My summer started out at the Poplar Forest Field School in Lynchburg Virgina. For those of you that do not know Poplar Forest was the personal retreat of Thomas Jefferson, who also designed the structure. It is a fascinating place to visit and even more interesting to study with Travis McDonald the Director of Architectural Restoration who teaches the field school! The field school is the perfect mix of lecture, field work, and site visits and in two short weeks participants take away an enormous amount of knowledge. I was exposed to and able to practice architectural investigation and documentation of a building, restoration carpentry, paint analysis, and mortar analysis. As a group we visited Monticello, University of Virgina, Montpelier, and several other wonderful places. At each sight we met with the directors of each site and were given a "behind the scenes" tours focused on the preservation/ restoration/ reconstruction of these sites. It was a truly once in a life time opportunity and I will not quickly forget the information I learned.
The rest of the summer I will be working with Archway on a preservation plan for the old Mount Airy School in Habersham County. Archway is "a University of Georgia outreach platform...to deliver a full range of higher education resources to address economic and community development." (www.archwaypartnership.uga.edu/) The school was build in 1921 and was in use as a school till 1955.... that is all I have so far, I have a lot of work to do! I will try to send updates about the plans progress!
I will also be working with FindIt! It is a state wide historic resources survey that documents historic resources throughout the state to aid in their preservation. More on the this when details are ironed out!
-Elizabeth
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