Dinsmoor included in National Trust Artists Register

Through the Historic Artists' Home and Studios group, Dinsmoor finally entering into American Artist canon

The Garden of Eden was recently inducted into the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists’ Home and Studios group, and with that inclusion, Dinsmoor is now being included in narratives recognizing influential American artists working at the turn of the last century. His profile is among 80 fellow artists on the HAHS website.

While fellow stewards of Artists-built environments know the importance of our sites and our artists as reflections of American culture, it’s been rewarding to see the molasses crawl of official ‘art’dom shift towards inclusion of our sites. From Leonard Knight’s haybale, adobe, paint and desert detritus construction Salvation Mountain in Niland California, to Isaiah Zagar’s mosaiced immersive wonderlands throughout Philadelphia, the sites fall in a series of in-betweens: art, but not able to be contained in a museum. Tourist sites, but not aligned with commercialism. Historic homes, but with preservation needs that depend on a careful navigation of preserving the artists’ hand over replacement of materials. For stewards of the sites, site neighbors, and artist-built environment enthusiasts, these places are beacons of individualism and wonder, creating hitches in the systems normally applied to public art.

Check out Dinsmoor’s profile in the new HAHS Artist Listing here, as well as sister artist-built environment makers and their sites: Noah Purifoy (Joshua Tree CA Desert Museum), Eddie Owens Martin (Buena Vista GA Pasaquan), John Martin Milkovisch (Houston TX Beer Can House), Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey (Simi Valley CA Bottle Village), Bernard Langlais (Cushing ME Art Preserve), L.V. Hull (Kosciusko MS Home and Studio), Prophet Isaiah Robertson (Niagara Falls NY Second Coming House), Laura Pope Forester (Ochlocknee GA Pope’s Museum), and George Phar Legler (Tuscon AZ Valley of the Moon).