The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-05-11

We all know Miss Columbia, the eternal, of course. With her clear (usually yellow. as is also the tradi- tion for angels) and her star spang- led robe she stands enshrined for ever in our affections. Every little girl who has ever represented some small and shrinking state on @ Fourth of July float has planned to grow up and be Miss Columbia in the pee rade, just as every little boy has ex- pected to have the Presidency thrust upon him. Almost any one could draw Miss Columbia with his eyes shut. In fact, many pictures of her appear to have been done just that way.
 But how about Miss Columbia up to date ? How shall we picture the pa triotic girl of the present moment? ? hair are all very well for parades but would never be tolerated in bandage making rooms or potato patches that need weedin. Please, Miss Colum- bia in her working clothes!
 Such was the challenge that went out to Neysa McMein whose pretty girls that live on magazine covers are among the most popular girls to be found in America today.
 we need Miss Columbia for a poster!" said the Woman's Section of the Navy League, through Mrs: Franklin P. Adams. we want a real American girl, as real American girls should look, in this present day heat of battle. A girl who will make every one that. looks at her want to do battle for his country"
 '.All right" said Neysa McMein. 7
 fn thing for her, said Mrs. Adams bravely to the artist who gets $1,6O0 apiece for some of her pretty girls.
 'tAll right said Neysa McMein again. "Just send me up model will your"
 So Mrs. John Clark Brennon of the organization committee went up to uhderstudy the traditional Miss Co., lumbia And this week from every recruiting station in New York, from libraries and schools and colleges, from those points past which the public must hurry in its daily comlngs and goings period Miss Columbia Up- To-Date looks out She represents not feminine patriotism on parade but feminine patriotism in khaki.
 Aside from beig mas beautiful a girl as ever lived on a poster, the new . best American womanhood of this present day crisis that 1t seemed best to ask Neysa McMein what qualities she had meant to paint into her face. GOT, if you like, it was just an excuse to get to talk to Neysa McMefnD Any excuse Is pardonable if it re- suits in a chat with Neysa McMein. She is altogether delightful. this pret- ty girl who spends her time creating other pretty girls in pastel. And think of the questions on which she is qualified to give expert advice! You wait for her in a huge old studio room at 136 West Sixty-fifth street, with pretty girls peering co- quettishly out at you from all sorts of unexpected corners. and old cup boards cutrained with big lowered cretonne, and a great fireplace with its manteI crowded with books, and shelf on which Neysa McMein's hardly outgrown toys Cor perhaps the flannel animals were dance favorsD elbow paints and pictures.
 All the while you remind yourself | that you must be extremely respect 1 full to an artist who knows how to paint a picture she can sell for $1,- l 500, and that you must make your | tone show that you are pronouncine Art with capital A.
 And you are so astonished that you i forget all about. capitals when Neysa McMein comes into the room eating big redA apple, and cycling you smilingly over the top of it. To be sure, she has on most adequately artistic looking purple dress with g smudgy green smock over it, and hel gray green eyes under their very darl | 4.vr% In 1xS nd ~ her own pastel girls might be pleased to own. But she doesn't look bis enough or anywhere near old enougf to have achieved success.
 t'Iow did you happen to become { pretty girl mean an artist yol ask, getting your questions all mixed lup in your surprise.
 q did it to get out of going to col lege, she declares.
 'What!'' you exclaim, quite shock
 ed. Didn't you know in your cradl' that you would never be content witt lany other career?"
 "Never thought of such a thing,
 declares the artist. '1t is a foregon
 conclusion in our family that ever, girl must go to vassar. I didn't meal
 to do it. What will you do, then
 demanded my mortified family. Well |
 was the way I dropped into the thinl just on the spur of the moment!'
 ''But, of course, they found ou
 about your remarkable talent righ
 away at art school, didn't they?" yo'
 ask hopefully.
 ''I should say not" said Neysa Nc
 Mein. ''You see, wouldn't work.
 was tremendously interested in mu , sic, and spent nearly all my tim
 writing an opera, while I was in tn
 Chicago Art Institute.''
 ''T'he first thing you did when yo'
 got out was to send 8 pretty girl t
 magazine and have her hailed a masterpiece, wasn't it?" you in
 quire.
 ''The first thing I did when I go out was to get a job in an adverus1n house, says Neysa McMein. 'I wa , the lowest of the low. Whatever an one else didn't want to do, did" , But a few months later she wa
 head artist in the advertising house . and when her twenty-first birthda came around she was getting $5,0Oi
 By this time, however, she kne' l. that the thing she wanted to do wa
 not to draw Parisian hats showtn every brilliant on the rhineston a h.,cEIe ar Iinearie with most Gfelik