Using Art to Create Beauty and Preserve History

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Just as homeschooling gives parents the opportunity to help their children develop work skills, it also gives them opportunities to develop their children’s creative skills.  While in Sainte Genevieve and Kaskaskia, we enjoyed the many ways people there have created art from colonial times until now. If you have a child who enjoys creating art, I hope that these photos will inspire you with the many ways he or she might be able to use that interest now or in the future.

I’ll start with three ways that people have used their artistic skills to portray the train ferry that once crossed the Mississippi River at Sainte Genevieve.

Photography¹

Model Making¹

Drawing²

Artist Roscoe Misselhorn created the train ferry drawing above. He drew many exquisitely detailed drawings of historic sites around Sainte Genevieve. This is Misselhorn’s drawing desk.

Metal Working (fleur de lis detail on the “Liberty Bell of the West” in Kaskaskia)

Sculpture (Popeye statue in Chester, Illinois, in Randolph County, Illinois, the same county as Kaskaskia)

Mural Painting

During World War II, Italian prisoners of war lived at Camp Weingarten which was in Sainte Genevieve County. Like artistic prisoners of war did at other camps in the United States, some of the prisoners at Camp Weingarten painted this mural.

Needlework (Pierre Menard Home, also in Randolph County, Illinois)
Stenciling (Floorcloth in Menard-Valle House)

Graphic Design
Portraiture²

In the spring of 1821, artist John James Audubon was working in New Orleans. This entry in his day book from April 28, 1821, reads: “Rose early and went on Board the Hecla to take Mr. Bossier’s Portrait. Made it good.” Mr. Bossier was a resident of Sainte Genevieve who had traveled to New Orleans to settle some personal business affairs regarding the estate of his deceased grandmother. (This day book was in the gift shop beside the Menard-Valle House.)

Making stained glass, Sainte Genevieve Catholic Church
Glassmaking
Sign making
Creating ceramic designs
Making museum displays²
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Thank you for helping your children find ways to use their many talents and bless others.

 Whatever you do in word or deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
Colossians 3:17

¹Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center

²Sainte Genevieve National Historical Park

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