sites, and the all-but-forgotten sites at which few if any traces of the Shakers remain.

Mr. Lincoln's Chair: The Shakers and Their Quest for Peace

History

Anita Sanchez

Americas

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