Volume 15, Number 3, Sept 1993, pp.8-14

Regional News

San Diego

The Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC), welcomes a new member organization, the Museum of Photographic Arts of San Diego.

Cecile Davis Mear, formerly at BACC, is now Assistant Paper Conservator at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Regional Reporter:

Frances Prichett
5235 35th Street
San Diego, CA 92116
619/283-0368

Rocky Mountain Region

Western Center for Conservation of Fine Arts (WCCFA) and Rocky Mountain Conservation Center (RMCC) hosted approximately 200 guests to their facilities during AIC's annual meeting held in Denver.

Monserrat Le Menze, student of the Winterthur program, is spending the summer inpainting two 17th-18th c. Spanish colonial paintings, under the direction of Carmen F. Bria, Jr., WCCFA.

Robert A. McCarroll, WCCFA, completed an IMS Survey of works of art on paper for the Oregon Historical Society in Portland in March.

Camilla J. Van Vooren, WCCFA, has been awarded Professional Associate status in the A.I.C.

Jeanne Brako, Colorado Historical Society, went to Rome to prepare condition reports and make transportation arrangements for the "Vatican Treasurers" exhibition which opened in August.

Merri Ferrell, curator of Carriage Collections, the Museum at Stony Brook (NY), came to present a program on carriage care to the participants in the Large Artifact Training Program directed by Jeanne Brako.

Carl Patterson, Denver Art Museum, reports three CAP Surveys this spring: the Denver Museum of Toys, Dolls and Miniatures; the Western Colorado Center for the Arts, Grand Junction, Colorado; and the Akpa Lakota Museum, Chamberlain, South Dakota. Working with him this summer is Malcolm Collum, intern from the Buffalo Program, on three projects: a palace facade from Swat, a Tang Dynasty spirit cart and an 18th c. Spanish colonial hide painting.

Terri Schindel has moved from Wyoming to Estes Park, Colorado. The conservation courses she organized for South Pass City, Wyoming have been moved to Estes Park (60 miles from Denver), a more convenient location for everyone. Call Terri at 303/586-6424 if you are interested in obtaining an updated schedule of classes. Sessions of "Preventive Care for Objects" continue into autumn.

Karen B. Jones reports that The Colorado Preservation Alliance has published "On the Road to Preservation: A State wide Preservation Action Plan for Colorado." This document, produced through the Colorado State Library, is available by writing: Colorado Preservation Alliance, c/o Colorado State Archives, 1313 Sherman, Denver, CO 80203.

Judy Greenfield, Objects Conservator and Cynthia Kuniej Berry, Associate Paintings Conservator, have been invited to speak at the Conference on Silk Road in Dunhuang, PRC in October (see either for details).

D. Hays Shoop, Senior Paintings Technician, will be leaving in September for the Courtauld Institute of the University of London for a year long internship in paintings. Only one foreign student a year is accepted to attend. We are very proud of him.

Paul Messier, Conservator of Photographic Materials and Works of Art on Paper, presented a paper in March on "The Treatment of a Lucas Samaras Polaroid Photo" at the Photographic Materials Group meeting in Austin, Texas. In April Paul presented a paper on "Research on the Materials of the Photograph: Albumen" at the 19th Annual Conference of the Graduate Conservation Training Programs in North America at SUNY, Buffalo.

Paul Messier, M. Randall Ash, Head Paintings Conservator, and Jeff Wells, Photographer, presented three workshops funded by the Colorado Council on the Arts. These were intended to give artists a basic understanding of fundamental conservation principles.

RMCC has been awarded an NEA grant for the purchase of lab equipment and upgrade of their electrical system.

Teresa Knutson, Textile Conservator, joined RMCC's staff on a part-time basis in March.

All of RMCC's conservators presented papers at this year's AIC meeting in Denver, and we're all relaxing now that the conference is over!

Our regional reporter Connie Mohrman is handing on the job after many years service to the Newsletter; we wish her the very best and thank her for all her hard work.

Regional Reporters:

Constance Mohrman
WCCFA
1225 Santa Fe Drive
Denver, Colorado 80204
303/573-1973

Diane Danielson
RMCC
2420 South University Boulevard
Denver, Colorado 80208
303/733-2712

Arizona & New Mexico

Gloria Giffords and interns Jason Metcalfe and David Spurgeon are currently treating twenty water-damaged paintings and frames from the U. of Arizona Museum of Art. Gloria is also completing her manuscript to be published by the U. of New Mexico Press, A Guide to the Religious Art, Architecture, and Furnishings of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821.

Gretchen Voeks, Assistant Conservator at WACC, has been promoted to a permanent, full-time position.

WACC conservation technician, Grace Katterman, is spending a month on a Peruvian archaeological excavation surveying and treating textiles.

WACC Conservation Division recently acquired two pen-base GRID laptops to aid in survey work. The laptops are expected to increase the speed of survey work by a factor of three.

The Conservation Section of the Museum of New Mexico was recently awarded funding from the Getty Institute for three consecutive one-year post-graduate internships in architecture, anthropology, and Spanish Colonial objects respectively.

Keith Bakker will remain in New Mexico to continue his research at the Los Alamos National Laboratories under a Kress Foundation grant.

Bettina Raphael presented a paper on her experience teaching preventive conservation in Latin America at the ICOM "Seminar on Preventive Conservation in Latin America".

Landis Smith has developed a collaborative survey method for Native American objects to be exhibited in the installation planned for the MNM's Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. The survey will be carried out in conjunction with cultural specialists, including Native American co-curators.

Conservation scientist Susan Barger's work with adobe and daguerreotypes will be featured in an Australian Broadcasting Corp. science program, "Quantum". In addition, she is currently teaching and advanced seminar in conservation science at the U. of New Mexico.

David Rasch traveled to Dallas, Texas to do two CAPS at the Farmer's Branch Historical Park and the Hunt County Museum.

Kathy Klein went to Chiapas, Mexico under grants from the U. of New Mexico and GCI to work with the Mayan Weaving Cooperative on preventive care and storage of collections.

Molly Mehaffy completed the treatment phase of an NEA grant to conserve the Museum of New Mexico's East Indian textiles.

Cynthia Lawrence, painting conservator, San Francisco, will be working on a two-month contract with Stephen Prins and Co.

Landis has taken over Nancy Odegaard's beat for this issue.

Regional Reporter:

Landis Smith
208 A Gonzales Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505/989-9379

Greater Los Angeles and Santa Barbara

Chris Stavroudis will be in Australia for August and September. As visiting lecturer at the University of Canberra, he will be teaching "Conservation of Paintings II" and "Material Science I."

Aitchison and Watters, Inc. and Lisa Forman hosted a tour of their studio in May for members of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Robert Aitchison is beginning a survey of the photographic collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Lisa has joined the steering committee of the Los Angeles Preservation Network.

Alina Remba, student in the Buffalo training program, spent her summer working in the paintings conservation lab at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (LACMA). She assisted staff in the treatment of an early Spanish triptych from the collection.

Tania Collas, also from the Buffalo program, spent her summer work project in the objects conservation lab at LACMA. Tania assisted in the treatment of a large scale Pier Mirror in preparation for an upcoming American Furniture exhibition.

Congratulations to Mark Lewis, who entered the Winterthur training program, and to Dubravka Kiseljev, who entered the Buffalo training program this summer.

Michael Duffy, has left LACMA to take up the position as Associate Paintings Conservator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Paula Volent spent two days at the Conservation Department at the National Gallery in Washington sharing information concerning the aging of adhesives and adhesives testing material. She also participated in a panel discussion on conservation framing as part of the First Annual North American Forum on Conservation Framing Practices in Chicago.

Suzanne Deal Booth is currently working as a consultant on a collaborative project between The Getty Art History Program and The Getty Conservation Institute. The project is to make recommendations for core data requirements for uniquely identifying cultural heritage and will bring together experts in the field of conservation documentation for an international round table scheduled to take place in September 1994.

Duane Chartier of Conservart Associates, was invited to give a talk to the Academy of Western Art Association last June in Oklahoma City. Duane and Suzanne Friend are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Rila Elise Friend Chartier, on May 4th. Congratulations!

Carolyn Tallent, is starting a private practice in paintings conservation and can be reached at 220 San Vicente Blvd. Apt. 413, Santa Monica, CA 90402. Phone/fax (310) 458-6834.

Victoria Blyth-Hill recently returned from traveling in Europe with the "Parallel Visions" exhibition. During the three weeks in Paris, Victoria worked with Tibetan Thangka specialist Jean-Michael Terrier learning his conservation philosophy and treatment techniques. She also examined hundreds of thangkas in Italian private collections and at the Musee Guimet in Paris.

Joanne Page attended the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville July 12-17th, studying the history of the printed book.

Glenn Wharton returned to the Kaman Kalehsyyk excavation in Turkey as site conservator during the 1993 season. Scott Carroll and Marie Svoboda joined the team as assistant conservators. Scott is performing research on storage methods for archaeological metals, including the use of oxygen scavengers. Marie will implement the findings for her master's thesis on desalination techniques for archaeological iron.

Claire Dean has started a program at Petroglyph National Monument on the outskirts of Albuquerque to assess the extent of graffiti and other vandalism and to develop an approach for removal. She is training two undergraduate students, Edmundo Echeverria and Allen McIntyre, Appalachian State College, North Carolina in the initial steps of the program.

The Antiquities Conservation Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum is hosting Ariana Makau, graduate of Scripps College, for ten weeks this summer. She is one of nine interns chosen for the Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program. During her stay in Antiquities Conservation she is being introduced to basic conservation and preservation issues.

The Decorative Arts and Sculpture Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum has been working on pretreatment documentation for five period rooms to be installed in the new museum. using MacIntosh Photoshop, surface losses and structural changes to the panels are being color coded to be used as guidelines for future repairs.

The Renaissance Bronze research project has just completed its first phase, the technical examination of 14 bronzes from the Huntington Gallery collections. The goal of the project is to establish a consistent method of examining bronzes and to use the information to establish a database that will eventually be accessible worldwide.

Brian Considine is working on "Gilded and Painted Wood" section for the upcoming Butterworth's text on furniture conservation.

Linda Strauss attended the conference, "Sculpture Conservation: Preservation or Interference?" in Liverpool, England.

Jane Bassett gave a two-day workshop in May with Randy Silverman of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU on Emergency Preparedness at the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, Wyoming.

Gordon Hanlon has been continuing work on low oxygen atmospheres for pest eradication with Vinod Daniel and Shin Maekawa of the Getty Conservation Institute.

The Paintings Conservation Department, J. Paul Getty Museum, has been hosting many visitors: In June, Michael Gregory, a British frame expert, gave a seminar on period frames. In July , Robert Wald, paintings restorer from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, lectured on Mantegna's grisaille painting technique. Will Real, Carnegie Museum of Art, returned to continue his conservation of Whistler's "Portrait of Pablo de Sarasate." Steve Kornhauser, Wadsworth Atheneum, arrived in August and to be joined later by his assistant, Patricia Garland, to begin conservation of their "Crucifixion" by Poussin.

Robert Portillo, Museum Scientist and Curator of The Erich Lachmann Collection in the Department of Music at UCLA, presented a paper in July at the CIMCIM Conference in Belgium. The paper title was, "Forgeries, Reproductions, Alterations and Copies: Should They Be Considered As Useful 'Antiques' within Historical Musical Instrument Collections?"

Jane Bassett and Mike Fair announce the birth of their daughter, Madison Maile Fair, born July 22nd.

Regional Reporters:

Virginia Rasmussen
LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90036
213/857-6168

Sasha Stollman
Glenn Wharton & Associates
549 Hot Springs Road
Santa Barbara, California 93108
805/565-7639

San Francisco Bay Area

With the support of an NEH rehousing grant for the ethnographic collection, the Oakland Museum built a climate-controlled room and John Burke and Krassimir Gatev "fumigated" virtually the entire ethnographic collection using either carbon dioxide or anaerobic nitrogen. Additionally, John Burke and Bob Futernick, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, are currently looking into the effects of light in an anaerobic environment.

John Burke and conservation scientist Mark Gilberg have been researching an apparatus that will electrolytically remove oxygen from the fumigation chamber. The results are meeting with much success.

Doug Lawler completed the conservation of the Chang Wen Ti Jade Pagoda, which was extensively damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Congratulations to Therese O'Gorman, Oakland Museum, who received her MA from JFK University. Her thesis topic was "Microclimate Cases." Therese has received a Kress Fellowship to study lacquer conservation with Marrianne Webb, Royal Ontario Museum, in September.

Alejandro Reyes Vizzuett, painting conservator, Watsonville, has recently completed treatment of numerous easel paintings from the Santa Inez Mission, and he will begin treatment of some paintings and sculptures from Hearst Castle.

Peter Eastman has left the Bay Area and has been Assistant Furniture Conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art since March. He completed the coursework fin the M.S. program in Wood Science and Technology at UC-Berkeley and is now writing his thesis.

Genevieve Baird, Garden Valley, is consulting for the city of San Francisco with regard to the conservation and relocation of the Pioneer Monument. She has taken over the position from Katy Untch, who will be traveling to Turkey to work at an early bronze age site near Sanliurfa.

Bob Futernick, FAMSF, with Silvia Albro, Library of Congress, taught a course in paper and book conservation in a recently established program in Spoleto, Italy, under the auspices of the Instituto Centrale Per la Patologia del Libro.

Tracy Power, object conservator, was in Oahu working at the Pacific Regional Conservation Center (PRCC), treating four outdoor sculptures for the Hawaiian State Foundation of the Culture and the Arts.

Chief conservator Will Shank, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), moderated the special session, "Assault, Censorship, Discrimination and Confrontation: A Discussion of Issues in Art and Conservation," assembled by the Task Force on Colorado, at the annual meeting of the AIC in Denver. Will was also elected vice-chair of the Paintings Specialty Group.

The exhibition, "Inherent Vice: The Conservation of a Robert Motherwell 'Elegy,'" will appear in the galleries of SFMOMA from September to November 1993. It describes a painting conservation treatment undertaken by staff paintings conservators and Tony Rockwell in 1992.

French conservation student Valerie Monier is spending six months in the Paper/Photo Conservation Department at SFMOMA through a grant from the French government.

Jo Hill, objects conservator, has relocated to Los Angeles.

Sarah Gates, FAMSF, is beginning a conservation review of the European tapestry collection in preparation for a proposed 1996 exhibition. The textile lab is continuing to organize a dry- cleaning course for conservators. See details in the Calendar section of the newsletter.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts will feature an exhibition of Japanese folding screens and paintings (September-October) conserved by Eddie Jose, private conservator, Alameda.

Kathleen Orlenko and Debra Fox gave a workshop to the society of California Archivists at their annual meeting, which was held in San Jose in May.

In February and March, Jim Bernstein was Consulting conservation Specialist to the Cincinnati Art Museum. Jim surveyed the newly reinstalled 20th Century Collection, reviewed art in storage, and worked with CAM conservation staff Steven Bonadies, Michael Ruzga, and Fred Wallace in the examination and treatments. As a follow-up, Michael spent a month in San Francisco, working and studying with Jim. The project focussed on special problems and solutions for the care and conservation of the contemporary art. Additional problems of interest were the preparation and packing of a mammoth Magda Abakanovicz work "Zndra" (tree trunk, resin, burlap, and steel) owned by the Hess Collection, and with the assistance of Pauline Mohr and John Bissell, the planning and conservation of a super-sized (37 ft x 17 ft) 1978 acrylic painting by Sam Francis. Jim welcomes (Mary) Ria German, third year graduate student from the Buffalo Conservation Program, for her year of internship.

Jane Klinger Freeman, National Archives, is on the nominating committee for the Assistant Program Chair and the Vice Chair for the Book & Paper Specialty Group for the AIC.

Chris Augerson, FAMSF, has completed his scientific analysis and study of a suite of furniture commissioned for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles.

Lesley Bone, FAMSF, has completed the conservation and installation of "Teotihuacan: City of the Gods."

Regional Reporter:

Theresa Andrews
SFMOMA Conservation Department
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, California 94102
415/252-4050

Pacific Northwest

Jonathan Taggart is conserving an outdoor sculpture by Barbara Hepworth and Hilda Morris in the Portland Art Museum Collection.

Jamie Hascall has been building seismically stable mounts for a Seattle collection of crystals and will be doing similar work for the Asian Art Collection, Seattle Museum. Me is writing a mount-making manual and would appreciate input from WAAC members on this subject. He can be reached at 2335 N. 61st, Seattle, Washington 98103.

E. Renee Jones and Maria Sullivan, Buffalo program students, will be working at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum and the Alaska State Museum with Mary Pat Wyatt and Helen Alten on a variety of projects including storage, sculpture maintenance, and stabilization of totem poles.

Ron Sheetz and Al Levitan of the National Park service are working on the conservation of totem poles at the Sitka National Historical Park.

The Sitka Pioneers Home has hired a conservator from the Western University of Technology, St. Louis, to repair the bronze statue that stands in front of their building.

As a follow-up to Helen Alten's survey of totem poles at the village of New Kasaan, the village has completed a maintenance plan. As a result, art students, locals, and Native carvers have started maintenance activities.

Murray Frost, cultural Building Consulting, Inc., was a principal lecturer for the course, "Preventive Conservation: Museums Collections and Their Environment," held in April in London, England.

Sarah Melching recently relocated to Seattle where she has opened a private practice for the conservation of works of art on paper, archival materials, and photographs. Her new address is 215 Second Avenue, South, No. 408; Seattle, 98104; phone 206-343- 9789. Sarah is also compiling a chapter of the Paper Conservation Catalog, "Written Documentation." Input and information regarding your style and method of documentation would be tremendously helpful.

This spring, Artech provided facilities to paintings conservator Harriet Urgang of Conservation Associates (NY) for work on Frank Stella's York Factory A, a 9-ft by 27-ft painting owned by the Port of Seattle. Artech has moved! The new space is 23,000 square feet, and climate-controlled storage is being planned. New particulars: 2609 First Avenue, Seattle, 98121. New Phone 206/728-8822. And a new 800 number 1-800-ARTECH1.

Regional Reporter:

Alice Bear
P. O. Box 24262
Seattle, Washington 98124
206/323-5219

Hawaii

Diana Dicus has taken a one-year leave of absence from PRCC to pursue a fellowship with the Ethnology Laboratory of the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, Canada. In a recent conversation, she said she is thoroughly enjoying the work in Ottawa, but really misses the beaches of Hawaii. Her duties as Hawaii Regional Correspondent for the WAAC Newsletter will be assumed by Laurence Pace.

Objects conservator Laura Gorman has accepted the position of Chairperson/Senior Objects Conservator for the Bishop Museum, Pacific Regional Conservation Center. She will begin work in September.

Linda Hee, Objects Conservator, continues her supervision of the Bishop Museum Anthropology collection move, now in Phase II.

Tracy Power, Objects Conservator from California, was in Hawaii for 4 weeks in May and June working on contract for the Bishop Museum, Pacific Regional Conservation Center. With the assistance of PRCC conservation technician Melissa Arnold, 4 outdoor bronze and cast stone sculptures were treated fro the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.

Laurence Pace, painting conservator in private practice, gave a talk and slide presentation at the Annual Meeting of Art Maui in Kahalui, Maui. The primary topic was the problems faced by works of art in the Hawaiian environment. In August Larry will begin treatment of a series of 10 small oils on canvas by the artist Charles Furneaux. The paintings are part of the Archives Collection of the Bishop Museum and the project is being funded by the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. The paintings document the 1881-82 eruption of the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii and were all painted on-site by the artist. In November Larry will be presenting a slide lecture at the Honolulu Academy of Arts on the examination and treatment of Cain and Abel, a 17th century European painting recently acquired by the Academy.

Dale Kronkright was on the Islands for about a month during June and July. He participated in the "Hawaii Save Our Sculpture" training sessions coordinated by the Mayor's Office on Culture and the Arts. Also for the Mayor's office, he treated a series of limestone bas-relief panels by Marguerite Blasingame located in McCoy Pavilion. Dale conducted a Big Island sculpture survey for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and gave a lecture to a Field Study class at the University of Hawaii, Hilo campus. He treated 2 sculptures in the collection of the Contemporary Museum.

Regional Reporter:

Laurence Pace
2109-A Liliha Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96817
808/595-7500

Texas

Richard J. Trela has been appointed Senior Paintings Conservator at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum's Conservation Center in Canyon, Texas. Mr. Trela is a graduate of the Cooperstown Art Conservation Program and comes to Texas from his position as head of the conservation lab at the Brigham Young University Museum of Fine Arts.

John Dennis has been doing a number of SOS! training seminars around Texas, and Csilla Felker-Dennis is doing IMS CAP surveys for a number of institutions in the region.

The Materials Conservation Lab of the Texas Memorial Museum was the site for two more classes this summer where students from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired are taught vocational skills in the workplace. The students are hoping to construct padded hangers for the museum's historical costume collection.

Karen Pavelka presented a demonstration and lecture on Paper and Book Repair Techniques to Carolyn Harris's Preservation Class at the University of Texas, El Paso.

In April, Olivia Primanis presented a workshop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Binding Repair Techniques for Special Collections Materials.

The 1993 Paper and Book Intensive Workshop was held from May 22 through June 3 at the John Knox Ranch outside Fisher, Texas. The 2-week seminar included 11 classes exploring such topics as ink making, taught by James Stroud, and the production of a 100 volume edition on 4 days, taught by Prisilla Spitler. The 65 participants also visited Booklab, W. Thomas Taylor's Print Shop (home of Bookways), and the HRHRC Conservation Labs in Austin, concluding the tours with a reception at the Texas Memorial Museum, where the first exhibition of the Lone Star Chapter of the Guild of Bookworkers was on display. The local coordinators for PBI '93 were Gary Frost and Mary Baughman.

Jim Stroud attended the Research Librarians' Group Preservation Planning Commission's Meeting in Washington, D.C., from June 7th through June 9th.

Sally Shelton participated in the ICCROM Scientific Principles of Conservation course (where she also lectured) in Rome, Italy at the end of May, presented a paper at the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections in Calgary in June, and attended the certification course in geological conservation at Cambridge University, England, from June 14th to August 8th.

Jessica Johnson returned this summer to serve as the site conservator at an archaeological excavation in Gordion, Turkey from June 21st through July 31st.

On June 23rd, Marilyn Lenz, Sara McElroy, and Karen Pavelka gave a presentation on the practical applications of chemistry in objects, paintings, and paper conservation at a conference for the association of Texas high school chemistry teachers, held at the University of Texas in Austin.

Judy Aitker completed her year long internship in the Paper conservation Department at the HRHRC in July, and departed directly for Bucharest to participate in the conservation for Romania Program before returning to the Durham County Archives in England.

Chris Shelton, a graduate of the University of Delaware/Winterthur Conservation Program, who was hired last year as Assistant Decorative Arts Conservator at the Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has been working with Steve Pine on research and non-invasive upholstery techniques for 60 pieces of furniture in the museum's collection. Dave Arnold, a 3rd year furniture major from the Winterthur program, has also been working in the lab on a 2 month summer work project with a focus on upholstery projects.

Andrew Robb, a second-year photograph conservation major at the University of Delaware/Winterthur Art Conservation Program, was a summer intern in the Photography Department at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth. The internship involved surveying negative and color transparency collections, providing advanced training for the preparation staff, performing minor treatments, and conducting an experiment concerning the sensitivity of dye transfer prints to immersion in water.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center had 3 interns in the Conservation Department this summer: Pricilla Anderson from the Winterthur Program, Victoria Bunting from the Queens Programme, and Alexandra Greathead from the Camberwell School Program in London.

Lisa Merz, a first-year student in the Buffalo Program, was a summer intern in the Conservation Department at the Dallas Museum of Art. Her internship focused on the restoration of a 52 x 12 foot mosaic mural that was transferred to the museum from a building that was being demolished.

The Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will reopen in mid-September after completion of a major 3-year renovation project. Renovations include a HVAC system with carbon filters and exhibition lighting activated by hand-held infrared remote controls and lowered when exiting the rooms. Most of the improvements were overseen by Wynne Phelen. An article in the September issue of the magazine "Antiques" will highlight the collection, renovation project, and interpretive changes based on conservation research.

Kory Berrett, objects conservator from Oxford, PA, will begin a detailed conservation survey of the silver at Bayou Bend in July as part of an IMS funded collection assessment project. Heidi Gerstacker, Conservation Technician for Metals, will be assisting Kory.

R. E. Childs, Head of Conservation at the National Museum of Wales, will be teaching a short course at the University of Texas in Austin from September 27 to October 1st. The course, covering biodeterioration and insect pest control in collections, is the first in a new series of professional development courses to be offered by the Texas Memorial Museum in association with the International Academic Projects based in London. For more information, call 512/471-6090.

The 12th International Corrosion Congress will be held in Houston from September 19th-24th on the theme: "Corrosion Control for Low Cost Reliability." For more information, contact the ICC at 713/492-0535.

We are sorry to learn that Mark van Gelder will not be continuing as WAAC regional reporter. At the end of August, Mark will be leaving his position as Assistant Conservator for the Huntington Art Gallery at the University of Texas in Austin to pursue other opportunities. We thank him for his dedication and hope he will redirect his energies to starting a thriving private practice. After August, Mark can be reached at 512/458-9809. Anyone interested in gathering conservation news for the Texas region should contact the WAAC Regional News Editor.

Regional Reporter:

Mark Van Gelder
Huntington Art Gallery
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1205
512/471-7324