Save Outdoor Sculpture
Kansas outdoor sculptures help bring to life the rich history of our state. This highly visible artform dominates our landscape and creates a healthy, vibrant sense of community. It can be enjoyed by everyone every day. Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS) was formed to help save artwork across the nation from neglect, vandalism, and pollution. SOS History in KansasMore than two hundred organizations and thousands of volunteers have inventoried historic and contemporary outdoor sculpture across the nation for SOS! The program is jointly sponsored by the National Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property. 
The Kansas Historical Society became involved in SOS! in 1993. Betty Lu Duncan, the state coordinator and a Society board member, worked with other Society representatives and solicited support statewide. Newspaper editors helped increase awareness, and the state library and the League of Municipalities assisted in the search for volunteers. Randy Thies of the Society's Cultural Resources Division also has had a major role in the project. Volunteer training sessions were held in three different locations to prepare the 96 Kansas volunteers to locate sculptures and learn more about their history and condition. The volunteers, many of whom were Society board members, identified 425 sculptures in the 102-county area. Wichita Beauty, Inc., identified some three hundred in the remaining three-county area. SOS! presented a preservation workshop in Topeka for people from across the state. The workshop gave participants the opportunity to gain hands-on experience from waxing bronzes to spray washing the Society's white buffalo sculpture. 
The Davis Memorial in Hiawatha, a site on the National Register of Historic Places, is the first outdoor sculpture to receive a grant from the Heritage Trust Fund. Bethany College in Lindsborg received two thousand from an SOS! Matching restoration grant through the efforts of Duncan and Eldon Swenson. The major goals of the project are to promote preservation and maintenance, and increase public awareness of our nation's sculptures and monuments. Outcomes are one of the most important aspects of the program. A traveling resource trunk on sculptures will be completed for Kansas schoolchildren, a series of articles, and brochures also have been done. The SOS! Kansas team presented a summary of the state's accomplishments in November 1996 at an SOS! conference in Washington, D.C. The display included Kansas statistics and many examples of the nearly seven hundred Kansas sculptures and monuments identified by the project. Kansas conducted one of the most successful SOS! efforts in the nation. 
SIRIS Smithsonian Institution Research Information SystemLook online for the SOS! entries from Kansas and around the nation at http://www.siris.si.edu/ To search for sculptures of American presidents, perform a |
|
 |
