SOSer Still Going Strong in Kansas
by Pamela D. Kingsbury
Dora Timmerman has been an SOS! Coordinator from the project's inception, attending SOS! symposia, workshops, and conferences as well as working with the team that surveyed Wichita's outdoor sculpture. She has also organized conservation workshops and training courses, bringing state and national experts to lecture and give demonstrations on the care and conservation of outdoor sculpture. Projects include:
Reformation Lutheran Church
An outdoor cement relief sculpture, Hands of God and Man by Bernard Frazier, originally on the exterior of the church's nave, was scheduled to be razed along with the church. Alerted to the imminent destruction of Frazier's sculpture, Pamela D. Kingsbury and Ms. Timmerman convinced the church to save the sculpture and erect it in a garden adjacent to the new church, with the aid of grant money Ms. Kingsbury obtained.
Wichita State University, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum
Ms. Timmerman has worked closely with Wichita State University's Edwin A. Ulrich Museum to maintain and conserve its 75-piece outdoor sculpture collection. As a result of her work with the Ulrich Museum, the SOS!-listed Russell Marti Conservation Company was hired on an annual basis to maintain the university's sculpture collection.
The Sedgwick County Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Monument
Sedgwick County Civil War
Soldiers and Sailors Monument,
Wichita, Kansas.
Ms. Timmerman organized a large group of citizens, including Sedgwick County and Wichita city employees, to form a board to work with the county to conserve this monument. Through grant applications written by Ms. Kingsbury and fund-raisers initiated by Ms. Timmerman and other members of the board, $250,000 was raised. The board is now working with Sedgwick County to establish a maintenance program. The first three-year maintenance program, undertaken by Russell Marti Conservation Company, will begin in October.
Lessons Learned
These experiences have shown that there are no secrets for fund-raising. The most important ingredient is the work of art itself and its significance to the community. If you understand the sculpture and can communicate its importance to its owner, you can most likely raise the funds to conserve it.
Convincing local government to conserve the sculpture is far easier than convincing them that maintenance must be undertaken in perpetuity. Ideally, each public sculpture should be endowed for regular care, but the challenge is what to do with older sculptures that have no endowment and require high levels of care.
The Sedgwick County Civil War Monument project showed that it is imperative to require that funding for conservation of the sculpture include a maintenance endowment.
Education plays a major part in the proper care of public sculpture. All too often, municipalities think they can send a janitor to clean the sculpture with acid, vacuums, or high-powered machines that do irreversible damage to the sculpture. For the Sedgwick County monument project, the most effective means of educating the public and local government were local press and television stations. Interest groups such as Civil War groups and the local Air Force base were also invaluable.
Ms. Timmerman continues to work with the Wichita Public Schools each year, as well as with Wichita State University, to educate and preserve the community's sculptures for future generations.