Volume 7, Number 1, Jan. 1985, pp.9-12

Regional News

San Francisco, Bay Area

SFMMA Conservation has been active in preparing the permanent collection for the landmark exhibition "The 20th Century," in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the museum.

J. William Shank of the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts will be joining the staff of the SFMMA Conservation as Conservator in February 1985.

Geoffrey Brown conducted a workshop on Textile Conservation at The Pacific Basin School of Textile Arts, Berkeley 7-11 January 1985.

Cara Varnell since January has taken the position of assistant to Brigitta Anderton at the textile lab at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Cara delivered a paper on the making of costume dummies at the AIC meeting last May. Sara Gates, an intern with Brigitta for two years, has been accepted into the three year program at Hampton Court Palace Textile Conservation Center in England. Brigitta, during a six month leave of absence, visited Sweden where she worked as a textile conservator at the Armory at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. She also attended the ICOM meeting in Copenhagen and has information concerning the meeting for any interested parties.

Julie Goldman is the new intern at the Paper Conservation Laboratory of the Fine Arts Museum of SF. She is a 1984 graduate of the Queen's Program, Canada. Bob and Jennifer Futernick have a new addition to the family, a daughter named Sarah, born on 25 October. Bob attended a meeting in Austin, Texas in November for conservation supervisors.

In the public galleries of the Fine Arts Museums, an exhibition of the conservation work on the pre-Columbian mural fragments from Teotihuacan, Mexico is on display. Stephen Miller was the project coordinator. The exhibition will continue until the summer. Stephen attended the Paris IIC meeting in September, representing the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Madeline Hexter is taking a preconservation internship at the objects lab in preparation for acceptance into a conservation training program. Elisabeth Cornu, Objects Conservator, F.A.M., was the recipient of a NEA Independent Professional Study Grant in the conservation of polychrome sculpture. For two months in 1984 she visited conservation laboratories in Vienna at the Austrian National Institute for Conservation of Monuments (Bundesamt Fur Denkmalpflege); in Munich, Germany at the Bavarian National Museum; in Nuremburg at the Germanie Museum; in Bonn at the Conservation Institute for the Rhine Area (Landesamt Fur Denkmalpflege); and at other work sites in Austria and Germany. Under this grant she learned various techniques of investigation, analysis, conservation and preservation of polychrome sculpture used in Europe, from Vienna to the Belgian borders. For more information contact Elisabeth at the Objects Conservation Laboratory, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

Los Angeles

Christopher Collins, private furniture conservator, will be spending a six month sabbatical with Marlborough House in London under Geoffrey DeBellaigue, Surveyor of the Queen's works of art.

Denise Domergue and LA artist Robert Wilhite were married in San Francisco on 17 November 1984.

Joseph Hammer, assistant at Conservation of Paintings, Ltd., attended "Seminar Issues Related to the Conservation of 20th Century Paintings" in Oberlin, Ohio, 25 and 26 October 1984.

Mary Hough and Joseph Hammer spent two weeks in September at the Centre Pompidou in Paris working at the conservation lab there.

Patricia Tuttle, formerly of the Getty Antiquities Conservation Department, spent one week working at Conservation of Paintings, Ltd. on 20th century sculpture. She will be coming at regular intervals in the future. She is about to open her own private practice in Bozeman, Montana. Details later.

Jim Corwin has joined the Huntington Library staff as an assistant to Ron Tank. He is supported by an Andrew Mellon Fellowship for the next three years.

William R. Leisher attended the annual meeting of the National Institute for Conservation (NIC) in October 1984. Bill also appeared on the cover of the 1984 third quarter interim report of the Times Mirror Company and Subsidiaries.

Tatyana Thompson recently incorporated under the name of Tatyana M. Thompson and Associates, Inc.

Ann Svenson will be a NEA intern in the textile conservation laboratory at LACMA for six months beginning in January. Ann has been in private practice in Los Angeles for several years and hopes to go on to a graduate training program.

Sharon Donnan gave a lecture at UCLA 11 December, 1984 titled, "Archaeological Textiles and Field Conservation at Pacatnamu, Peru." The lecture was part of Jill Melford's course on Archaeological Textiles taught through UCLA Extension.

Andrea Morse has begun a one year internship in the object conservation laboratory at LACMA which began 10 December 1984. Andrea (or Andee as she is better known) received her B.A. in art history from UCLA. She was in an M.A. program at San Francisco State University in Creative Arts. She has trained in the conservation department at the de Young Museum and also at LACMA part-time for the last eight years.

Rocky Mountain Region

Western Paintings Conservation has changed its name to the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts and is located at 1225 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, Colorado 80204 (303)573-1973. The facility offers museum standards in examination and treatment. It also performs on site surveys, does collection maintenance planning, materials analysis, consultations and on site emergency services. The Center is owned by E. Carl Grimm, graduate of the 1978 Winterthur Graduate Program and AIC fellow. The center also employs two other paintings conservators who hold graduate program degrees, two conservation technicians and an office manager. The studio is climate controlled and maintains advanced fire and security systems. The center currently serves various museums, historical centers, as well as corporate and private paintings collections in the Rocky Mountain area. Clients include the Denver Art Museum, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Philbrook Art Center and the Museum of Western Art.

Christine Young has completed a series of articles titled, "Preservation of Stereoviews" for StereoWorld, a publication of the National Stereoscopic Association. The articles discuss the philosophy of conservation; photographic and mounting materials (traditional); storage; remedial treatment; photographic and mounting materials (contemporary.) On 18 September Christine spoke at the annual meeting of the AASLH held in Louisville, Kentucky, on the care of collections and exhibition installations. She was joined by Shelley Reisman and Martin Radecki. In July Christine attended the Conference on Photographic Papers held by the Society for Photographic Scientists and Engineers in Vancouver, B.C.

On 12 November Connie Wanke of the Colorado Conservation Center, was guest speaker at the fall meeting of the Colorado Area Association of Book Binders. She discussed the deterioration of paper (flat and in books) and the remedial handling and cleaning of books. On 29 November Connie spoke on the methods and materials used by western artists and on the care of works of art on paper as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Museum of Western Art in conjunction with their exhibition "Works of Art on Paper From the Permanent Collection." The fall 1984 edition of Athenaeum Annotations, which is published by the Philadelphia Athenaeum, contains an article by Connie on the conservation of drawings by Thomas Ustick Walter. Thomas Ustick Walter was a foremost American architect in the l9th century. He is most remembered for his design of the United States Capitol dome and wings to the building. Many of these drawings had been severely water damaged from a flood. The Eisenhower Library in Abilene has given Connie a grant to restore documents, prints and drawings from the permanent collection.

Sharon Odekirk became Objects Conservator at the Museum of Church History in Salt Lake City this past May. She is presently involved in a murals project and in writing a handbook on housekeeping for The Whitney Store in Kirkland, Ohio.

The Rocky Mountain Regional Conservation Center has been accepted as a member of NIC. Carl Patterson, the center's director, is the RMRCC's representative to the NIC.

The RMRCC has received a grant from the State of Colorado to provide a series of conservation workshops on collections care to institutions in the area. The workshops begin in January.

Nancy Iona, a long-time member of the University of Denver community and the Denver Art Museum Textile Department, has become a part-time assistant in the RMRCC textile department.

Arizona

The University of Arizona Museum of Art recently received a grant from the Institute of Museum Services for the conservation of works of art on paper.

An IMS grant was also given to the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, to study exfoliation problems with Snaketown Hohokam pottery.

The Arizona Heritage Center, Tucson, was given an IMS grant to survey and evaluate that institution's textiles and costume collection. A portion of the funds will be used to hire a textile conservator for a one year position beginning in January 1985.

Robert Herskovitz, Arizona Heritage Center, and Nancy Odegaard, Arizona State Museum, have recently completed the last of four workshops sponsored by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and by a National Museum Act grant. Especially designed for members of small historical societies and museums, the workshops concentrated on the museum environment and discussed practical aspects of display, conservation, storage and other museum procedures. The workshops were held at the Navajo Tribal Museum in Window Rock, Bisbee, Casa Grande and at the Phoenix Art Museum.

Gloria Giffords, independent conservator in Tucson, cleaned and stabilized one of the two sanctuary angels at the mission church of San Xavier del Bac. The second 18th century figure was recently removed for treatment. Gloria has been asked by the Patronato de San Xavier, an organization responsible for the conservation and restoration of this late 18th century structure, to work with Dr. Miguel Celorio, Universidad de las Americas, Cholula, Puebla Mexico. They will evaluate the structure's decorations and furnishings in order to provide the Patronato with a report on the conditions and suggestions for solutions and priorities. The group intends to seek funds to assist in the restoration of this structure which is perhaps the most significant example in the United States of frontier Baroque architecture and decoration. Dr. Celorio was responsible in 1964 for the restoration of the church and college of Tepotzotlan, the Colonial Jesuit complex north of Mexico City. He was the architect for this project and was at the time the director of the Museo Nacional del Virreinato.

Hawaii

The Pacific Regional Conservation Center announces the appointment of Senior Paintings Conservator Gregory A. THOMAS. Gregory was formerly paintings conservator and lecturer at the Cooperstown Art Conservation Graduate Program. He joined P.R.C.C. 1 January to develop the Center's first paintings conservation laboratory.