Daughters of Utah Pioneers' Annual National Director's Meeting Features Scott M. Haskins It was a wonderful and unusual opportunity for Scott M. Haskins, world renowned painting and art conservator, to be the featured speaker to 450 attendees at the main session of the Annual Director's Meeting of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in Ogden, Utah on June 9, 2012. What made it so wonderful is the connection Mr. Haskins feels with the DUP having been working on the paintings in the collection of the International Museum of Pioneers in Salt Lake City since 1980. The museum collection has many important paintings many of which are from the Nauvoo Period (1840’s) and were brought across the plains by the pioneers. Many were made by the new immigrants in their new land. In all, it's a wonderful collection of Early Americana. Besides there being wonderful works of art, the documentary value of the Expansionist Period of the United States is priceless. Of course, the museum collection is not made up of only paintings. In
fact the thrill of seeing this museum is that of entering a time capsule of life from the 1800’s as you are surrounded by all that they used with the walls lined of photos with facial expressions from those days. Therefore, the slides, photos and stories that Mr. Haskins showed the group and told were not High Society – high brow narratives for art world conoscenti. The exact opposite! The slides were of DUP paintings and the stories brought laughter and taught home spun lessons of preserving family memorabilia, heirlooms, collectibles… and stuff! Scott M. Haskins is also the author of the best sold home preservation manual entitled, "How to Save Your Stuff from a Disaster." Once again, this down home connection has endeared him and helped him to target his message to the attendees of the DUP conference, assisting them with tips and stories on how to protect and save the collectibles, and heirlooms in their care. Mr. Haskins spoke for about 25 minutes and no one was seen to have fallen asleep… which is quite something give the median age of this group! After the main session of the conference, about 50 lucky workshop attendees had the fun and educational experience of sitting together with Mr. Haskins as they looked at examples, saw more slides, asked all the questions they could think of and had a fun sweepstakes drawing for over $2,000.00 in prizes including free video recorders for taping the contents of homes for insurance purposes (that's a tip for you!) and a year’s membership to Ancestry.com. The workshop ended with a very useful panel discussion to bring together all the preservation experts at the conference for discussion and questions. Mr. Haskins sold his book, "How to Save Your Stuff from a Disaster", at the conference along with an instructional CD and an anchoring product (in case of hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados and grandkids) called Museum Wax. From the profits of the items sold, Mr. Haskins' company Save Your Stuff LLC donated $326 to the DUP. As an ongoing effort to raise money for the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and to educate its members on preservation techniques for the home and small museum, an educational website showing art restoration painting conservation projects has been set up at (click on this name to go to the websiteblog) Pioneer Art Restoration. This interesting and entertaining website is updated often with new stories, videos and photos. You can sign up for automatic updates in the side bar without being put on a mailing list.
Mr. Haskins was very pleased with the 2012 DUP National Meeting event for its directors and DUP President, Maureen Smith expressed high praises for the message of the speech and the workshop. The membership seemed entertained and was hungry for the education on preserving important treasured items at home and in the local chapter DUP Museums. If you would like to see Mr. Scott Haskins speak at your upcoming event, put on a workshop, contribute to your newsletter or website with tips, stories, video and photos call Fine Art Conservation Laboratories and discuss your needs with Mr. Haskins' Assistant Francesca Ruggeri at 805 564 3438 or email at francescafacl@yahoo.com To read a recent newspaper article about Scott M. Haskins and his company, Fine Art Conservation Laboratories, click on this link: FACL Newspaper Article (leave a comment if you like the article!) If you would like to see a short video tour of Mr. Haskins art conservation laboratory click on this link: Lab Tour (leave a comment after your tour!) Once again, if you would like to see the website set up for Early Americana art, Pioneer Art click here: Pioneer Art Restoration Art appraisal questions? Call Richard Holgate at 805 895 5121 or click here for the website: Appraisals of fine art, antiques and more See various YouTube videos on practical lessons on protecting your collectibles and other treasured items at this link (click on this name) Preservation Coach. (leave a comments on the videos you like!)