Volume 17, Number 2 .... May 1995

Regional News

ARIZONA

Gloria Giffords, Fraser-Giffords Conservation, worked with the Consejo National Para Conservation de Bienes Cultural de Guatemala in Antigua during July and August. She led a group of local conservators, interns and students through Northern Senora, Mexico in February examining architectural characteristics and iconography of numerous Franciscan mission churches. Erica Henry has been working part-time as a pre-program intern at F-G C since September, in addition to working with several other conservators in the Tucson area.

Jim Roberts, NPS-WACC Center, has developed and is testing two new pieces of lab equipment with assistance by Dr. Werner Zimmt and Grace Katterman. One is a Metal Washer, designed for removing chlorides from archeological iron by cycles of automated intensive washing, and the second involves developing a protocol for the textile suction table (the platen manufactured by Duane Chartier). Gretchen Voeks is continuing the in-house computerized condition survey for metals, completing over 15,000 objects in 2592 records.

Linda Morris, Morris Painting Studio, is treating the large painting at the San Pedro Chapel in Tucson as part of a larger restoration project of the structure.

Nancy Odegaard, Arizona State Museum, is back after a year long sabbatical that took her to New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and England. Patty Grewe-Mullins, Buffalo State College, and Matthew Crawford, U. of Delaware-Winterthur, are third year interns in the lab. Other interns include Aniko Bezur (Hungary), UA graduate student in materials science; Elisa Del Bono (Argentina), UA graduate student in preservation architecture; and Kristina Ackley (Onieda), UA graduate student in American Indian Studies. The lab has a major project underway with retired chemist, Dr. Werner Zimmt, carrying out a systematic and uniformly formatted compilation of spot tests for materials characterization.

Laraine Daly-Jones, Arizona Historical Society, and Nancy Odegaard discussed MAP's and CAP's at the Museum Association of Arizona meetings in Yuma.

Regional reporter:

NEW MEXICO

Dale Kronkright recently returned to the Conservation Section at the Museum of New Mexico after presenting a week of lectures and labs on the conservation of plant materials at the Buffalo State Art Conservation Department.

Landis Smith completed the first phase of an extensive technical study of Mimbres ceramics (Southwestern prehistoric) in which correlations between paint stability, surface condition, degree of polish and original firing temperature were investigated.

Ellen Rosenthal, the Museum of New Mexico's Getty Fellow in the conservation of anthropological materials, along with Denise Scott and Elizabeth Gorman, pre-program interns from the Institute of American Indian Art, completed treatments and analysis of Plains Indians materials for an exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Ellen is initiating her research project on the technologies and conservation needs of Spanish Colonial and American Indian painted hides. Denise is conducting research to document the chronology of materials and tools used by Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo silversmiths.

Molly Mehaffy completed conservation treatments for a major traveling exhibit by the Museum of International Folk Art and the Museum of New Mexico Traveling Exhibition Program entitled Recycled - Re-seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap. Objects included complex composites of recycled tinned containers, plastic dolls, glass light bulbs, mirrors, soft drink bottle caps and a myriad of commercial and household product packages.

As part of the March lecture series at the Vail Arts Center, Susan Barger gave talks on general collections care and the detection of art fakes and forgeries.

Under a grant from the Institute for Museum Services, Steven Prins & Co. conducted a survey of paintings at the Red Rocks Park Museum in Gallup, NM in April. Steven is currently working on a large wall piece by Larry Rivers constructed of PVC, patent leather, and felt with silkscreen printing and painting. If anyone has worked on similar pieces by Rivers, Steve would appreciate hearing from you at (505)983-2328.

Regional Reporter:

TEXAS

Richard Trela, Panhandle-Plains Museum, Canyon, gave a talk, to the United Campus Ministries. He has also been working on artifacts for a new exhibit Panhandle's Attic including a 1939 plaster life cast and a Victorian sling rocking horse.

John Dennis, Dallas Museum of Art, gave a seminar for the College Art Association, Scientific Analysis of Materials Used in 20th Century Sculpture. Barbara Roberts recently visited to work on restoration of a Spanish Colonial tortoise shell and mother of pearl chest.

Mark Van Gelder, Austin, has been appointed Conservation Coordinator for Phase II of SOS by the Texas Historical Commission. He will be administrating contracts for the treatment of sculptures identified in the SOS Survey. For more information on the project he can be reached at (512)463-6094.

Karen Motylewski has been appointed to the position, Director of Preservation and Conservation Studies, Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas, Austin.

Kathy Hall has joined the staff in the Materials Conservation Lab, Texas Memorial Museum, UT Austin. She will be working on the Invertebrate Paleontology Collections. Previously, Kathy was Assistant Conservator, for the Agora Excavations at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens and she also worked for the Leicestershire Archaeological Service, UK.

The Materials Conservation Laboratory and International Academic Projects, London, co-sponsored the course Cleaning Museum Galleries and Their Contents taught by Bob Child, National Museum of Wales.

Barbara Brown, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, was the program chair for the AIC Photographic Materials Group meeting in Washington, D.C. Mary Baughman gave birth to a baby girl, Iris Margaret, February 18, 1995.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center has a new nine month intern in paper, book, and photo conservation, Christine Gutzmer. Christine is the paper conservator for the Municipal Archives in Freiburg, Germany.

Regional reporter:

OKLAHOMA

Gayle S. Clements is preparing the painting Frank Hamilton Cushing by Thomas Eakins for loan to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden of the Smithsonian Institution for May 22-Dec. 3, 1995. Paintings by the artist George Catlin will continue to be treated by the conservation department in preparation for a definitive catalog of Gilcrease Museum's Catlin collections. The catalog is being prepared by the Director, Dr. Joan Troccoli. Forty photogravures by the photographer Edward S. Curtis were matted and framed by the conservation department for a loan to the National Wildlife Art Museum in Wyoming. Other projects include addressing collection storage areas.

An IMS Survey was conducted at Gilcrease Museum by Wendy Jessup and Associates, Inc. in December, 1994. The survey addressed environmental concerns for the collections and the building. The survey also helped generate the conservation department's Report on the Status of the Collection and the Conservation Department.

Karen Tidwell, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Conservation Center Paper Conservator, wrote two technical bulletins for the Oklahoma Museums Association Newsletter entitled, Guidelines for Matting and Framing Paper and Photographs. Part III of the technical bulletin is being circulated in Spring 1995. Karen's shared expertise on this subject matter is much appreciated by the subscribers of the newsletter.

Regional Reporter:

SAN DIEGO

The Balboa Art Conservation Center reports that Laura Downey, Assistant Paper Conservator and Elisabeth Reissner, Paintings Intern, attended the conference Preserving Art for the Future: The Necessity and the Controversy at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, on January 28, 1995.

Monica Jaworski, Peregrine Brushes and Tools, had her office/showroom open for the ARTWALK weekend, April 8th and 9th. She exhibited her own recent paintings, in addition to displays of brushes and other items from her catalogue.

Regional Reporter:

HAWAI'I

Dana Olores, Bishop Museum Collections Care Intern, is currently in New Zealand at the Museum Te Papa Tongarewa, and will visit Karen Coote at Australian Museum. He also attended a seminar on NAGPRA sponsored by the University of Nevada. Linda Hee treated canoe models and other artifacts from the Bishop Museum's collection for an exhibit on voyaging in the Pacific. Laura Gorman reviewed grant applications to the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Tracy Power came from San Francisco to treat 6 oversize bronze relief sculptures at the Bishop Museum.

Greg Thomas cleaned two murals at McCoy Pavillion at Ala Moana Beach Park, and Glenn Wharton spent a week in early February treating the outdoor bronze statue of King Kalakaua in a small park in Waikiki. Both projects were under the auspices of the Mayor's Office on Culture and the Arts.

Laurence Pace, assisted by Sanit Khewok, treated 2 painted outdoor metal sculptures at the Contemporary Museum. Nothing Too Strange and Beautiful by Jedd Garet and Dropped Bra by Tom Wesselman had suffered from the effects of the humid environment, intense sunlight, pigeons, geckos, weedwackers, and in the case of Dropped Bra, fondling by museum visitors.

Katie Untch, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, was at the Honolulu Academy of Arts to oversee the installation of Tomb Treasures from China: Buried Art of Ancient Xi'an.

Regional reporter:

GREATER LOS ANGELES AND SANTA BARBARA

In June, the National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) will formalize Zora Pinney's status as legend, by inducting her into their Hall of Fame. Congratulations and well-deserved!

Mary Piper Hough, paintings conservator with Tatyana Thompson and Associates, and WAAC's Secretary/ Treasurer, will be attending the Masters Degree Program in Art Conservation at Queen's University. She will be in the advanced program which emphasizes research for approximately one year, beginning this September.

During the heavy spring rains on the night of March 10, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art experienced a flash flood in their Asian collection storage. Glenn Wharton and Sasha Stollman worked through the weekend to set up a drying program for the 30 affected rolled thangkas and scrolls, a group of framed art works and assorted objects. Victoria Blyth-Hill was consulted during the process and arrived at the Museum to evaluate the situation on Monday, March 13, along with Catherine McLean and Irena Calinescu, after waiting for the freeway to reopen between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

Sasha Stollman is leaving Wharton & Griswold Associates to establish a conservation laboratory at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Museum, which opened in 1870, holds extensive collections of Maori and other Polynesian artifacts, European historic objects and natural history specimens. Her new address, as of July, 1995, is: Canterbury Museum, Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch, New Zealand. Phone/FAX: 64-3-366-8379. (e-mail TBA!) This will be the last issue for Sasha as WAAC Regional News Reporter for Santa Barbara/L.A., and we want to thank her for her contribution to the Newsletter and wish her all the best in her new position. We are also in need of a new regional reporter to take over for Sasha!

John Griswold spent two weeks in Egypt in preparation for writing conservation specifications for the polychrome and inlaid stonework and metal work of the mosque and sabil of Sultan Faraj Ibn Barquq in Historic Cairo. John is acting as a consultant to the Egyptian Antiquities Project of the American Research Center in Egypt.

The Paintings Conservation Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum is acting as joint host along with the Getty Conservation Institute in sponsoring a Symposium on the Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, to be held at the GCI from 24-28 April, 1995. Thomas Berger, a paintings conservator from Prague, Czechoslovakia, will be a guest of the department for three months beginning in July. He will be working on paintings from the collection of the Prague Castle.

The Symposium on Historical Painting Techniques, Materials and Studio Practice which will take place in Leiden, The Netherlands, will include a lecture by Andrea Rothe on Mantegna's technique, and a poster by Héléne DuBois on a late 15th century tüchlein painting from the Veneto. Andrea will also deliver a public lecture at the Getty Museum on May 4, describing the restoration of Titian's Venus and Adonis.

Two new staff have been added to the department of Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation at the Getty Museum. Adrienne Pamp, mountmaker, comes to the Getty after six years in the preparations department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Abby Hykin, Assistant Conservator, returns to California after receiving a conservation degree at Buffalo State College. Abby interned at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and then spent two years in Boston at the Fogg Art Museum, the MFA, and in private practice with T.K. McClintock. Montserrat LeMense is interning in the Getty Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation Department. Montserrat is spending the year studying the techniques and conservation of painted and gilded surfaces. In March, her research took her to Paris to study Decorative Arts and to Barcelona to study altarpieces. Joe Godla has been promoted to Associate Conservator in the department of Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation at the Getty Museum. Joe is presently working with Giselle Haven of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum on a project to reupholster twelve pieces of 18th c. French seating furniture. They will be using a non-interventive technique which does not require nailing.

The French period rooms at the Getty have been deinstalled for conservation work in preparation for their reinstallation in the new Getty Center. This project has been on-going for ten years. To prepare for the treatments, which will be carried out by French and American conservators, the department has done extensive research and documentation both to insure that the reinstallations are true to the original and to ensure that the treatments comply with the their requirements.

In January, Jane Bassett organized a meeting between scientists, conservators and curators to discuss issues relating to the use of thermoluminescence dating for European Sculpture.

Scott M. Haskins, Giancarla Zanardi, and Janice Fitzpatrick of Fine Art Conservation Laboratories in Santa Barbara, have been involved in a number of projects including conservation and reinstallation of 80 paintings in the Spanish Art Gallery at the Mission Inn in Riverside; conservation of a 30' x 90' mural at Port Hueneme in Oxnard, executed in house paint on acoustical tile in 1946 by a serviceman stationed there; and conservation of the decorative mural frieze in the Vestibule of La Casa Grande at Hearst Castle. Scott spent 5 weeks in Italy last fall visiting conservators, and while standing in line for a Vivaldi concert in Venice, realized the person in front of him was Eleanor McMillan. Scott just completed his sixth year teaching a class on preservation of family historical items at a local city college. He is preparing to write a book on the same subject.

Mark Watters, Robert Aitchison and Lisa Forman completed conservation of 18 Rudolph M. Schindler architectural drawings from the University Art Museum Collection at U.C.S.B. for an exhibition at the Kunsthalle, Wien, Austria.

Margo McFarland, NYU student, began working in the Paper Conservation Lab at LACMA in March, to complete the IMS funded survey of the Japanese woodblock print collection. Margo is a fourth-year intern in the Paper Conservation Section of the Library of Congress and she is taking a leave-of-absence to complete the survey in Los Angeles, returning to LC in May. Jodie Utter, pre-program intern from Seattle, Washington, is volunteering in the Paper Conservation Lab at LACMA during April/May. In preparation for entering a conservation training program, Jodie has worked with Alice Bear, Peter Malarkey, Sara Melching, Patricia Leavengood and Jonathan Taggart in Seattle. Her work at LACMA will include assisting in the condition reporting, treatment and installation of the Annette Messager multi-media exhibition and the Cirrus Retrospective exhibition of graphic art from LACMA's collection. Lisa Forman, Assistant Paper Conservator at LACMA, will be traveling extensively this year with a photograph exhibition The Camera I: Photographic Self Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection. The challenging travel schedule, from Ohio to Denmark in the winter, and North Carolina to Japan in the summer months, will surely raise an interesting set of environmental problems and solutions. Many aspects of the travel and exhibitions are being monitored and hopefully will result in a presentation for the WAAC membership in the future. Lisa also attended the Photo Materials Group Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. in March. Victoria Blyth-Hill, Senior Paper Conservator, is also traveling with a LACMA organized exhibition, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India. After closing at LACMA in January, the show opened at the Kimball Museum in Ft. Worth in March, and will continue on to New Orleans and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The exhibition includes many large scale painted textiles and small manuscript pages and paintings, as well as wooden, stone and bronze sculpture. Victoria worked with Textile Conservator Catherine McLean, Textile Conservator, and Shelley Svoboda, Paintings Conservator, to resolve display, installation and transport issues for the works on paper and textiles. Victoria intends to present an overview of the exhibition and cross-specialty cooperation in the future.

Meredith Montague, Assistant Textile Conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, spent two weeks of her vacation working on contract in LACMA's textile conservation laboratory. She assisted Cara Varnell with the conservation of wedding dresses for the April 1995 exhibition, Fashion and Fantasy: Dressing the American Bride. Irena Calinescu and Jean Neeman assisted the staff of LACMA's textile conservation laboratory with the upholstery conservation of thirty-five American 18th and 19th century chairs and settees. During this intense four month project, they developed improved methods for carving high density Ethafoam, and attaching decorative trim and nail heads.

The objects conservation lab at LACMA recently designed and installed seismic mounts on all sculptures in the exhibition Jain Art: The Peaceful Liberators. After closing at LACMA, Steve Colton traveled to Ft. Worth to install the exhibition at the Kimball Art Museum. The lab also installed The Figure in American Sculpture; a Question of Modernity. The show originated at LACMA and runs Feb. 26 through April 30. The sculptures cover a period from the turn of the century to Pre-World War II. The lab completed approximately 30 treatments and designed 100 seismic mounts. John Hirx is taking 40 objects from the Arthur Gilbert Collection to the Israel Museum for the exhibit, Princely Taste and Patronage. John is continuing his research on silver cleaning techniques on ancient and historic silver and gold. Maureen Russell completed a lengthy treatment on an important 4th century Sassanian silver and gilt bowl. The treatment included cleaning, electrolytic reduction and loss compensation. Mina Gregory is continuing her pre-program internship with the lab.

A number of large 18th century portraits in the LACMA collection are currently undergoing restoration. Senior Paintings Conservator Joe Fronek recently completed the restoration of LACMA's latest Ahmanson gift, an important grand tour portrait painting by Pompeo Batoni. The full length Portrait of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham, 6th Bt. went on view in the museum's European galleries at the beginning of March. In February, LACMA's American Arts Council attended a lecture by Emily Ballew Neff, Assistant Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on the work of John Singleton Copley. Ms. Neff is writing for the catalogue of the upcoming exhibition, John Singleton Copley in England, organized by the Houston MFA. Following the lecture, guests were invited to the paintings conservation studio to view two of LACMA's Copleys, Portrait of a Lady and Portrait of Hugh Montgomerie, Later Twelfth Earl of Eglington. Joe Fronek presented a talk on comparisons of the two portraits in terms of technique. The large full-length Portrait of Hugh Montgomerie, which will be featured in the Houston exhibition, is currently undergoing restoration in the studio.

Jo Hill at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History continues to travel with the highly popular Royal Tombs of Sipan exhibition of royal Peruvian artifacts of gold and other materials (New York, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.). Mary Gissing, postgraduate intern at FMCH, returned to the laboratory in early March after taking a month-long break from her internship to work at an archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates. Volunteers Andy Williams, Natale Majkut, Rachel Norris, and Suzanne Zimmer are assisting Jo in preparing a collection of headrests to embark on a traveling exhibition circuit. Jim Neal, pre-training conservation intern, started work in the laboratory in February.

As of January 1, Donna Williams became co-director of the Sculpture Conservation Studio. In March, Donna lectured on conservation of metal sculpture at a training workshop on outdoor sculpture preservation in Tallahassee. The workshop was jointly sponsored by the National Parks Service and SOS!

Rosa Lowinger was recently appointed to the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission Public Art Committee. Rosa and Viviana Dominguez, Paintings Conservator, attended an international conservation conference in Havana, Cuba, in March. They both wish to thank all of the conservators who contributed materials to the National Conservation Center in Havana. Prior to the conference, Rosa team-taught a Spanish Language course with Elsa Garcia, Conservator of Paintings from the Fundacion ICO, Madrid, Spain. The Course was entitled, Standards for Conservation of Contemporary Art. The Sculpture Conservation Studio would also like to announce that they have three pre-program interns, Rosemary Shambaris, Margot Mentley, and Jim Neal. And Margot who has already been with the Studio a year(!) was just made conservation technician.

ConservArt Associates, headed by Duane Chartier, have been conserving the 1935 mural paintings in the Sunkist Corporate Headquarters in Sherman Oaks, CA, since December , 1994. The paintings represent allegorical California scenes amid orange groves and were painted by Frank Bowers and Arthur Prunier. They are oil on canvas improperly mounted with contact cement on 3/4" plywood. The marouflage was done in the early 70's when the paintings were moved from the original downtown building to the present site. To add insult to injury, two out of four have a double polyurethane varnish which has become so discolored that the color scheme is indiscernible. Treatment included contact cement removal from the face, varnish removal using novel mechanical methods, injections of hot BEVA 371 into large detachments using a specially designed heatable syringe and remounting of the paintings in the company boardroom.

Regional Reporters:

ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION

Eileen Clancy, Rocky Mountain Conservation Center's Conservator of Paper, Parchment and Photographic Materials, spoke to the Civil War Roundtable group at the University of Colorado. The topic was Conservation of Civil War Documents. Eileen is presently working on a major archival document reclamation project for the Sinclair Oil Company.

Victoria Montana Ryan, RMCC Conservator of Paintings, is working on an interesting project involving two very similar Italian copies after Raphael's Madonna della Sedia. Her research may explain the history of the paintings, including how duplicate ornate frames ended up on both paintings and how one painting became part of the Colorado School of Mines collection and the other one part of the University of Denver's collection. D. Hays Shoop, RMCC Conservator of Paintings, visited the University of Oklahoma Museum of Art to perform a survey of the paintings in their State Department collection. M. Randall Ash, Senior Paintings Conservator, is leaving the RMCC to pursue personal interests.

Judy Greenfield, RMCC Object Conservator, and Teresa Knutson, RMCC Textile Conservator, recently completed work on a Lakota Sioux Beaded Dress made by Yellow Bird in 1900. The dress belongs to the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum, and is unique in the fact that the beadwork covers the entire dress, weighing in excess of fifty pounds.

RMCC mailed "Urgent Notices" to museums in the region, requesting that they apply for conservation program funding from IMS, and offering assistance in application procedures. The response has been very good.

The Denver Art Museum received a 1995 IMS grant to survey and rehouse the museum's paper collections, using the services of RMCC Paper Conservator, Eileen Clancy and Archival Preservationist, Wendy Fairchild.

Carl Patterson, Denver Art Museum Conservator, has served as a reviewer for NEA, NEH and the AIC Journal. He has also been a consultant on several projects, including the Interagency Maintenance Task Force for Denver's public art collection, the Denver Department of Waste Water Management art collection and art preservation/security for Denver International Airport.

The Denver Art Museum has a new pre-program intern, Jessica Fletcher. She comes from Gallier House Museum in New Orleans, LA.

Major conservation projects in two new permanent galleries, as well as the refurbishment of older installations, has taken place at the Denver Art Museum. Consultants from the region include Jude Southward and Abigail Mack from the Denver Museum of Natural History, Eileen Clancy from the Rocky Mountain Conservation Center and three conservators in private practice, Keith Bakker, Dawn Wilson and Mark Minor.

Regional Reporter:

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Jodie Utter is working as an intern at the Portland Art Museum. She is involved in a condition survey of the Native American Collection.

Troy Lucas, Lucas Conservation Laboratory, is cleaning the murals in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

Sarah Melching is pleased to announce the opening of Pacific Northwest Paper Conservation Services for Works of Art on Paper, including historic documents and photographs. Her address is PO Box 4794, Seattle, WA 98104; 206/324-5838; cdosem@halcyon.com. In January, Sarah spent two days at the Deschutes County Historical Society in Bend, Oregon, as a consultant for the care and handling of their photographic collection.

Alice Bear Conservation of Works of Art on Paper is finishing a National Endowment for the Arts sponsored survey of the Japanese Woodblock Collection at the Tacoma Art Museum. Washington SOS!, sponsored by CAPNW (Conservation Associates of the Pacific Northwest) is finishing surveys of approximately 600 works of art in Washington State. For more information, contact project coordinator, Alice Bear, at (206)323-5219.

Jack Thompson has his paper mill in Idaho in operation for the season. Caber Press has published the following, Urushi: the Technology of Japanese Lacquer, a reprint of the 1896 work on Japanese lacquering, and Booke of Secrets, a reprint of a 1696 text on the making of inks, with an introduction and technological glossary. Jack is also producing an instructional video on the traditional making of ultramarine using lapis lazuli. For further information call (503)248-0046 or email at: jct@reed.edu.

Regional Reporter:

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

Rumblings stronger than an earthquake in Northern California brought about the revival of the Bay Area Art Conservation Guild. The rumblings started by John Burke, Carrie Ann Calay, and Neil Cockerline generated an ad hoc committee that worked out the details for a general meeting. Over sixty people came from all over the Bay Area to a brunch at the Asian Art Museum on December 3, 1994, hosted by Linda Scheifler Marks. The new BAACG will adopt a simpler format with focus on its local members, including an updated membership directory, social gatherings, and continued access to the George Stout Memorial Conservation Library housed at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda. The core of the George Stout Library was donated by long-time member Robin Tichane. An interim slate of officers was elected at the meeting including President Katie Untch, Vice-president Meg Geiss-Mooney, Membership Secretary Carrie Ann Calay, Recording Secretary Anita Noenig, and Treasurer Kathy Gillis. Anyone interested in becoming a member of the new BAACG Should Contact Carrie Ann at 530 Hampshire Street, Unit 300, San Francisco, CA 94110-1417.

Over 20 conservators from the Bay Area volunteered their time for the Preservation West trade show and educational conference which was held for the first time in San Francisco. This was a unique opportunity for community outreach to discuss the profession, conservation services, standards of practice and ethics. The trade show was held at Fort Mason April 6-9, and benefited The Foundation For San Francisco's Architectural Heritage and The American Decorative Arts Forum of Northern California.

Genevieve Baird attended Restoration '95 in Boston as a representative for Conservation Materials. Genevieve represented the conservator's viewpoint and answered questions about products. In April, Genevieve taught a workshop to volunteers on remedial cleaning of the historic furniture for the recently rebuilt school house at the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma. The school house was completely destroyed a few years ago when a logging truck plowed into it. The volunteers have reconstructed the school house using the original design and salvageable materials.

Anne Rosenthal and Thornton Rockwell worked together at high altitude on the decorative canvas ceiling panels of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago last October. The church is a renowned Neo Gothic landmark on Michigan Avenue, built in 1914, with interior elements designed by Frederick C. Bartlett of Chicago. The church was under full renovation at the time the hard-hatted conservators attended to the reattachment of canvases, reconstruction of missing elements, and the repair of damages associated with water infiltration.

On January 28th, the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums held a Centennial Conference: Preserving Art for the Future, the Necessity and the Controversy. James Bernstein was the moderator for the morning panel presentation, Reclaiming the Artist's Intent: Conservation Treatment and Public Opinion. The panelists were, art historian, James Beck, artist, Joseph Goldyne and conservator, Paul Himmelstein. The conference was well attended by WAAC members from far and wide.

Theresa Andrews spoke on Preserving Your Photographic Collections at a meeting of the Mid-Peninsula History Consortium in March. The consortium consists of museums and historical societies, and the public was invited to the lecture.

David Skipsey has taken the position of Assistant Paintings Conservator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Prior to joining the permanent staff in February, David worked on the reinstallation of the European Collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. David will be concentrating on five particularly significant paintings in preparation for the reopening of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco; he is currently treating The Fortune Teller by Jacques-Louis David and Portrait of a Gentleman by Nicolas de Largillierre. Patricia O'Regan joined the Painting Conservation Studio in September. She has recently completed an NEA/Mellon internship in the Paintings Conservation Department at the Boston MFA. At FAMSF, her top priority has been the preparation of the collection for reinstallation at the Legion of Honor. Also, she has been assisting Carl Grimm and the staff with the preparation of the Bay Area Landscape Exhibit opening in June 1995. Elise Effman and Amy Henderson, pre-program interns, have likewise been helping in preparation of paintings for the Landscape Exhibit.

Sara Gates is enrolled in a textile class at San Francisco State University, learning about fiber and fabric from textile manufacturers and designers points of view. The museum has a strong collection of 20th c. haute couture costume and she hopes that the course will give her a greater understanding of the synthetic materials used in pieces from the collection. Susan Schmalz from the Buffalo State Art Conservation Department will be interning in the textile lab this summer with funding from both the FAMSF and the Textile Arts Council. She comes to the lab with the aid of Dale Kronkright and previous conservation experience at the Textile Conservation Workshop in South Salem, NY and the Richmond Conservation Studio in Richmond, VA. The textile lab has final confirmation from the NEA on a treatment grant to conserve The Triumph of Fortitude, one of the museum's prized early 16th c. Belgium tapestries from the Seven Virtues series. It is extremely large, 15' x 19', and will be worked on using the lab's new custom-built Shannock tapestry frame, purchased with funds from an NEA equipment grant. Theresa Heady, newly in from the east coast will be training and overseeing the museum's 15 volunteers on the project.

Denise Krieger-Migdail, a contract conservator in the textile lab, has recently been hired through a generous private gift to undertake the cleaning and conservation support on a fragment from the tapestry, The Burial of Saint Peter, from The Life of St. Peter series, 15th c. It will be a challenge as it has a large amount of overpainting and has been in Florida for several years before coming into the FAM collection. It is hoped that it will go on exhibition with the re-opening of the new Legion of Honor in November 1995.

The de Young museum is continuing to battle pest and rodent infestations. Michael Wolfe of RODEX has been extremely helpful. Thanks to Mark Gilberg, recently departed for the deep south, the labs are set up to freeze or use ageless or nitrogen, depending on the art object and its size.

Bob Futernick and Pauline Mohr taught a two week course on paper conservation techniques from March 27 - April 7, at the Corso Europeo di Formazione per conservatori-restauratori di beni librari in Spoleto, Italy. Bob taught the first half of the course and Pauline taught the last few days.

Paloma García-Añoveros, currently an intern in the conservation studio at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was accepted into the Advanced-Level Training Program in paintings conservation at the Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard University Art Museums. She will begin in September, and in the meantime, she is completing her graduate degree in Museum Studies at the John F. Kennedy University in Orinda. She previously completed a four year graduate level paintings conservation degree from the Official Superior School of Conservation and Restoration in Madrid, Spain.

In March, John Burke, Janice Mae Schopfer and Neil Cockerline lectured on conservation, sponsored by an auxiliary group of the Oakland Museum. John spoke on conservation philosophy and ethics in general, Janice spoke on paper conservation, and Neil spoke on paintings conservation for the private collector. The public was invited, and a reception followed where people could ask questions individually.

Neil Cockerline spent a week in Las Vegas during February, visiting potential hotels to host the 1996 WAAC Annual Meeting. While there, he met with Vicki Cassman, who has volunteered to act as the local arrangements committee to work with Neil in planning the meeting. Vicki and Neil visited the Liberace Museum and the new Debbie Reynolds Museum of Hollywood Memorabilia in April, scouting for a reception host. Pencil in October 6-9, 1996, for a WAAC Meeting you won't want to miss!

This is the last issue for WAAC Regional Reporter Theresa Andrews. Theresa has her hands full enough with her son, August, and her private practice in photography conservation. We bid Theresa a fond farewell, and shower her with appreciation for a job well done. We are pleased to welcome Ria German as the new San Francisco Bay Area Regional Reporter for the WAAC Newsletter. She may be contacted at the Elise S. Haas Conservation Studio, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-3159, telephone (415)357-4050.

Regional Reporter: