The couple who owned the property where Hill lived put it up for sale immediately after he left, though they were skeptical that any buyer would want it with the huge sculpture garden. Siporski could have purchased the land himself and sold the pieces to collectors for thousands of dollars, he says. Over the past 20 years, folk and outsider art has become big business. But the idea of auctioning off Hill's vision turned Siporski's stomach. He met with the owners to discuss the aesthetic value of the site and begged for some time to explore how to preserve the sculptures. The couple agreed.

To drum up support, Siporski invited faculty from art departments at Nicholls and Louisiana State University to come take a look. Greg Elliott, head of the sculpture program at LSU, said, "I've spent most of my life looking for folk art and this is really a remarkable site." Still, neither of the colleges could fund a full conservation effort.

Siporski remembered the Kohler Foundation in Wisconsin, which had restored another "art environment" along the Mississippi River, and, on a whim, Siporski called. Executive director Terri Yoho took an immediate interest and some foundation members flew to Louisiana to talk with the property owners.

At the same time, Siporski approached the president of Nicholls, Donald Ayo. "The president is an art lover and within 10 minutes agreed to have Nicholls take over maintenance of the site once Kohler finished restoration," says Siporski. On May 2, the foundation purchased the property. The foundation has participated in the preservation of seven self-taught artists' environments in Wisconsin, but this is its first project outside the state. No one involved will make any money from Hill's art.

Next year, construction of a visitor and education center will start across the road from the site. Siporski dreams of a day when people will be able to stay at the center, take time to really look at what Hill made from every angle and create their own sculptures in response. These would become part of a new, ever-growing sculpture garden.

Those working to protect what Hill abandoned find themselves in an uncertain position. After spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars -- they cleaned and sealed all the sculptures, and obtained an Army Corps of Engineers permit to build a bulkhead to protect the art from flooding -- they don't really know how Hill would react to their efforts. Hill took obvious pride in his salvation scenes but also hated publicity. Kohler Foundation project coordinator Michele Gutierrez, who inventoried and mapped the site, worries about a story a neighbor told her: Supposedly, Hill burned a houseboat he'd built when a picture of it appeared in a magazine. But Neil believes Hill will stay away: "He left and it's out of his mind."

Gutierrez never met Hill, but she carefully went through the personal effects he left behind. "This [art] was created by a person in great strife," Gutierrez says, "but Kenny ... deserves respect and empathy. The art says it all -- the poignant and the solitary, the grand and the low, the humorous, the fearful, the hoped for. It is the story of life: Kenny's, mine, everyone's."

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