Burlington, VT (City and Bishop)

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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27 January 2015 10:36
 

I spent this past weekend in Burlington, Vermont. There was plenty of heraldic eye-candy. Worth noting was this beautiful coat of arms that is featured on the City Hall architecture on Church Street.

http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1398&stc=1&d=1422372325

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1399&stc=1&d=1422372419

 

Also - the Burlington Free Press published an article about the recently appointed Bishop and included an image of his new coat of arms. The Diocese of Burlington arms have an obvious resemblance to the arms featured on city hall. In this case a cross in lieu of the fleur-de-lis and Vert instead of what I think is supposed to be Azure.

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1397&stc=1&d=1422372269

 

Bishop Coyne has a lengthy blog post discussing the design of his arms:

http://bishopcoyne.org/explanation-of-the-new-coat-of-arms/

 

Too bad the Burlington flag does not share the historical influences:

 

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/u/us-vtbur.gif

 
Mark Olivo
 
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Mark Olivo
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27 January 2015 13:46
 

That flag is a true travesty

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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27 January 2015 13:46
 

The city arms are also supposed to be green and gold; the painting of the sculpture is wrong. The blue field defeats the intended cant—the dancetty partition line represents mountains, and with the green field is a pun on the name of the state, Ver[t] + mont.

And Mark is right, the flag is a travesty, and a sham, and a mockery.

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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27 January 2015 14:19
 

I suppose the painting on the building could be faded ... it isn’t the bluest blue.

As for the flag, I was excited when I saw it flying outside City Hall, but it was so floppy I couldn’t make out the details - or get a good picture. Boy was I disappointed when I Googled it later.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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28 January 2015 02:10
 

The arms of the city, diocese and bishop are commendable, both in design and execution; too bad, on both counts, about the flag.

It would be impolitic, no matter how well justified, to openly and publicly disparage the flag, which is likely the brainchild of several sincere citizens.

 

A more charitable approach might be to make flags (heraldic banners) of the arms of the city and diocese as gifts for display on more formal occasions.  With luck, folks will come to appreciate the city arms as an attractive and dignified symbol of civic identity and pride, and gradually relegate the current flag for less formal purposes.

 

Just curious - what are the arms of the relevant Episcopal diocese?  Or other religious or civic groups?  Might be useful to include their arms in the project, as other examples of more formal and dignified armorial banners, whether or not they resemble the city arms.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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28 January 2015 08:14
 

Diocese of Vermont, equally fine if not more so.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/Diocese_of_Vermont_shield.png

 

I believe this is also a La Rose design.  It has the look of one.

 
Mark Olivo
 
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Mark Olivo
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28 January 2015 10:05
 

I for one, will not give a pass for that flag based on their ‘sincerity’.  It is an embarrassment, chosen as a deliberate departure from the city’s traditional arms.  Hard to imagine they’d give a fig about a banner of arms.

It looks like something created by the Simpsons or the Onion, to mock Vermont hippies.

 
Brad Smith
 
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Brad Smith
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28 January 2015 11:51
 

Joseph McMillan;103431 wrote:

And Mark is right, the flag is a travesty, and a sham, and a mockery.


Dare one say "a travishamockery"?

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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28 January 2015 12:21
 

Mark - personally I don’t disagree with your reaction to the current flag; but in my experience, there’s a difference between "not giving a pass"  and trashing in public.  If our goal is to promote better heraldry (or almost anything else in life) our approach should model positive good behavior, not road rage.  Someone cared enough to design and use the current flag, however much we may not care for it; and it must have filled some perceived civic purpose or it would have died on the vine.

Unless we can inspire or convert folks like that to something better, rather than focusing on the negatives in their current design, all we are likely to inspire is resentment and opposition - not only to our preferred option, but also to the whole notion of traditional heraldry as a better way to focus and express civic identity and pride.  (If others in that community reach the same conclusions we have, great; but better that we outsiders not go in swinging.)

 

The Episcopalian arms Joe shared are very nice!

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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28 January 2015 14:57
 

Brad Smith;103436 wrote:

Dare one say "a travishamockery"?


One might.

 
Jeremy Keith Hammond
 
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Jeremy Keith Hammond
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28 January 2015 19:18
 

I think Michael makes some fair points. Our forum is the public face of the organization. Perhaps we can keep the bashing of designs restricted to Facebook. (To be fair, I’m guilty of the occasional harsh criticism.)

Keep in mind as well that the flag was designed by 8th graders so that the city had something to exchange with a sister city.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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29 January 2015 01:55
 

I’m somehow reminded of the saying,

"What happens in Vegas, STAYS on Facebook…"

Wasn’t aware that the flag in question was designed by 8th graders.  Particularly important not to play the Grinch with posterity.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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29 January 2015 08:47
 

I don’t know that we necessarily have to pull punches on the forum.  People who aren’t interested in heraldry aren’t likely to come here.  It’s more a matter of how someone approaches the city and its people proposing a change, if anyone wanted to do so.

Based on NAVA’s lack of success with improving U.S. state and municipal flags, I’d be reluctant for the AHS to go down the parallel track of haranguing people for bad heraldry.

 
Hugh Brady
 
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Hugh Brady
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09 February 2015 20:36
 

Having lived in (and around) Burlington for a few years, I can say that the city’s arms on City Hall and the RC Diocese arms are LaRose designs. I don’t believe the arms posted by Joe are. The flag was designed by designed by the students at Edmunds Middle School, which is just up Main Street from City Hall. I flew one from my house when I lived there; when I first put it up, all the neighbors wanted to know what flag it was! The flag also flies at the airport. Those are the only two locations I knew of. Seriously.

The City uses a graphic logo first used on its wayfinding system in the late 1980s/early 1990s commissioned by a good friend of mine who was the traffic engineer, which you can see on this page. As many have noted, it’s an interesting image because the mountains in the logo are the Adirondacks over on the New York side, which Burlington faces from its place on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.