AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, Ben Hartman was laid off from his job as a molder at the Springfield Machine Tool Company’s Foundry in Springfield, Ohio. Not content with his newly-sedentary lifestyle, he began constructing a cement fishing pond in his backyard. By the time the project was finished, Ben was hooked. For the remaining twelve years of his life, he constructed hundreds of structures and figurines for the garden, following the themes of history, religion, patriotism, and popular culture. Ben died from silicosis, an occupational lung disease, in 1944. For the next fifty-three years, his wife Mary took on the monumental task of maintaining the garden, preserving Ben’s intriguing structures, and even adding small details where she saw fit. Mary passed away in 1997 at the age of 91. In 2008, the Wisconsin-based Kohler Foundation, known for its involvement in the preservation of significant visionary art environments across the country, purchased and began restoring Ben and Mary’s unusual masterpiece. Local citizens formed the Friends of the Hartman Rock Garden in 2009 to continue the preservation and interpretation of this remarkable site. Since its creation in 1932, Ben Hartman’s Historical Rock Garden has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world.




Ben drew inspiration from family and friends, as well as from magazines, books, radio, and film. This was a deeply personal space, meant to promote his ideals and values to the larger world. He constructed every object by hand between 1932 and 1944 using concrete, metal, glass, stone, wood, and whatever else he could find. The objects he created ran the gamut from historic landmark replicas like Lincoln's cottage, to more abstract sculptures at the end of his life like the Tree of Life. He also included replicas of well known local landmarks such as a sporting goods store owned by a local family who's descendants still visit the garden to this day. 




Moving forward, there is a recognized importance for focusing on continuing community engagement as well as regular maintenance and conservation design.  Making sure that any changes to the garden benefit the visitor and do not take away from the experience. All conservation treatments are heavily documented with materials and methods, and then watched over time for durability and any changes in appearance that might stray from Ben's original designs. This talk will focus primarily on that balance, and what the caretaking of Ben's legacy will look like.