Volume 5, Number 1, March 1983, pp.13-14

Regional News

Bay Area

At the November meeting of the Bay Area Art Conservation Guild Keiko Keyes gave her slide lecture entitled "Some Alternatives to the Conventional Methods of Reducing Discoloration in Works of Art on Paper".

The film entitled The Silent Witness: an Investigation into the Shroud of Turin was the featured attraction of the guild's December meeting. David Rolfe's production won several awards, including the Golden Gate Award, Best Film of Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival.

Later in December, Anita Noennig organized a workshop that was held at Daedalus for guild members who are planning to build vacuum suction tables in the near future. Thirteen members attended, and lots of ideas and information on materials and designs for tables and air/filter dust covers were discussed.

At the next meeting of the guild, still in the planning stage, a speaker from the Bay Area Lawyers for the Arts will discuss the possibilities of using mediation or arbitration clauses as part of contracts. Members will have an opportunity to ask questions they may have about recent arts legislation.

Denver

Constance Rae Wanke wishes to announce the opening of Colorado Conservation Center for the conservation of paintings and works of art on paper. For an appointment, write P.O. Box 10188, Denver, Colorado 80210, or call (303) 756-2575.

Los Angeles

Robert Aitchison, Leslie Kruth, and Victoria Blyth-Hill will be attending the International Paper Conference '83 in Kyoto, Japan, an historical center for washi. The conference will include demonstrations of papermaking techniques, conservation and mending of artworks, and workshops. There will also be visits to papermaking villages in the area and homestay programs. In addition, Leslie, Bob, and Victoria will visit museums, historical sights, and conservation workshops in Kyoto and Tokyo. The conference runs from February 17 - March 1, 1983.

Carmen Bria and Chris Stavroudis are at LACMA for 11 months in the painting conservation laboratory. They are both third year interns from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Art Conservation Program.

Glenn Wharton is in the objects conservation laboratory at LACMA on a three year Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship. He will be treating both archaeological and decorative objects as well as performing technical studies in these areas. Before coming to LACMA, Glenn completed an advanced internship at the Conservation Center for Technical Studies at the Fogg Art Museum. This past summer he was Field Conservator for the Sardis Expedition in Turkey.

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Billie Milam, and Dr. Pieter Meyers presented papers on November 9th at a two-day symposium which was organized to coincide with an exhibition at the Wight Gallery, U.C.L.A., entitled "The Silk Route and The Diamond Path: Esoteric Buddhist Art on the Trans-Himalayan Trade Routes." Dr. Meyers spoke on "Technical Studies of Bronze Objects." He used examples of investigative techniques such as x-radiography, mass spectroscopy, and microscopic examination of cross-sections. Billie Milam presented a paper on the "Conservation of Bronze and Stone Statues" with special emphasis on the shipping, handling, and installation of Indian three-dimensional objects. Victoria Blyth-Hill spoke on "Conservation of Works of Art on Paper" tailored to methods and materials used by the artists to produce Indian and Persian Miniatures and Tibetan Thangkas with examples of commonly found problems and conservation techniques.

Nancy Conlin Wyatt has been hired by LACMA as Associate Textile Conservator. For the past two years she was at the museum as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Textile Conservation.

The Society of California Archivists held their annual Southern California Workshop on November 12 at the Ralph Miller Golf Library in the City of Industry. The workshop centered on Archival Networks and Inter-Institutional Cooperation. Victoria Blyth-Hill presented a paper on "Intra-Museum Cooperation: Working With Curators." Her paper covered the paper conservator's role within a museum, working with various departments with special emphasis on the library and archives. Highlights of the talk were the installation of the Russian Avant Garde show at LACMA in 1980 and conservation treatment of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Hammer.

Don Menveg, Assistant Conservator at LACMA, and Wayne Reynolds, National Gallery of Art Frame Conservator, recently participated in a month-long exchange program. Two weeks were spent in Washington D.C. and two weeks were spent in Los Angeles. At the National Gallery Don observed the conservation of a series of frames on Thomas Cole paintings. At LACMA, Wayne presented techniques of gilding and toning frames.

Professor R. Hlopoff, former Objects Conservator at Cooperstown, recently gave a seminar on the Conservation of Decorative Art at the J. P. Getty Museum and consulted at LACMA and the Huntington.

Leslie Kruth gave two lectures in December on the care of works of art on paper in conjunction with the exhibition, French Prints 1850-1900, at the galleries of the Claremont Colleges. These lectures were part of a four-part series which included speakers on printmaking and collecting, all designed to increase public interest in print appreciation and care.

Mrs. Fernande G. Jones has retired from her position as Associate Textile Conservator at LACMA. During her fourteen years at the Conservation Center she worked on many major exhibitions. Her favorite collections include: The Diaghilev Costumes, 19th Century Costumes, Indonesian Textiles, and Turkish Textiles. In addition, she supervised apprentices and interns in the textile conservation laboratory. Now she plans to pursue her interests which include gardening, reading, and knitting.

Anna Bennett, an intern from the Institute of Archeology, London, will be at the J.P. Getty Museum for one year. She will be specializing in metal conservation.

The Paintings Conservation Department at the Getty reports that Jeanne McKee, a third year student from the Winterthur Art Conservation Program, will intern with Andrea Rothe until September.

Elisabeth Mention went to New York in January for a six month period of advanced training at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Robert Fieux, private conservator and developer of the Fieux Lining System, visited the Paintings Conservation Department for the week of December 13-17 to consult and demonstrate his full system for the lining of paintings.

The Hebrew Union College Skirball (HUCSM) Lazarek Textile Lab, funded for four years under the HUSCS Textile Preservation Project, closed in December 1982.

Janet Davenzer M.A., Textile Conservator, hired for the conservation of the Museum's Judaic ritual and folk textiles, will be moving to Mariposa, California and will be setting up a private practice. During the course of the textile preservation project fifty-six top priority textiles were conserved. In addition, the textile storage was redesigned to accommodate large rolled textiles and oversize flat textiles. Guidelines were also established for the proper handling, storage, and exhibition of the entire Skirball Museum Collection of metals, prints and drawings, paintings, and archaeological objects, as well as the 1200 textiles in the collection.

The Museum's tenth anniversary exhibit, "New and Renewed," will be open in March 1983 and will highlight new acquisitions and conserved objects in the collection. Half of the textiles to be exhibited are textiles conserved in the HUCSM Lazareck Textile Lab.

One of the textiles, conserved under this project, is an Ark Curtain dated 1697, Bohemia. It took Janet and three part-time assistants over 1400 hours during a period of eight months to complete the project. The silk velvet curtain has metallic embroidery and a silk satin center. Fifty-five sets of metallic embroidered appliques on this silk fabric were removed to facilitate cleaning and mending of the silk as well as of the appliques. A complete report of the Ark Curtain is planned for the textile speciality group at the A.l.C. meeting in Baltimore in 1983.

San Diego

The Annual Meeting of the American Association of Museums will be held in San Diego June 5-8,1983. 2500-3000 museum professionals are expected to attend. The Balboa Art Conservation Center will host tours of its laboratory facilities and the director, Gary Wade Alden, will participate in two scheduled sessions: a discussion with Dr. Anne Russell of the Northwest Document Conservation Center, Gerald Hoepfner of the Williamstown Regional Art Conservation Center, and Richard Esparza of the San Diego Historical Society on the establishment of conservation programs for smaller museums, and a discussion with exhibit designers on guidelines for safe display.

WAAC members are invited to attend and meet members of the national museum community. BACC considers the AAM meeting a dry run for the AIC meeting to be held in San Diego in the spring of 1984.

In other news from BACC Janet Ruggles has joined the staff as Conservator of Paper. Janet received a B.Sc. from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She graduated from the Cooperstown Graduate Programs, New York State University College at Oneonta, in 1976 receiving an M.A. in Conservation and a Certificate of Advanced Studies. Before coming to San Diego, Janet worked as Assistant Conservator to Marilyn Kemp Weidner in Philadelphia, Pa., as Conservator of Paper at the Studio La Riviere, Monastery Hill Bindery in Chicago, Ill., and as Associate Conservator at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

BACC also has two new laboratory assistants, Candace Botl, working in the paper lab, and Marc Harnly, working in the paintings lab.

Joan Samuels, Conservator at the Portland Art Museum, will be visiting and working in the paintings lab at BACC for one month beginning February 21. Dick Dutton has started a 3-month training period to replace John Brewer as Preparator when John leaves BACC at the end of April.

Utah

The Conservation Laboratory of Fine Arts at Brigham Young University in Provo has recently filled a one-year internship position. Scott Haskins has completed work on an important painting for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' (LDS) collection. The painting by Lewis Ramsey entitled "The Restoration" is scheduled for exhibit when the new LDS Church Museum opens this spring in Salt Lake City.

Brook Bowman writes from Salt Lake City that being in "on the ground floor" of the museum (still under construction) is often frustrating but has its rewards. It has been very encouraging to see the cooperation between curators, exhibit designers, and educators in taking into account the requirements of conservation.

Conservation of the state owned Utah Arts Council art collection is in its third year. All 759 works have been catalogued, photographed, and documented. Two years have been spent on actual conservation. Several major pieces with serious problems have been stabilized and nearly half have received treatment for problems caused by years of poor storage facilities and the ever present dirt and grime from Utah's coal burning days.