$15,000 in conservation awards presented to Virginia museums

The Virginia Association of Museums awarded four conservation awards at a legislative reception at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond.

A highlight of Virginia Museums Advocacy Day, the special event honored the two museums receiving the most votes in the Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts competition and the two museums receiving special recognition from the program’s selection panel. In attendance were members of Virginia’s General Assembly as well as staff, volunteers and board members of museums from across the Commonwealth.

Following a ten-day, crowd-sourced voting competition featuring ten nominated artifacts from across Virginia, the Office of Historic Alexandria’s Friendship Firehouse Museum (Alexandria, VA) won the People’s Choice Award of $4,000 for the most votes and to conserve the “1858 Prettyman Hose Carriage”. Close behind was the Virginia Living Museum (Newport News, VA) receiving a $3,000 award for the conservation of the “Mastodon Fossils Collection”.

Additional awards of $2,000 each were presented by the independent selection panel of conservators to The Fairfield Foundation(Gloucester, VA) for “Images of African American Life in Mid-20th Century Gloucester County: Photos and Mementos from the Freedom B. Goode Collection” and Red Hill-Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation(Campbell County, VA) for their ” 1823 Plat of Red Hill” due to the significance of the items and the substantial expense these organizations will incur in conserving them.

Additional awards of $750 each will also be presented to the six remaining 2018 Honorees of the program to help assess, conserve, or maintain their historic or cultural treasures.

• Amherst County Museum & Historical Society
  Wooden Leg of Edwin Spotswood Ware, SGT, CO I, 19th Virginia InfantryAmherst County, VA – Central Virginia
• James Monroe Museum
  Pair of Umbrellas Presented to James Monroe and the Marquis de Lafayette
  Fredericksburg, VA – Northern Virginia
• Mosby Heritage Area Association
  Maurice Rector WWI Souvenir Pillow
  Fauquier County, VA – Northern Virginia
• Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
  Stump Map by Folk Artist Robert L. Cross
  Winchester, VA – Shenandoah Valley
• Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park
  Rome Daniel’s Accordion
  Big Stone Gap, VA – Heart of Appalachia
• Town of Wytheville Museums/Wythe County Historical Society
  1803 Fraktur, German Style Hand Painted Birth Certificate
  Wythe County, VA – Blue Ridge Highlands

Since 2011, the Virginia Association of Museums has successfully promoted the efforts of museums from throughout the Commonwealth and Washington, DC through its successful Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program. In fact, over 160 organizations to date have benefited from the spotlight it shines on the necessary long-term care and expense that collecting institutions incur to care for historic, artistic and cultural items in their care.

Past participants have gained extensive publicity, new supporters, and access to funding to conserve and preserve these artifacts, but it is in thanks to the generous support of the Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond  and Blandford Rees Foundation that VAM is able to make this new conservation funding possible.

Information about Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program and past participating organizations can be found at  www.vatop10artifacts.org.