Details Presentation

Kenneth Lopez 1st period

Richard Shaffer on the right.

Richard Shaffer was born in 1947 in California. There is little information on his youth. After graduating high school Shaffer attended the University of California at Santa Cruz where he studied philosophy. then from 1969 -1971 he attended the new school for social research in New York city. From 1971-1973 Shaffer attended the San Francisco Art Institute where he majored in painting. From 1975-1976 artist in residence in roswell museum, Roswell New Mexico. After that he spent some time his life included spending time in Europe (mainly Italy), he  also spent time At the university of Texas at Arlington as an art professor.  Then more time in Europe followed by time being a full time artist in California. he currently lives in santa cruz California.

Since this is a fairly new painting from american artist, so there is not much of  a history on this painting.

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was born on January 6, 1878 in a three bedroom cottage in Galesburg. Sandburg was the son of Swedish immigrants and was the second of seven children. He started working at a very young age and quit school following his eighth grade graduation (1891). he spent the better part of a decade working many different types of jobs including, milk man, shoe shiner, and brick layer.

At the age of twenty, Sandburg volunteered to fight in the Spanish-american war. He was sent to Puerto Rico where he apparently saw no action. when he returned home he enrolled in Lombard college  while he worked a job as a fireman.

After college, Sandburg wrote poetry for two years before publishing his first book , "In Reckless Ecstasy" (1904). He then wrote two more books "incidentals" (1907) and "The Plaint of a Rose" (1908).

in 1908 Sandburg met  Lilian Steichen, who he later married. He continued to write for the rest of his life, mainly poetry. Carl Sandburg died in his North Carolina home on July 12 1967.


this poem was published in "Chicago Poems" in 1916. Carl Sandburg was on his way to a courthouse to interview a judge and decided to cut through grant park where he happened to see fog over Chicago. since he ended up having to wait about forty minutes for the judge, he decided to write a poem that was inspire be the fog.


To me there is beauty in simplicity. Which is what made me like the self portrait. Fog by Carl Sandburg is poem that is mainly about finding beauty in ordinary everyday things. I strongly believe that you can find beauty in most things if you just ponder them long enough. I also believe that as a society, we have become blind to the beauty in the world around us. the man in the self-portrait reminds me of that.

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