Art Materials Information and Education Network (AMIEN)

Art Materials Information and Education Network (AMIEN)

There is a current need to provide artists with a resource
organization that can provide accessible, accurate, and current
information about available artist's materials, their composition,
appropriate uses, aging properties and safety in use.

As a major step forward in achieving this goal, the Intermuseum
Conservation Association (ICA) has collaborated with artists'
materials specialist and professor, Mark Gottsegen, in establishing
AMIEN, the Art Materials Information Education Network. The purpose
of AMIEN is to provide artists--amateur, student, and professional
alike with impartial information about the materials they use, to
inform any other interested person or organization about artists'
materials, and to conduct ongoing research.

The need for a centralized artists' materials information
foundation/ repository with research capabilities has been
recognized for some years in acknowledgement of the following
conditions. Communication among the many constituents of the art
world--artists, art materials manufacturers, retailers,
conservators, conservation scientists, curators, collectors, art
historians, and the like--is often difficult to coordinate, not
effective, and not widely disseminated. Artists are constantly
choosing new materials outside the traditional range of art
materials and have no avenue for understanding their properties. Art
materials education, once a vital part of a young artist's training,
has been severely curtailed.

Until the late 1990s, most information about art materials was found
in books, often inaccurate or already outdated by time of
publication. With the advent of the Internet, information about
materials can be circulated but there is no impartial mechanism for
verification of posted statements from artists or manufacturers.
Other vital information is published in venues not readily available
or known to artists, such as the journals of the American Institute
of Conservation (Washington, DC) and the International Institute for
Conservation (London, UK).

AMIEN's mission is to provide comprehensive, up-to-date, accurate
and impartial information about artists' materials to artists,
educators, organizations interested in the subject, and the general
public.  AMIEN will develop and conduct regular educational programs
in materials education, to be offered to schools, professional
training programs for artists, art historians, conservators, and
community groups. These programs will continue the research programs
begun by Gottsegen in 1978 in partnership with ASTM International
(the American Society for Testing Materials), state and federal
government agencies/groups, and private foundations, and will
initiate new research with these groups and the ICA.

In the first phase of establishing AMIEN, the web site
<URL:http://www.thepaintershandbook.org> has been redesigned to
reflect its transition to AMIEN, and its broadened scope of mission
and goals. As AMIEN goes forward it will continue to make available
additional programs currently in development.

AMIEN is freely accessible via email, telephone, ordinary mail, fax,
and, beginning December 2006, through its stand-alone website
<URL:http://www.amien.org/>. The site hosts a forum for discussion,
and publishes papers of interest to artists and the other
constituents of the world of artists.  In addition, AMIEN publishes
short articles and pamphlets in printed formats for distribution to
its clients. All of AMIEN's Internet services will be free to
artists, but will charge a nominal fee to cover costs for its other
services.

Albert Albano, Executive Director of the ICA, and Mark Gottsegen
will co-direct this non-profit organization under the auspices of
the ICA's 501(c)(3) structure. Both Albano and Gottsegen have
extensive experience in art conservation, materials education, and
interactive assistance for artists.  Their spheres of interaction
and communication encompass the entire art world of artists,
conservators, art historians, conservation scientists, and the
manufacturers of art materials.

Albano, the Executive Director of the ICA, has worked, lectured, and
published in the field of art conservation and preservation since
1976. Gottsegen is a graduate of The University of Rochester and
Boston University, where he studied with Philip Guston and James
Weeks.

Gottsegen has been a drawing and painting teacher since 1976 at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a writer and
researcher about art materials since 1975 (The Painter's Handbook
[revised, expanded, and illustrated], 2nd Edition, Watson-Guptill
Publications, 2006, is the latest edition).  He is a member of ASTM
D01.57 on Artists' Paints and Related Materials (ASTM International)
since 1978 and Chairman since 1994

The establishment of AMIEN is being made possible by lead support
funds from Golden Artist Colors and artist Jonathan Lasker, among
others. The program is housed and supported by the ICA, the nation's
oldest regional art conservation/preservation services provider.
Founded in 1952 at Oberlin, Ohio, the ICA has made significant
contributions in conservation and preservation education and
research (see <URL:http://www.ica-artconservation.org>)

Mark D. Gottsegen
Chair, ASTM D01.57
Materials Research Director, ICA
Co-Director, AMIEN
Associate Professor
Department of Art
UNC Greensboro
Intermuseum Conservation Association
2915 Detroit Avenue
Cleveland OH 44113
336-707-3647
Fax: 336-334-5270


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:27
                Distributed: Saturday, November 18, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-20-27-001
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