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Narrator: On the Garfield table near Stapleton, Nebraska,
behind an unpainted farmhouse stood a shed
made of recycled wood.
Narrator: Within this simple shed was another world.
A world made from an array of everyday cast-off materials.
In the 1950s, Emery Blagdon began creating a unique
environment within this shed to help people
attain better health.
Connie Paxton: His mother died at a very young age
from stomach cancer.
And then, his dad died as a result of
surgery for lung cancer.
Those things really did affect him deeply and he wanted people
to feel better and in his own way,
he really felt that the energy from the healing machine could
help take away those aches and pains, you know,
just to help you feel better.
He worked on the machine right up until the last three or four
months of his life and then the shop was locked
and he didn't go back out again.
Narrator: In 1986, two North Platte natives,
Dan Dryden and Don Christensen, purchased the contents of the
shed at Emery's estate auction.
For 18 years, Dryden and Christensen promoted
and cared for Emery's work.
Then in 2004, they sold the bulk of the collection to
the Koehler Foundation in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Terri Yoho: The Foundation was established in 1940 and the
emphasis has always been the arts and education.
Our expertise is in the area of preservation
and conservation treatment.
There are general truths that I think are prevalent with all
self-taught artists and that is they weren't trained in what
material to use, so they often present us
with very difficult materials.
Masking tape is a supreme challenge.
The artist, of course, is learning as he's creating and
that grows and develops into something bigger
and greater and better.
Conservation is often a series of compromises and decisions
that need to be made.
Do you treat completely?
Do you surface clean?
And what our decision was to surface clean,
to repair only as needed.
That was an easy decision because to leave the shed patina
on would be to expose the-particularly the metal
pieces to potential corrosion and it in no
way enhanced the art.
That was plain old Nebraska dirt.
To describe Emery Blagdon's art I think is to talk about how
many pieces there are and how difficult it is to take an
environment, to dismember it, understand it, count it,
photograph it, document it, and it's two
completely different experiences.
There's an intricacy, a delicacy,
and then there's the largeness of it.
When Emery Blagdon's work was being conserved and it was
uncrated and spread about, we had to call
in a number of experts.
If you notice on some of the chandeliers, for instance,
there were little glass vials and Emery would go to Dan Dryden
at the pharmacy and purchase elements.
He would take elements from his pantry.
Because this was going to be displayed in a public forum,
all those materials needed to have chemical analysis because
we had to make sure there was nothing toxic.
Narrator: It took up to two years of using modern museum
conservation techniques to clean, analyze,
and document every piece of Emery's masterpiece.
Terri: Not all self-taught art is created equal.
Some is craft.
Some is hobby.
And some, the end result is truly art and it's creativity at
a higher level.
But that said, it's all important.
Some people might look at Emery Blagdon's
healing machine and say, it's junk.
Because he repurposed found items and created them with his
own inner spirit into something artistic and special.
Might be junk to you, but it's somebody else's treasure and um
when it comes to the art world, I think people view it as good
quality inspirational art.
Narrator: Emery Blagdon is known by art collectors and museum
visitors as a man with boundless, visionary creativity.
An artist of great significance.
Blagdon's healing machine is considered great American art.
Terri: Never underestimate what can come from a tiny tiny little
town in Nebraska in the middle of a wheat or cornfield because
there's inspiration and creativity at all corners and
someone who does work like Emery Blagdon creates a Nebraska
treasure that's respected nationally and internationally
and it's really pretty special.