The year 2020 changed a lot of things in everyday life, including how the Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (DHPA) distributes posters commemorating Archaeology Month in September and Preservation Month in May.
While we still created a poster to Preservation Month, this year the DHPA is sending it out as an e-poster. So please take a look, follow our Facebook page in May to learn about the buildings depicted in the plein air paintings, and forward it along to friends.
Besides the pandemic, 2020 marked a milestone for the DHPA. The DHPA celebrated its 50th anniversary and listed Indiana’s 2000th entry in the National Register of Historic Places. One of the DHPA’s federally-mandated duties as the state historic preservation office for Indiana is listing properties in the Register, which is the national list of sites that are important to our state’s history.
To commemorate these achievements, the DHPA partnered with the Indiana Plein Air Painting Association (IPAPA) to create a series of paintings depicting a handful of Indiana’s listed sites. The paintings were completed in the first half of 2020 (so too late to feature for Preservation Month last year) and have been on exhibit around the state since then.
The DHPA chose a handful of the paintings for the 2021 Historic Preservation Month poster and will be featuring 30 of the art works during the rest of May on Facebook. If you would like to see all of them in person, they are on exhibit through September. Locations are: Nashville (May), Richmond (June-July), and Elkhart (August-September).
For more information on the exhibits or if you would like to purchase an exhibit catalog, go to www.inpainters.org.
Thanks so much for supporting historic preservation in Indiana.
Amy Borland
Amy L. Johnson
State Archaeologist, Archaeology Outreach Coordinator,
And Team Leader for Archaeology
Indiana Department of Natural Resources
Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology
317-232-6982
www.dnr.IN.gov