The American Academy in Rome (AAR) invites qualified individuals to apply for the position of Academy Director. The individual selected to fill this position will ideally have an established reputation in one of the four humanities disciplines served by the AAR (ancient studies, medieval studies, renaissance and early modern studies, and modern Italian studies) or one of the seven arts disciplines served by the AAR (architecture, landscape architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, literature, music, and visual arts). Broad cultural interests, in particular in those fields of scholarship and the arts served by the AAR, is also desired for this position as well as some degree of fluency in spoken and written Italian.
Reporting to the President in New York, the Director provides intellectual and managerial leadership for all the activities and programs of the Academy in Rome. The Director (together with the Deputy Director in relation to administrative matters), manages a culturally and linguistically diverse staff of approximately 70, with direct reports from the Drue Heinz Librarian, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor, the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, the Deputy Director (joint report to the President/CEO), and the Executive Secretary to the Director.
For more information and to apply, visit aarome.org/jobs.
(Deadline for receipt of materials is October 11, 2013.)
Month: September 2013
How to Make the Most of Your Pre-Program Internship: About the Speakers
ECPN is getting excited for our upcoming webinar, “How to make the most of your pre-program internship,” featuring Emily Williams, Tom Edmondson, LeeAnn Barnes Gordon, and Ayesha Fuentes. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, September 24th from 12-1pm ET. To register for the program, please visit: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/766549178.
Get to know our speakers by reading their bios below and send in any questions about pre-program internships that you’d like them to discuss by commenting on this post or emailing Anisha Gupta at agupta[at]udel[dot]edu.
Emily Williams has an M.A. (1994) in the Conservation of Historic Objects (Archaeology) from the University of Durham in England. During graduate school she did placements at the Museum of London, the British Museum and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum, Turkey. Since 1995, she has worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, where she is the current Conservator of Archaeological Materials. While at Colonial Williamsburg she spent five months working at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Australia. She has worked on excavations in Tunisia and Belgium; served as the site conservator at Tell Banat in Syria, Tell Umm el Marra in Syria, and Kurd Qaburstan in Iraqi Kurdistan; and taught courses on the conservation of waterlogged organics in Egypt.
Emily teaches HISP 208: Introduction to Conservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She has been a Professional Associate of AIC since 2000, and is presently serving as the chair of the Education and Training Committee (ETC).
Tom Edmondson was apprentice-trained in paper conservation theory and techniques at the New England Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), North Andover, MA (now the NEDCC, Andover, MA). Following his training Tom operated a private practice paper conservation studio in Torrington, Connecticut, from April 1978 until August 1987. In 1987 he closed his studio and took the position of Senior Paper Conservator at the Conservation Center, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. Shortly after his arrival he was assigned the position of Chief Conservator of the Conservation Center, from which he resigned in September 1988, when he and Nancy Heugh, relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, to establish their current private practice of Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC. Tom has been a member of AIC since 1977, and was elected a Fellow in 1998. He served as Co-Chair of the PMG Commentaries Committee and served two 2-year terms as Chair of the AIC-Photographic Materials Group. Tom also served 7 years on the AIC Membership Committee, the last three of which he was Chair. Always advocates of mentoring aspiring conservators, Tom and his partner Nancy Heugh are the 2011 recipients of AIC’s prestigious Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award in recognition of their sustained record of excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals.
LeeAnn Barnes Gordon earned her M.S. in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation where she trained as an objects conservator. For the past two years she worked for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as the Sherman Fairchild Fellow in Objects Conservation and was the Conservator for the Athienou Archaeological Project in Cyprus. Prior to graduate school, LeeAnn completed internships in conservation at the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Midwest Art Conservation Center, with a conservator in private practice in Minneapolis, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Athienou Archaeological Project.
Ayesha Fuentes is a current 3rd year student at the UCLA/Getty MA Program in Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials. She has worked pre-program internships with private practice paintings conservators in Seattle and Ipswich, MA as well as the Objects Conservation Lab at the MFA, Boston. She is currently completing part of her third-year internship at the Department of Culture, Thimphu, Bhutan. As a conservation graduate student, she also has worked at museum and governmental labs in Los Angeles, China, and Sri Lanka.
FAIC & the Samuel H. Kress Conservation Fellowships
Since 2011, FAIC has been proudly administering the Samuel H. Kress Conservation Fellowships. These prestigious and competitive awards are given to museums and other conservation facilities so that emerging conservators can have an exceptionally involved experience in the field following graduate work. I was truly delighted when the FAIC review committee scores indicated that Whitten and Proctor Fine Art Conservation would be in the final group of host institutions selected for the 2012-2013 cycle, becoming the first private practice to receive a Fellowship award. Jill Whitten and Rob Proctor have a rich background in teaching, mentoring, research, and publication, and I knew that they could offer a unique and challenging environment for a Kress Fellow. Scroll down to read Jill, Rob, and Gabriel weigh in on the unique perspectives offered by their private practice setting.
Enjoy,
Eric Pourchot
FAIC Institutional Advancement Director
How did you balance your roles as mentors and small business owners?
Jill and Rob: Luckily, teaching comes naturally to us. We have worked with wonderful conservators in the best institutions and we feel that we have a great deal to share. We enjoy the teaching aspects. Being so engaged in the studio is also good for our business and for completing projects.
Learn more about Whitten & Proctor’s Kress Fellowship by reading the rest of the interview…
Two Mellon Postgraduate Fellowships: Paintings and Objects Conservation
The Brooklyn Museum is offering two Andrew W. Mellon Postgraduate Fellowships, one in paintings and one in objects conservation. Each position will be two years with the option of a third, each commencing in September 2014. The Fellow will carry out examinations, research, and treatments, produce and maintain technical documentation, and participate in preservation activities within the Museum. The applicant should be a graduate of a recognized conservation training program.
Each Fellowship includes an annual stipend of $34,000.00, full benefits including health insurance, and $2,500.00 in travel funds. Applications should be sent electronically as pdf files containing: statement of interest, résumé, and three examination and treatment reports with photographic documentation. These documents should be sent to Ken.Moser [at] Brooklynmuseum.org. Please include in subject line: “Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships Conservation.” Confidential supporting letters from three conservation professionals familiar with the applicant’s work should be sent directly to: Ken Moser, Chief Conservation and Vice Director for Collection, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238, or at e-mail above.
All application materials must be received by January 1, 2014. Receipt of application will be confirmed by e-mail.
How to Make the Most of Your Pre-Program Internship: Online Resources from ECPN
Landing a conservation internship or fellowship is tough at any stage of an emerging conservator’s career, but securing a position is only the beginning! Remember, internships are a two-way street and, whether or not your position is paid or unpaid, there are certain steps you can take to make meaningful contributions and enrich your experience (and portfolio!).
To complement ECPN’s upcoming webinar How to Make the Most of Your Pre-program Internship scheduled for Tuesday, September 24 at 12:00PM ET), we’ve collected a number of online resources that we hope interns and internship supervisors alike will find helpful.
If you would like to register for the webinar, please visit: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/766549178
For Interns: Express enthusiasm and gratitude. Network within your institution. Always be professional and behave like an employee. These are just a few words of advice for making the most of your internship that you will find among the resources compiled below.
Checklist for Interns: Getting the Most out of Your Internship, Virginia Association of Museums
Making the Most of Your Internship(s), Quintessential Careers
Key Advice for Young Creatives from Four Nonprofit Professionals, NYCreative Interns
Internship Dos and Don’ts for College Students, Quintessential Careers
10 Tips to Get the Most out of Your Internship, U.S. News
For Supervisors: Thinking of taking on a pre-program intern but not quite sure? Interested in freshening your approach to mentoring emerging conservation professionals? Take a look at these resources and learn a few ways to maintain a mutually rewarding internship program!
Non-profit Interns, National Council for Non-profits
How to Manage Interns, Inc.com
Co-operative Education: 6 Steps to Hire an Intern, University of Arkansas
Finding an Internship: Still searching for a pre-program internship? Don’t forget to regularly review the following sites for paid and unpaid internship opportunities!
Jobs, Internships, and Fellowship Listings, AIC’s Blog Conservator’s Converse
eNews, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Conservation of Cultural Property (ICCROM)
Job and Fellowship Listings, International Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC)
Internship and Job listings, Art Conservation Department, University of Delaware
Career and Job HQ, American Alliance for Museums (AAM)
Listings, Indigo Arts Alliance
Funding for Pre-program Interns: Art supplies are expensive, chemistry courses are not free, and an intern has to eat! Despite the invaluable experience you will receive through your pre-program internships, we all know how difficult it can be if your position is unpaid. Recognizing this challenge faced by many emerging conservators, the Indigo Arts Alliance has established a grant in honor of Denese L. Easerly to support pre-program students and interns as they complete the numerous pre-requisites required for admission to a graduate-level training program. If you are interested in applying for a pre-program training grant or making a contribution to the support the award of such grants, please follow the link below.
The Denese L. Easterly Conservation Training Pre-program Grant, Indigo Arts Alliance
AIC News September issue online
The September 2013 issue of AIC News is now available online and as a pdf. Members should check their email for the information, and please let me know if a message didn’t appear in your in-box. Visit www.conservation-us.org/aicnews to get access to the latest issue — members must log into the site first.
Visitors to the online AIC News site should bookmark the URL, as the conferences call for papers, and workshop listings are updated as they come in, and may contain more in-depth information than is included in the PDF version.
Look for articles by the Health & Safety and Sustainability committees; updates about museum environmental guidelines; a summary of new publications; and much more.
Submissions for the November issue should be sent by October 1st to me or Lisa Goldberg.
Happy reading!
–Bonnie
www.conservation-us.org/contact
Employment in Health and Safety for Conservators
Monona Rossol is one of our field’s greatest spokespersons for conservation lab and artists’ studio health and safety guidelines; she is also a fount of knowledge on changing regulations for use of conservation chemicals and understanding of personal protective procedures and equipment. Please visit her website at www.artscraftstheatersafety.org/bio.html.
She does general safety and OSHA-required training sessions for art and art conservation students/faculty in universities, colleges, public and private museums, conservation laboratories, and more. What will happen when she retires? She has no understudy! Is there someone out there in AIC with a very strong chemistry background and understanding of conservation lab practices and artists’ materials who would be interested in branching out to include safety training and consultation to their skills? Monona promises to help direct such people to sources of technical training and to share her expertise and training materials. Once someone is qualified, she will gleefully recommend them to her clients. In fact, she has repeatedly offered to turn over her small nonprofit to someone qualified so she can do more writing.
I carried out a history interview with Monona in 2003 and have worried ever since about making sure she has protégés with whom she can share and possibly pass on a great body of knowledge and a very busy practice. This is certainly an area of our field with increasing need and certain future employment. If you are interested in exploring this possibility please contact Monona at ACTSNYC [at] cs.com.
–Submitted by Joyce Hill Stoner
ECPN Webinar on September 24: “How to make the most of pre-program internships”
The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) is pleased to announce that our third webinar – “How to make the most of your pre-program internship” – will take place on Tuesday, September 24th from 12:00-1:00 EDT.
The program will feature two speakers with experience supervising pre-program interns, Emily Williams, Conservator of Archaeological Materials, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Thomas Edmondson, Paper & Photograph Conservator, Private Practice; and two speakers with more recent experience as pre-program interns, LeeAnn Gordon, Sherman Fairchild Fellow in Objects Conservation, and Ayesha Fuentes, Conservation Intern, Division for Cultural Properties, Department of Culture, Thimphu, Bhutan.
The webinar will include a moderated discussion and Q&A session, where we will learn about navigating pre-program internships and tips on how to maximize your experience.
Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions before and after the webinar here on the AIC blog. Please submit your questions as comments to this post, or email them to Anisha Gupta at agupta[at]udel[dot]edu. Questions will be accepted until the morning of the forum. During the webinar, your questions will be posed anonymously. All unanswered questions will be followed up on after the program in an AIC blog post.
Attendance is free and open to all AIC members. Registration is required and will be open until the forum starts. To register for the webinar, please visit https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/766549178.
ECPN’s first webinar was held in July 2012 and featured Debra Hess Norris in a presentation and discussion on self-advocacy and fundraising for independent research. With over 90 registered participants from 6 different countries, the webinar was a great success. ECPN’s second webinar, in November 2012, featured three speakers in private practice: Rosa Lowinger, Julia Brennan, and Paul Messier. The webinar included a discussion of their experiences establishing their businesses and their evolution, how they have learned to balance various initiatives and projects, and their advice for those considering going into private practice.
“Self-advocacy and fundraising for independent research” with Debra Hess Norris, July 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDWgqY8umqQ
Follow-up Q&A to “Considering your future career path: working in private practice” with Rosa Lowinger, Julia Brennan, and Paul Messier, November 2012
For more information, please visit www.conservation-us.org/ecpnforum.
The shock of a damaged masterpiece
An organization called Art To Fight Violence placed a full page ad in the September 11, 2013 issue of The New York Times. The organization is auctioning donated works of art and distributing the monies raised to a variety of charities that benefit people who have been impacted by violence around the globe. A photo of the “Mona Lisa” riddled with bullet holes and knife slashes takes up the majority of the page. As print ads are carefully planned to capture the casual reader’s attention, it should be helpful for those in conservation public outreach to know that a damaged masterpiece is still thought to hold the power to shock and move.
Was this any way to deal with a damaged work of art?
In the “F.Y.I.” column of the Metropolitan Section of the Sunday September 8, 2013 New York Times, a reader noted that when he was recently wandering though northern Central Park, he came across a piece of what looked to be Jenny Holzer’s 1989 sculpture “Benches” in an area that is used for storing old trees, mulch, and rocks. A Times investigation uncovered the fact that in December 1989, the artwork which had been damaged by vandals “beyond immediate repair” was taken to a storage facility to be dealt with at a later date. The piece was forgotten for years until it was moved outdoors. Because of the investigation, the piece will be returned to Holzer’s studio. Was this any way to deal with a damaged work of art?