Conference on "Conservation and Its Contexts" to be streamed live

As part of the Mellon Research Initiative of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Jim Coddingto, Chief Conservator of The Museum of Modern Art has organized a conference on “Conservation and Its Contexts” which will take place on Saturday December 7, 2013 between 10am and 5pm. The conference will examine the emerging interactions between conservation and associated disciplines including art history, archaeology, and ethnography. The speakers will be Noemie Etienne, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Fine Arts; Michael Gallagher, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Fernando Dominquez Rubio, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, UC-San Diego; and GlennWharton, Clinical Associate Professor of Museum Studies, NYU.
For those who cannot attend in person, the conference will be streamed live at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/events/livestream.htm

If you're going to be in Chicago in mid-February…

There will be sessions of particular interest for conservators at the 2014 annual meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  and the College Art Association (CAA), both of which are to take place in Chicago in February—the CAA from February 12-15 and the AAAS from February 13- 17.
At the AAAS meeting on February 14th  from 10:00- 11:30am there will be a session on “Preserving Our Cultural Heritage: Science in the Service of Art”, organized by Nicholas Bigelow and Leonor Sierra of the University of Rochester and from 1:00- 2:30pm there will be a session on “Reconstructing and Deconstructing Paintings: Innovations At and below the Surface”, organized by Francesca Casadio of The Art Institute of Chicago and Katherine Faber of Northwestern University.
At the CAA Meeting on February 12th from 12:30- 2:00pm there will be a “Learning to Look Workshop” on the technical aspects of Claude Monet’s Paintings to be held in the galleries of  the Art Institute of Chicago (which I have organized) and from 2:30- 5:00pm there will be a session on “Secrets of the Old Masters: Materials, Manuals, and Myths” organized by Kristin Renee deGhetaldi and Brian Baade of the University of Delaware. On February 15th at 9:00am, there will be a Public Art Dialogue on “Vandalism, Removal, Relocation, Destruction: The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence”, organized by Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame.

Contemporary Print Identification Workshop

Print workshop looking at Intaglio-Type prints brought by Keith Howard
Print workshop looking at Intaglio-Type prints brought by Keith Howard

I was very happy to be part of the group of paper conservators gathered in Washington, DC from October 16th- 19th, 2013 for an in-depth study of print identification.
On day 1 and the first part of day 2, the workshop hosts Scott Homolka and Stephanie Lussier, led us through the different categories of print processes, starting with traditional, familiar techniques; then looking at examples of variations and recent developments that might be harder to identify unless you know what you are looking for. We also had several guest lecturers on day 2. Shelley Langdale, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, gave a lecture on the history of American printmaking studios in the 20th century. Keith Howard, Head of Printmaking and Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Bernice Cross, master printmaker and owner of White Cross Press, brought in examples of contemporary prints created by them and their students in a variety of techniques for us to examine closely. Keith Howard invented the field of non-toxic printmaking with a process he named Intaglio-Type. He has published several books about his techniques and kindly gave each participant a copy of his most recent one, entitled The Contemporary Printmaker: Intaglio-Type & Acrylic Resist Etching, which is considered an essential manual by many people in the field of printmaking today. Lastly, the three printmakers behind the printmaking website Printeresting; Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman and Jason Urban, gave a talk about the world of printmaking today.
Scott Homolka explains Richard Serra's process of applying paintstick through silkscreenScott Homolka explains Richard Serra’s process of applying paintstick through silkscreen
Day 3 was spent at the National Gallery of Art. Lucky for us, the government shutdown ended just in time to spend our final day at our planned venue. Our first exercise in the morning was to identify the processes behind some prints in their collection. Some of the prints were particularly tricky, while others were deceptively easy. Then we went to the galleries for a tour of the exhibit Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press given first by the curators Judith Brodie, head of modern prints and drawings, and Adam Greenhalgh, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow; then by one of Crown Point Press’ Master Printers, Emily York. This show features both working proofs and final prints in order to show the process that goes into making a print. Not all of the projects resulted in a print that the artist considered exhibitable, but all showed the creative and technical process behind the creation of prints and in some cases expanded what was possible in printmaking by pushing at the boundaries of the techniques.
Then it was back to the lab to look at Marian Dirda’s collection of printmaking papers from the late 20th and early 21st century. She is a great resource for information about fine art paper mills, and the papers that particular artists or printmaking studios prefer. In fact, I should emphasize that all of the lecturers of this workshop are very accessible and happy to share their knowledge with the conservation community. I recommend reaching out if you have questions about contemporary prints.
Rosemary Fallon practices a non-toxic version of the 'acid bite' techniqueRosemary Fallon practices a non-toxic version of the ‘spit bite’ technique
On day 4, we travelled to Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, MD, where we got to try out Intaglio-Type printmaking for ourselves. Keith Howard and Bernice Cross led us through plate preparation, exposure, development, and printing. After 4 hours, we each had 1-2 prints to keep as references. Day 4 was absolutely my favorite part of the entire workshop. I learned that many studios offer summer weeklong intensive courses in printmaking. I hope to take one someday.
Thanks again to everyone who worked behind the scenes to make this workshop possible despite the government shutdown.
Bernice Cross demonstrates 4-color printing from plexiglass plates
Bernice Cross demonstrates 4-color printing from plexiglass plates

 
 

 

Contemporary Print ID Workshop Begins Despite Government Shutdown

We were all looking forward to spending three days at the National Gallery and one day at Pyramid Atlantic looking at prints, but just as the start of the workshop approached, the government shutdown began. With the National Gallery closed indefinitely, the workshop organizers had to scramble to make alternate arrangements.
As one of the participants, I am happy to report that they were successful. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was able to provide space for us, and we had a great first day.  We reviewed familiar print techniques and terminology, and learned some new ones (for me, anyway), such as CNC, or computer numerical control- using a computer to achieve detail and precision that would be difficult or impossible by hand; soap ground, or white ground- a technique using a mixture of soap flakes, linseed oil, and water to create painterly white areas; and water bite- using an acid/water mixture on a tilted plate to create subtle gradations in depth.
We have begun day two and will be going more in-depth on contemporary print processes and hear from some guest lecturers, including: Marian Dirda from the National Gallery; Shelley Langdale, of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman and Jason Urban from the website Printeresting.
Thanks to Stephanie Lussier, Scott Homolka, Abigail Choudry, and everyone from AIC and the Corcoran that made this workshop possible despite the shutdown.

Course on Chemometrics for Cultural Heritage – Level 1

Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Dates: October 31rst / November 1rst, 2013, 9am – 5pm
Target Audience:  This workshop is aimed at researchers and conservators who want to be able to analyze their own laboratory data, and with a need for exploratory data analysis, development of predictive models and sample classification. No prior knowledge is required for this course.

Partial Least Square Model (PLS) to date gelatin silver prints based on their Near Infrared (NIR) spectrum.
Partial Least Square Model (PLS) to date gelatin silver prints based on their Near Infrared (NIR) spectrum.

Course Description:  The course will cover the fundamentals of many commonly used Chemometric methods including Exploratory Data Analysis and pattern Recognition, Regression and Classification Methods (PCA, PLS, SIMCA,PLS-DA)and Data Pretreatment. Emphasis will be on applying these techniques in the contex
t of cultural heritage research.
The course will comprise lectures and hands-on activities. Computers will not be provided. Participants are encouraged to bring their laptops with demo versions of Solo installed. A 60 days demo license will be provided by Eigenvector to each participant.
About the Instructor:  Dr. Donald Dahlberg is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Lebanon Valley College.  Dahlberg earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University.  After decades of doing research in the area of Physical Organic Chemistry, he got involved in Chemometrics while on sabbatical in 1988 at the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry at the University of Washington.  There he learned chemometrics in the Bruce
Kowalski group (co-founder of chemometrics).  Upon returning to LVC, he taught chemometrics to undergraduate students for over a decade.  Although retired from the classroom, he continues do consulting and supervises undergraduate research in industrial chemometrics. He wrote and teaches this workshop so that those not fluent in matrix algebra can take advantage of the powerful tool of chemometrics..
How to Register:  A registration form can be requested by email to ana_martins@moma.org. The deadline for registration is October 7th, 2013. Cost: $400 (includes course materials and refreshments). Participants’ number is limited to 10.  For registration and inquiries please contact:  ana_martins@moma.org

Symposium on "Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement"

Conservators who work with European sculpture may be interested in the symposium, “Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement” that will take place at the University of Vermont on October 18, 2013. The papers will cover such topics as how marble and stone were chosen and supplied for sculpture, how large blocks of marble and weighty sculptures were transported, and the properties of stucco that made it a choice material for sculpture. For more information, one can contact Kelley Helmstutler, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Vermont, kelley.didio@uvm.edu

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.

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

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.

AIC 41st Annual Meeting – Research and Technical Studies Session, May 31, “Artificial Aging of Paper-Based Cores Wrapped in Various Isolating Layers for use as Archival Storage Supports by Amy Williams and Catherine H. Stephens”

When faced with a budget dilemma for oversize mining maps storage, Amy Williams, project conservator at the University of Pittsburgh, asked herself “the $13,500 question:” Is there a benefit to using an archival 12” diameter storage tube core versus a non-archival 12” core wrapped with an isolating layer?
It would be easy to assume that archival cores were significantly better, well worth the extra $13,500. However, when faced with the substantial cost difference, Williams decided to conduct a scientific research project to determine the most cost-effective and preservation-friendly rolled storage system for the 5’ by 15’ maps of the Consol Energy Mine Map Preservation Project. She and her co-investigator, Dr. Catherine Stephens, presented their results on May 31, 2013 during the Research and Technical Studies Session of the AIC annual meeting.
If Williams and Stephens could prove that there was an acceptable, more affordable alternative to archival tubes, the news would be of great benefit to cultural institutions, collectors, and conservators. I was eager to hear their results.
Williams partnered with Stephens, Senior Research Scientist at the Art Conservation Research Center, Carnegie Mellow University (now at Yale University) for the investigation. They studied four types of tubes and six wrapping options suggested by conservators: no wrapping, polyester film, Tyvek, Marvelseal 360, heavy weight aluminum foil, and tissue paper buffered with 3.5% calcium carbonate. For the cores, they selected two archival tubes with different adhesives (sodium silicate versus a blend of polyvinyl alcohol and polyvinyl acetate), a non-archival core of kraft paper with an unidentified adhesive, and a Quik-Tube concrete pouring tube composed of recycled paper and a polyvinyl acetate/acrylic adhesive.
In the experiments, the maps were simulated by using Whatman #1 filter paper. The use of Whatman #1 paper versus historic papers was discussed in another 2013 RATS talk by Bill Minter and John Baty, “The Role of Polyester Film Encapsulation—With and Without Prior Deacidification—On Paper Degradation, Studied During Long-Term, Low Temperature Aging.” Minter and Baty chose historic papers for their research. I think it would add to our understanding if Williams and Stephens conducted a second phase of their research using commercially available papers or naturally aged historic papers to compare with the Whatman #1 results.
Their test samples, each consisting of a “map,” an isolating layer (or none), and a core, were aged at 90˚C and 50% relative humidity in an oven for up to 24 weeks.
The researchers’ first discovery was the unexpected impact of the adhesive, which caused staining on the tubes at the seam gaps between the narrow strips of paper comprising the tubes. This staining transferred onto the Whatman paper “maps.”
To prevent this problem, Williams recommended obtaining seamless tubes by asking the manufacturer to skive the edges of the paper. She also emphasized the importance of knowing the composition of both the paper and the glue of the cores.
I wonder how problematic the adhesive would be during a natural aging process or during a lower temperature artificial aging, and hope the researchers will consider exploring this in the future.
Williams and Stephens reported that the linen ties on the samples caused staining during the aging process. They switched to rare earth magnets, which caused no reported problems. Would a lower temperature during testing have prevented or reduced the problem with the linen ties? If this is a significant problem at all temperatures, linen ties may not be appropriate for rolled storage.
The experiment produced more unexpected results. The researchers evaluated the effects of the cores and isolating layers on the “maps” by measuring the chain scission of the cellulose, the yellowness, and the pH of the “maps.” I was surprised to learn that both the Tyvek and the Marvelseal 360 actively promoted degradation, yellowing, and a lower pH.
The aluminum foil, polyester film, and buffered tissue offered varying amounts of protection, depending on the type of core used. The best isolating layer overall was the heavy weight aluminum foil, and the best wrapper for the kraft tube was polyester film.
I wondered if the high temperature during aging might be responsible for the poor performance of the Marvelseal and the Tyvek, and whether the heat caused chemical changes within these two films. How much of the unexpected results overall was caused by the elevated temperature? Would similar results occur during natural aging at room temperature?
The researchers did speak about this issue. Stephens said that they chose the high temperature for artificial aging to ensure detectable changes, and stated that more research was needed lower temperatures.
From what I understood about the test results that Williams and Stephens presented, it seemed that wrapping a non-archival core with heavy weight aluminum foil could give comparable results to using an archival core. I would like to know more the amount of difference they saw, and hope they will offer a detailed discussion of this in their article about the research.
The results of their experiment have caused me to question my own assumptions about the storage materials we use. I hope Williams and Stephens will continue their valuable research, to determine what results are typical at lower temperatures and answer some of the other questions they raised during this first phase of the investigation.