Volume 5, Number 3, Sept. 1983, pp.7-8

Regional News

Bay Area

Teri Oikawa-Picante was one of 20 painting conservators from the United States and Europe who attended the FAIC sponsored refresher seminar on "Recent Developments on Lining" in Williamstown, Mass., in July. She is currently writing an article for the October issue of "Triptych" (the Fine Arts Museum's publication) in conjunction with the Vatican Show. The article will discuss various examples of "pentimento" from the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Geoffrey Brown reports that his Textile Conservation Workshop at the Portland Art Museum June 21-26 was very successful. There were 20 participants from Portland, Eugene and Seattle who worked on about 25 textiles from the museum's collection including Oriental silks, American prints and needlework, and European tapestry.

Karen Zukor attended the "Paper Intensive" seminar in Oxbow, Michigan, July 3-16. One week dealt with Western and Japanese papermaking. The second week was on bookbinding; Japanese and non-adhesive structures. Instructors were Timothy Barrett, Kathryn Howard Clark, Winifred Lutz, Gary Frost, Hedi Kyle and Walter Hanady.

Carla Simons-Hopper has moved to Mississippi for a year. She will continue her work for the Textile Conservation Workshop, California, in conjunction with, her associate, Nancy Sloper.

Canada

The Vancouver Art Gallery has moved to new quarters in a renovated courthouse in Robson Square in the heart of downtown Vancouver, BC. The museum which will have greatly expanded facilities including full environmental controls, will open to the public on October 15. Barbara Keyser has been hired as conservator and is currently setting up a conservation laboratory in new building.

Los Angeles

The textile conservation laboratory at LACMA had a three-month apprentice, Emilia Cortes from Bogota, Colombia. During her stay in Los Angeles she also worked for Sharon Shore at "Caring for Textiles". Emilia has a degree in graphic and textile design. She gained practical experience by working for the Sopra Intendenza ai Beni Artistici di Firenze conserving tapestries for the 1980 exhibition "Florence and the Tuscany of the Medici in 1500." In addition, she studied with Pat Reeves in Bogota in 1981. She is now teaching textile history and printing techniques at Los Andes University in Bogota and techniques at "Centro de Restauracion" in Bogota. She also is establishing a private textile conservation laboratory. One of her major interests is researching Precolumbian textiles in Colombia.

Mark Watters is at LACMA on an NEA grant for eight months. During this time at LACMA he will be working in the paper conservation laboratory with Victoria Blyth Hill. He will be concentrating on the Indian Painting Collection studying pigment and fiber analysis as well as undertaking conservation treatments on these works of art.

Carmen Bria, third year student a the Winterthur Conservation Program, has completed his internship in the Painting Conservation Laboratory at LACMA. The remainder of his internship (6 weeks) was spent at the Philadelphia Museum of Art working with Albert Albano on modern and contemporary paintings. From Philadelphia, Carmen will relocate to Denver where he will be working with Carl Grimm in a private practice.

Nancy Conlin Wyatt is on a temporary leave of absence from the textile conservation lab at LACMA to enjoy her new daughter Kelly born July 3, 1983.

Rocky Mountains

Carl Grimm, Paintings conservator at Western Paintings Conservation, Denver, Colorado, attended the Lining Conference held mid-July at Williamson.

Christine Young spent two weeks in Denver working for the Colorado Historical Society on an NEA Grant to survey their photographic collections and current storage methods. As part of the grant, Ms. Young will write a manual for he care of those collections. She is also working on a large project for the Denver Art Museum restoring the photographic collection of the Native Arts Department.

Connie Wanke, Colorado Conservation Center, has been asked to be a guest speaker at the Kansas Museum Association Meeting in October. Ms. Wanke will address general care and maintenance of works of art for small museums and historical societies.

Patty Morris, paper conservator previously working in San Francisco, has set up private practice in Santa Fe. This fall she will be working part time at the School of American Research on a National Science Foundation grant project concerning works in the School's collection of "tempera" paintings on paper by Native American artists.

Lawrence Hoffman continues his private practice in paintings conservation in Santa Fe and is working on contract for the Fine Arts Museum there under a Museum of New Mexico Foundation Grant.

The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe has nearly completed the renovation and expansion of its conservation laboratory under the direction of Claire Munzenrider. The 1500 sq. ft. lab has been designed and equipped to handle the diverse conservation needs of the four branches of the Museum of New Mexico, including fine decorative and folk art materials, historic and anthropological artifacts. Suzanne Deal, a graduate student from the NYU program, will start an internship in the Lab in October under Claire's supervision.

In April, Bettina Raphael joined the staff at the Folk Art Museum to work part time with Claire Munzenrider on an NEA sponsored project to stabilize works from the Museum's Spanish Colonial collection, primarily of polychrome wood. Bettina is also completing a pottery conservation project at the School or American Research.

Good-Bye

Thank you all for your help this year. We have very much enjoyed editing the Newsletter, especially since it has given us so much opportunity to keep in close contact with fellow WAAC members. This is our last issue. Caroline Black, Consultant to the Armand Hammer Foundation, has generously volunteered to take over the job of editor from here. She would also be interest in hawing a coeditor, preferably in the Los Angeles area. Contact her at: 1644 Courtney Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Thank you all again and good luck Caroline!