Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village, 4595 Cochran Street, Simi Valley, Ventura County, CA

Entry 2013 HALS Challenge: Documenting the Cultural Landscapes of Women

Significance: From the National Register nomination: It is a folk art environment of structures, sculptures, gardens, and walkways all made form various found objects, notably 16 house-like structures with walls made of bottles placed in mortar. With no formal training in art or architecture, Prisbrey began Bottle Village construction at age 60, proceeding to create it by herself, mostly from materials gleaned through daily visits to the dump. The national history, Bottle Village is important because it is a significant folk art environment created by an American folk artist of high acclaim and also because it is a rarity created out of actual mass consumer throwaway from everyday lives of Americans in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This environment has achieved serious acclaim by scholars, critics, curators and students as an important American folk art environment and as perhaps the prime folk art environment in art history created by a female self-taught artist.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N22

Survey number: HALS CA-42

Building/structure dates: ca. 1956- ca. 1965 Initial Construction

Building/structure dates: ca. 1965- ca. 1982 Subsequent Work

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 96001076

art artists yard ornaments villages road and roadside elements women gardens garden walls sculpture california grandma prisbrey grandma prisbrey bottle village bottle village cochran cochran street simi simi valley ventura county cate bainton historic american landscapes survey tressa prisbrey stephen d schafer christopher m stevens photo grandma prisbrey bottle village ultra high resolution high resolution ornament library of congress national register of historic places

1965

Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html