Guido J. Fecondo, 92, of Landenberg, died Saturday, Oct. 29, at the Jennersville Regional Hospital in West Grove. He was the husband of Mary Jane Segner Fecondo, with whom he shared 65 years of marriage.
Guido J. Fecondo
Born in West Grove, he was the son of the late Joseph F. and the late Maria (DiGorgio) Fecondo.
Guido was a graduate of Avon Grove High School. His career was long and varied. Guido owned and operated Fecondo Food Market in Avondale from 1947-1955. He worked for Westinghouse and was a manager at Starr Roses, Penn Eastern and Kelton Supply. In the later part of his career he was a realtor for Hannum Realty. He retired as owner of Hockessin Fine Foods.
Survivors include in addition to his wife, one son, Joseph V. Fecondo of Middletown; one daughter, Patricia Y. Kieras and her husband Arthur of Landenberg; one sister, Mary Fecondo of Lima; two grandchildren, Alison and Adam and one great-grandson Chase.
You are invited to visit with Guido’s family and friends from 9:30-11:30 a.m.Friday, Nov. 4, at Assumption BVM Catholic Church 300 State Rd. West Grove, PA 19390. His Mass of Christian Murial will follow at noon. Interment will be in St. Patrick Cemetery in Kennett Square. Contributions in his memory may be made to Mother of Mercy House, 709 E. Allegheny Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19134. Arrangements are by Foulk & Grieco Funeral Home Inc. (610-869-2685) of West Grove. To view his online tribute and to share a memory with his family, please visit www.griecocares.com
Unionville High School Art Gala is celebrating 41 years. This annual event showcases local working artists, UHS alumni and current student artists. In addition to beautiful artwork, there will be live music to entertain and great food to enjoy. The Art Gala strives to include a variety of artists — both new and more established individuals. The artists, who will be participating, express their talents though diverse mediums including painting, photography, glass, metal and wood.
This year’s featured artist is Lele Galer, an artist who works in oil, encaustic and welded steel. She regularly exhibits in numerous shows throughout the year in the Chester County area. Her welded steel work is abstracted forms that reflect the strength and vitality of living things, bound and unbound. Currently she works primarily with the theme of the forest, creating abstracted tree landscapes and color studies in small and large panels. Her colors are a reflection of the passion she feels for her subject matter, whatever it may be, and the colors often take on a life of their own.
“As long as I continue to enjoy the process of a painting, bringing it through from start to finish, then I will keep painting,” Galer said in a press release. “I love the element of discovery in each painting, and I never hesitate to paint over an entire piece and start fresh. It has to have some guts in it, or some magic, or else I just don’t see the point. That is pretty much how I see life too. My work is an unedited form of self expression, always exploratory and always personal.”
The year’s event will also feature the work of two current UHS students, Lily Neff-Peterson and Zhenni Liang.
As in years past, there will be a silent auction. This year’s selections will include beautiful works of art as well as select regional activities and outings.
The 2016 Unionville High School Art Gala will be held on Friday, Nov. 18 from 6-9 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 19 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Unionville High School Art Center, auditorium entrance. Friday evening includes appetizers and live music.
Funds raised from this event contribute towards educational projects and programs that help enhance the overall educational experience for the students at Unionville High School. Admission free.
'Bringing in the Maple Sugar,' a painting by Anna Mary Robertson 'Grandma' Moses, is one of the works on display during'Rural Modern; American Art Beyond the City' at the Brandywine River Museum of Art.
An ambitious exhibition replete with surprises opened at the Brandywine River Museum of Art this past weekend, providing insight into a vivid time period of artistic experimentation in America.
Charles Demuth’s 1920 ‘End of the Parade’ depicts Lukens Steel during its heyday in Coatesville,
Called “Rural Modern: American Art Beyond the City,” the show, which runs through Jan. 22, focuses on avant-garde art from the 1920s through the 1940s. The works were created by well-known artists who took the modernist styles flourishing in urban hubs like New York, Boston and Chicago to rural regions – ranging from small-town Pennsylvania to Midwestern farms to coastal New England.
The exhibit includes nearly 70 paintings by renowned painters such as Charles Demuth, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Horace Pippin, Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, and N.C. Wyeth. Many offer a glimpse into styles and interpretations not readily associated with their creators.
For example, two O’Keefe paintings –“Lake George – Autumn” and “Barn with Snow” – differ dramatically from her distinctive Southwest and floral paintings. They were done in the 1920s when she spent time at Lake George in upstate New York.
“Rural Modern provides a fascinating new examination of some of the 20th century’s best-known American artists who left the city behind and found subjects not usually associated with modernism,” said Thomas Padon, director of the Brandywine River Museum of Art.
The genesis of the show came from its curator, Amanda C. Burdan, who said she found herself intrigued by the way in which modernism transferred to different areas of the country during a dynamic period in American history. The fact that N.C. Wyeth played a pivotal role in that transfer fueled her research. Her journey to illustrate the connections eventually went “from sea to shining sea” as she arranged to borrow all but five of the works in the show.
The paintings came from 37 lenders, a variety of museums as well as private collections, Burdan said. In some instances, she needed all of her powers of persuasion to make the loans happen. One of her more successful arguments centered on the fact that some of the paintings, such as Demuth’s “Buildings Abstraction, Lancaster” were returning to their roots.
Curator Amanda C. Burdan will be presenting a series of lectures during
The exhibition is divided into three sections. “Rural Modern Landscape” features sweeping vistas and the architecture of rural America while “Rural Modern Life” section showcases the denizens of that terrain: from farmers to fishermen to lumberjacks. And “Rural Modern Gothic” depicts a darker edge to an America beset by the environmental woes of industrialization and the economic crisis of the Depression.
In addition to providing a colorful view of American history between the two world wars, the exhibit also offers a travelogue of interesting personalities from the workers in “Bringing in the Maple Sugar” by Grandma Moses to the buyer and seller depicted in Grant Wood’s “Appraisal,” a work painted a year after Wood’s famously iconic “American Gothic.”
Area visitors are likely to recognize some of the local scenes represented in the exhibit. The Lukens Steel mill provided inspiration for Ralston Crawford in “Steel Foundry” as well as Demuth’s “End of the Parade.” And a 23-year-old Andrew Wyeth illustrated the encroachment of progress in a painting called “Road Cut,” which shows the intrusion of Ring Road.
An even younger Wyeth offers a different kind of startling contrast in “Ridge Church.” His painting of a 19th-century church in Martinsville, Maine, when he was 19, hangs alongside a painting of the same church by his father and teacher, N.C. Wyeth. In fact, Burdan said the pair worked on the paintings simultaneously. Displayed next to the younger Wyeth’s work is a photograph that shows him with his easel in front of the building, believed to have been taken by his father.
‘The Drowning’ by N.C. Wyeth illustrates the ill-fated lobster fishing trip of a 16-year-old boy in Maine.
Although the two works differ greatly in style and approach, Burdan said the juxtaposition attests to the senior Wyeth’s interest in teaching his son to be true to himself, not imitate his tutor. In a letter written shortly before Andrew Wyeth finished the painting, his father enthused: “Andy’s Glenmere church is superb!”
On a more somber note, N.C. Wyeth’s “The Drowning,” shows an empty dory that appears to be defying gravity in rough seas. Wyeth painted the work as a tribute to Douglas Anderson, the 16-year-old son of family friends in Port Clyde, Maine. The teen disappeared while lobster fishing in 1935; his body was found months later.
Visitors will have numerous opportunities to learn more about the paintings through a series of special events and lectures. For more information, visit http://www.brandywine.org/museum.
Following its run in Chadds Ford, the exhibition, which received support from The Davenport Family Foundation and Morris and Boo Stroud, will travel to the High Museum in Atlanta, which collaborated on the exhibit. At the Atlanta museum, which is about four times the size of the Brandywine, the exhibit will be expanded to include murals and photography. With a new name – “Cross Country: The Power of Place in American Art, 1915-1950” – it will be on view from Feb. 12 through May 12.
The Brandywine River Museum of Art is open daily (except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day) from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors ages 65 and over, $6 for students and children ages 6 to 12; and free for children 5 and younger and members. It located on Route 1 in Chadds Ford; for more information, call 610-388-2700 or visit brandywinemuseum.org.
Despite pervasive affluence, more than a thousand people in Chester County sought emergency shelter last year, and more than half of them, including families with children, had to be turned away.
Such somber statistics formed the basis for an activity that will mark the local observance of National Hunger and Awareness Week, which runs from Nov. 13 to Nov. 19. Decade to Doorways, the county’s 10-year plan to prevent and end homelessness, is looking for volunteers to spread awareness of the problem on Thursday, Nov. 17.
The diverse faces of the homeless can range from a family with a parent who loses a job and can no longer afford housing to a recent college graduate unable to find employment that leads to self-sufficiency to a veteran who returned home and experienced obstacles re-entering society, according to county officials.
The staff of Decade to Doorways, a collaboration of consumers, government entities, service providers, educators, healthcare practitioners, faith communities, and more, hopes that the Nov. 17 initiative will get more people involved in reversing the statistics.
Volunteers will fan out across the county from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in a show of solidarity with individuals, families, and children experiencing homelessness. They will stand on street corners in high-traffic areas and display placards with data such as: 154 children under 5 years old experienced homelessness last year in Chester County; on June 22, 43 people between the ages of 8 and 72 slept outside in Chester County; or 50 families are presently homeless and waiting for shelter in Chester County.
Volunteers will assemble on Nov. 16 between 4 and 6 p.m. in room 171 of the Government Services Center, 601 Westtown Road in West Chester, to receive handouts that can be distributed during the event. Anyone interested in participating can register here.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia has announced steps designed to safeguard voters’ rights on Election Day, Nov. 8.
U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger has assigned Assistant U.S. Attorney Tomika N.S. Patterson to lead the efforts of the office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program.
Patterson will serve as the district election officer for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and in that capacity is responsible for overseeing the district’s handling of complaints of election fraud and voting rights abuses in consultation with Justice Department headquarters in Washington, according to a press release.
“Every citizen must be able to vote without interference or discrimination and to have that vote counted without it being stolen because of fraud,” said Memeger in the release. “The Department of Justice will act promptly and aggressively to protect the integrity of the election process.”
Federal law protects against such crimes as intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, impersonating voters, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes, and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input. It also contains special protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from acts that intimidate or harass them, the release said.
For example, actions of persons designed to interrupt or intimidate voters at polling places by questioning or challenging them, or by photographing or videotaping them, under the pretext that these are actions to uncover illegal voting may violate federal voting rights law. Further, federal law protects the right of voters to mark their own ballot or to be assisted by a person of their choice, the release said.
In order to respond to complaints of election fraud or voting rights abuses on Nov. 8, and to ensure that such complaints are directed to the appropriate authorities, Memeger said Patterson will be on duty while the polls are open and can be reached by the public at 215-861-8200.
In addition, the FBI will have special agents available in each field office and resident agency throughout the country to receive allegations of election fraud and other election abuses. The local FBI field office can be reached by the public at 215-418-4000, the release said.
Complaints about possible violations of the federal voting rights laws can be made directly to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section in Washington by phone at 800-253-3931, by fax at 202-307-3961, by email to voting.section@usdoj.gov or by complaint form at http://www.justice.gov/crt/complaint/votintake/index.php.
“Ensuring free and fair elections depends in large part on the cooperation of the American electorate,” Memeger said in the release. “It is imperative that those who have specific information about discrimination or election fraud make that information available immediately to my office, the FBI, or the Civil Rights Division.”
