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Academy of Art in Michigan, where under Carl Milles
she studied the fundamentals of design. The architect,
Saarinen, also made a strong impression on her, when
he substituted for a semester in the design class. Per-
haps the strongest influence over her was Curry. Dur-
ing the earlier, uncertain years, it was his tour of the
gallery at each rural exhibit which kept her producing.
"The annual tour was a wonderful experience for me,
and the inspiration that kept me returning each year for
criticism and guidance." When Curry first saw her work
in pastel, "Spring Frontispiece," at the third Rural Art
Exhibit, he praised its imaginative design, its elusive
color values.
  Five times she has exhibited at the state fair, winning
prizes in all but one year. At the Milwaukee Art Insti-
tute her work has been accepted twice. "A Bit of Blue
Sky," a sculptured terra cotta of a newly born calf, was
sold from the 1944 spring exhibit. The J. I. Case Pur-
chase Prize was awarded for her painting of "Emil's
Farm" in 1946. She has taken home eleven first prizes
from the local dairy show. Two of her pictures are in
the Permanent Collection, and a large mural hangs in
the Vernon Methodist Church in her community.
  Natural environment has remained a compelling
force in the life of this young farm woman; it was typi-
cal of her, when she went to Cranbrook to study art,
to live on a farm. She had learned to fly a plane and flew
to Cranbrook with her instructor. Circling the town,
she chose from the air a place she liked, landed, and
taxied to the farm. There she persuaded the farmer and
his wife to take her in as a boarder. This grew out of a
deep desire to stay close to the land, to remain steeped
in the atmosphere of the country side.
  Elizabeth is married to Indiana-born Frank Nolan,
an electrical engineer at the Allis-Chalmers Company.
They have established a home seven miles east of the
farm home at Bonniedale. The Nolan home stands on
the crest of Prospect Hill. From any direction appear
miles of rolling farm lands dotted with green and yel-
low fields and red barns. In the southern distance three
blue lakes stretch over the landscape. At the very foot
of the hill nestles the farm to which great-grandfather
Thomas Faulkner brought his bride in 1846.
  As Elizabeth Nolan faces a life-time job of home-
making, she happily contemplates a continuance of her
art career at the same time. In fact, she believes that
they are a part of the same reality. Her art reflects the
values of farm and home, and the home in turn is al-
ready enriched by her linocuts, ceramics, water color,
sculpture, drawings, and oil painting. The struggle to-
wards freedom of expression has a new setting, but the
struggle will go on, with the urge to create an integral
part of each day's work. The chains of habit and con-
vention will never bind the life of this young woman.
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