Reflections on the Past Year in VAF

VAF Initiatives 2013-2014 (adapted from annual banquet comments)

by Chris Wilson, VAF President

Cocktails on the schooner Meerwald at the end of the Bayshore tour

Each of us who were able to attend the wonderful annual conference in New Jersey has our favorite tour stops and memories. My own favorite was the reception and dinner on the Thursday Bayshore tour at the Bivalve wharves and oyster shipping sheds. What a great historic setting with the evening light shimmering off the water and the easy conviviality among VAF members and the dedicated volunteers there, who have preserved the wharves and the oyster schooner Meerwald. Our thanks for many such memories goes to all of the members of the conference organizing committee, especially to its chair, Janet Foster, and to our co-sponsors at The Richard Stockton College.

 
The papers committee--Chair, Jennifer Cousineau, Jeff Klee and Andrew Sandoval-Strauz--also played a pivotal role in shaping the intellectual content of the conference. The VAF continued its support for young scholars by awarding Ambassador Fellowships to support the attendance of student delegations from the SUNY Cooperstown Grad Center, the University of Delaware, George Washington University and McGill University. In addition, Simpson Fellowship supported the conference expenses of 13 students and young professionals who delivered papers.

 
In recent years, the Second Vice President has taken the lead in fostering upcoming conferences. Over the past six years, Second VP Marcia Miller has worked with local organizers on a series of memorable conferences at Washington DC; Falmouth, Jamaica; Madison, Wisconsin; Gaspe, Quebec; in south Jersey, and on next year’s Chicago conference. In-coming Second VP, Jeff Klee, will continue this important conference development work.

 
Our distinctive, tour-heavy conferences are central to our organizational identity, but the VAF is also increasingly known for the engaging writing in our journal, Buildings & Landscapes, with its geographic breadth and intellectual depth. The journal’s growing reputation is due to clear-sighted, hard work of co-editors, Marta Gutman and Cindy Faulk, and book review editor Andrew Sandoval-Strauz.

 
Of course, our on-line profile has also grown in recent years, notably in our graphically appealing, content rich website. Susan Garfinkel--who has arguably contributed more than anyone to the maturation of the website--stepped down after 6 and one-half years as co-editor this past November. Over the past year, David Bergstone has been indispensible not only in his role as the continuing co-editor of the website, but also for his work with the transition to our new Wild Apricot platform. During this past year, the education committee under its chair, Sarah Fayen Scarlett, has also revitalized the online syllabi section of the website, and has begun to develop PowerPoint presentations on various subjects for use by educators.

 
The VAF has seen a gradual decline of membership over the past couple years, and the board has responded by establishing a Membership Committee to develop a strategy for rebuilding membership. One key step has been to establish a Wild Apricot account, which allows us to handle memberships on-line, to send renewal notices electronically, to identify and recruit interested non-members, to distribute our newsletter, to handle conference registration on-line, and much more. Membership committee chair Wendy Ward, along with David Bergstone, Christine Henry, and Gabrielle Lanier took the lead in this transition to Wild Apricot.

 
The Vernacular Architecture News (VAN)--as you know from reading this issue on your computer--has gone digital under its new editor, Christine Henry. She will continue to distribute quarterly issues of VAN through email, along with such occasional special issues as this past and up-coming conference issue, and, early in the spring, a directory to summer field schools.

Out-going board members--Michael Chiarappa, Jennifer Cousineau, Elaine Jackson-Retondo, Virginia Price, and Aaron Wunsch—each made numerous contributions on various projects during their three-year terms. First Vice President, Clair Dempsey, served as an indispensible advisor and sounding board for me this past year, while also chairing the nominating committee, and preparing new orientation materials for the incoming board members.

 
Don Linebaugh completed his second five-year term as treasurer at the New Jersey conference. In addition to the substantial work of tracking our finances and managing our investments, Don has provided continuity through five VAF presidents. I owe him a particular debt of thanks for his steadying advice as I got my feet under me as president. Lisa Davidson, of the Historic American Buildings Survey, who played a leading role in the organization of the Washington D.C. conference in 2010, has taken over as VAF Treasurer.

The Vernacular Architecture Forum is an all-volunteer organization, without any paid staff. We depend on the generous contributions of time and intelligence from members, board members and officers such as those I have mentioned.  Thank you to everyone for your contributions, which make this a vibrant and dynamic organization.

President's Column: Letter from Chris Wilson

Parc National Forillon, Gaspé, VAF Annual Conference,

 June, 2013. Chris Wilson.

For those of you who were not at the Gaspé closing banquet, let me echo the hearty thanks that those gathered extended to Susan Kern for the dedication and hard work that she contributed over the past two years as VAF President.

After I finished graduate school in 1981, I was fortunate to be able to find a mentor in the cultural landscape writer, J. B. Jackson, who lived about an hour away from me near Santa Fe. I visited him every month or so, usually Sunday afternoon for conversation, coffee and camembert on crackers. After this had been going on for a few years, as I was leaving one day, Jackson handed me a check for $500, and said, “Here, why don’t you go to a conference?”

 I chose the next Vernacular Architecture Forum conference the next May of 1988 at Staunton , Virginia--a memorable conference organized by Pam Simpson and Ann McCleary. I met such important later advisors for my research as Catherine Bishir, Richard Longstreth and Dell Upton at that first conference. The combination of opening and closing receptions with live local music, two days of field trips with meals by the likes of the Daughters of Rebecca, and the substantive field guide, with a single day of papers seemed perfect to me.

 I was warmly welcomed by the old hands, especially when I mentioned that I was from New Mexico. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hold a conference in Santa Fe?” they all asked. Boyd Pratt--my research partner since grad school days, who was also at the conference--and I began thinking of ourselves as the pretty girl in high school, unsure if people liked us for our brains or just for the stunning good looks of the New Mexico landscape. We will always remember the hard work and the enduring pleasure of having hosted the VAF conference in Santa Fe, in 1991.

I have preached the importance of attending conferences for comradery and intellectual growth to my students ever since. Much in the spirit of Jackson’s gesture of encouragement years ago, the recently established Pamela H. Simpson Presenter’s Fellowships supports the expenses of students and recent graduates who attend the conference to present papers. Twelve who have had their papers accepted for the Down Jersey conference will receive Simpson Fellowships this year.

I have attended fifteen of the past twenty-six VAF conferences--and served stints on the board and as Second VP--but had not been as active in the past ten years as a I was in my first fifteen. I welcome this opportunity to serve an organization that has been indispensible to my intellectual development, and has given me so many long-term friends. Below are three links by way of further self-introduction.

I also look forward to seeing you all at what promises to be one of those great VAF conferences, next May in South New Jersey.

Regards, Chris Wilson

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Wilson Bio: http://saap.unm.edu/about/sap-people/faculty-profiles/chris-wilson.html

Plazas of New Mexico book website: http://plazasofnewmexico.com

Interview: http://newmexicomercury.com/blog/comments/insight_new_mexico_chris_wilson