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The Local Organizing Committee of SPNHC 2012 has opened registration for its upcoming meeting Emerging Technology and Innovation in Natural History Collections Management.  The meeting will be held at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut  (June 11-16).  Early bird registration rates are available through April 6th. Joint AIC-SPNHC programming – …

ECPN MEETING MINUTES Monday, December 19, 2011 Conference Call Attendees: Abby Aldrich Amy Brost (Communications) Molly Gleeson (Chair) Amber Kerr-Allison (outgoing Professional Education and Training) Gwen Manthey Rachael Perkins-Arenstein Carrie Roberts (co-Professional Education and Training) Megan Salazar-Walsh (co-Outreach Coordinator) Ruth Seyler (AIC Staff) Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair) Emily Williams (ETC) Ryan Winfield (Staff Liaison)   …

I must admit that I am always relieved when I finish up a project and get it back safely to a (hopefully) pleased owner.  But maybe that is because I have never worked on anything like a Leonardo!  Working on pieces of immense value and great cultural significance adds another dimension to a conservation treatment. …

On January 21, 2012, the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD) opened an exhibit, “Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes”, designed in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University Brain Science Institute to explore the implications of tactile perception for the enjoyment of sculpture. The exhibit provides museum visitors the rare …

I know there’s days when I find myself wishing for a Wayback Machine so that I could travel back into the past, and then there are days when I’m thinking about what might happen five or ten years from now. Do you ever think about how different our jobs will be 20 years from now? …

In 1921, William Arthur Shelton, a professor in Emory’s Candler School of Theology, purchased an Old Kingdom mummy from the sacred site of Abydos in Middle Egypt. In storage at the Carlos Museum for over 90 years, its linen in tatters, its head in a separate box, and many bones missing or exposed, the mummy …

I would like to thank the OSG members who have come forward to volunteer their help during our January Wiki Edit-a-Thon. The event will come to an end on Wednesday next week, but I hope that this is just the beginning of a revived interest in the wiki. The articles that you see right now on the Objects Wiki …

I was fortunate to receive an FAIC grant to attend the fall workshop, “Removal of Pressure-sensitive Tapes and Tape Stains from Photographs.” That grant made my attendance possible. As a conservator in private practice who graduated from the Cooperstown Art Conservation program in the early 1980’s, I have certainly attended a few workshops and professional …

The founding members of the Collections Care Network (CCN) are excited to announce the network has been approved by the AIC Board of Directors. Now we are beginning the work to create a voice for collections care, preventive conservation, and all of its practitioners. On January 31, founding committee members will meet to begin planning …

When I was in London for the 2011 Pest Odyssey conference I picked up one of those free tabloid newspapers while riding on the Tube.  I was pleasantly surprised to find an article on conservation on page 3!  Apparently… Charles Dickens clearly loved a bit of art and craft in his spare time.  The discover …

Call them art detectives. Using scientific methods, the researchers at the Fogg Museum’s Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies gather evidence and help solve art mysteries: Who painted this? What materials did the artist use? One such mystery involves the self-taught American artist James Castle. Profoundly deaf, perhaps autistic, he never learned to speak …

This article by Eve M. Kahn was published on August 5, 2011 in the Antiques column in the Weekend Arts & Leisure section of  the New York Times that highlighted several scrapbook conservation projects funded by government grant agencies such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Save America’s Treasures.  Read the full article …

The Brooking competition recognizes innovative accomplishments that produce new ways of thinking and seeing within the museum field. Papers can describe examples of creativity in any aspect of museum operations, from collections, programs and exhibitions to finance, marketing and administration—or anything in between. If you can imagine your peers saying, “What a great idea—I’ve never heard of …

When I entered the field of conservation I hoped that the position would afford me the opportunity to travel for work.  My travel,  moving a couple of cities and the occasional courier or conference trip, has been gratifying but rather mundane.  Thus, I have marveled at the conservators who really seem to seize the amazing …

In this 23 minute video ( http://moppenheim.com/#Jill_Whitten ) for m/Oppenheim’s Insight,  Jill Whitten discusses changes in the art conservation field over the last two decades based on her experience as conservator of paintings in various museums and in private practice.