Conference on historic preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation will hold its 54th
National Preservation Conference, Saving America's Treasures in the
21st Century, October 31 to November 5 in Los Angeles. A part of
that conference is a session "Conservation Problems at Endangered
American Folk Art Environments!"  The American Institute for
Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) is sponsor, and I
was asked to be the chair of the Friday November 3 event at 5:15
p.m.. I need your input and that input can improve the significance
of this session. I would like information from you or your
organization on problems with conservation and preservation of art
environment sites with which you are familiar.

The session will consist of a short talk with an open Q & A period.
It is our understanding that hundreds of irreplaceable Folk Art
Environments in the US are endangered or have already been
destroyed. We will discuss problems at the National Historic
Landmark Watts Towers environment and other valuable sites created
by untrained artists. So far the talk will cover Simon Rodia's Watts
Towers, Art Beal's Nitt Witt Ridge and Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle
Village in California; Jeff McKissack's The Orange Show in Texas;
and Edward James' Las Pozas in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. We hope you
will visit the NTHP web site and join us that Friday in Los Angeles.

The web pages <URL:http://www.nthpconference.org/>  and
<URL:http://www.nthpconference.org/FocusAreas/> have the overall
program. Two events of interest to me and I hope to you are on
Friday 11/3. The Watts Towers tour and my talk at the site 1765 East
107th Street are to be early am. The 1 1/2 hour session on
endangered art environment sites is 5:15pm that same day at a
downtown hotel. Details are not up on the web site yet. I would
appreciate you sending me a short summary of information you know of
on any and all currently endangered US art environment sites that
may be used in an NTHP press release.

Bud Goldstone, conservation engineer
310-568-1571


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:6
                   Distributed: Friday, July 21, 2000
                        Message Id: cdl-14-6-011
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