Elisabet Ney
...cont'd from page 8
With the exception of the placards on the walls of the third floor, this layout of artifacts has been the basic rule for the Elisabet Ney Museum for many decades. However, the effect of reproducing Ney's life has been greatly augmented by the actions of the museum's present director, Mary Collins Blackmon. When she came to the museum in 1989, the arrangement of objects was much as it is today, with the sculptures all on the ground floor, divided between the two large rooms according to whether they were made by Ney in Germany before her emigration, or in Texas afterwards. However, there were no labels at all in the museum. Blackmon has acted to change this, not only adding labels to individual objects, but also writing and displaying large placards telling stories of Ney's life, from childhood through marriage and emigration to her death in 1907. These displays are distributed throughout the museum so as to take the viewer through her biography in relation to her works and to the building itself. Blackmon has thus reinforced the impression of a sort of isomorphism between NeyÕs life and work and the museum's use of the space itself. Further, since becoming director of the museum, Blackmon has been working to counteract the effects of a 1980 restoration of the building and grounds which in her view went much too far in reducing the wildness of the area, which Ney herself prized highly. With the help of a $250,000 grant from Save America's Treasures in November 2003, Blackmon plans to undo some of the domestication enacted by the earlier restoration while at the same time shoring up the structure itself.
Continued on page 17
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Historic Preservation Committee
The new Historic Preservation Committee is meeting monthly.
This new committee was formed to work specifically on historic preservation
issues and to expand upon the preservation tools we currently have
in place in our neighborhood.
We are working on plans for a windshield survey of the neighbdorhood. This is the first step in the process to obtain designation in the National Register of Historic Places for areas of the neighborhood not already listed. It is not too late to join this committee. Please call me. if you are interested in serving on this committee.
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