Volume 18, Number 1 .... January 1996

Regional News

TO ALL MEMBERS:
Don't wait to be asked! Always feel free to send news to your regional reporter, or to me. Your WAAC colleagues are interested in what's happening in your professional life and workplace.
Elizabeth C. Welsh, Vice President

NEW MEXICO

Elizabeth Gorman de Romero has begun a McCune Preprogram Internship at the Museum of New Mexico. She and Claire Munzenrider continue to study fabrication techniques of 18th- and 19th-century bultos from the museum's collections, using real-time x-ray fluoroscopy.

David Rasch and Paul Smutco have the Museum of New Mexico's 210-cubic-foot nitrogen anoxia bubble up and running and are treating a wide variety of art and artifacts for insect infestation.

Bettina Raphael has been collaborating with Toby Raphael in conducting a conservation needs assessment of 4 museum collections managed by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Dept. of the Interior in Oklahoma, Montana, South Dakota, and Washington, DC.

ARIZONA

Jim Roberts, NPS-WACC, has received an Albright grant to study paper conservation at the New England Document Conservation Center.

Grace Katterman (NPS-WACC) and Nanette Skov spent several weeks over the summer working with archaeologists from the California Institute for Peruvian Studies at Bella Union, Peru. They have been invited to stabilize a rare Paracas manta at the Museo Regional de Ica next summer and will be taking students. Gretchen Voeks (NPS-WACC) has recently completed a survey at Death Valley Nat'l. Monument and is working with Nancy Odegaard (ASM) on the Tucson Public Art Maintenance Task Force.

Matthew Crawford has been hired as assistant conservator at Arizona State Museum to work on a National Science Foundation project to improve documentation and preservation of archaeological perishables in the collection. Interns in the ASM lab include Terry Moreno, graduate student in archaeology, and Traci Morris, an intern from the U. of Arizona's American Indian Studies graduate program.

Gloria Giffords recently completed the intensive study academy at Rutgers University entitled, Spain in the New World: Cross Cultural Connections 1550-1750. Amanda Hunter is presently interning with Gloria at Fraser-Giffords Art Conservation in Tucson.

HAWAI'I

Linda Hee, Tropic Lightning Museum, has volunteered her expertise on fiber identification for the Honolulu Academy of Arts Hawaiian Quilts Research Project.

The NEA-funded conservation of the Honolulu Acad. of Art's Savage Rose, by Richard Pousette-Dart, has been completed by Pace Art Conservation Enterprises, Inc. (Laurence A. Pace), and the painting is now on display in the Luce Gallery. The Honolulu Academy of Art has been awarded IMS Conservation Project funding to upgrade the framing of 100 paintings in its collection. The work will be carried out by P.A.C.E., Inc.

Michele Pagan has accepted the position of conservator for the ethnology collections move at the Bishop Museum. Michele was most recently the project director for the Vermont Collection Care Program, a project of the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance. She is a textile conservator and a Professional Associate of AIC.

The long-term survey and conservation project of the James Michener Collection of Japanese Prints (ukiyo-e) at the Honolulu Academy of Arts has completed its third year. Conservator Susan Sayre Batton has treated 2,300 prints since the project began in 1992 and continues as project manager from Los Angeles, with quarterly trips to Honolulu. Technician Susan Thomas has surveyed and upgraded storage for more than 4,800 prints and works full time in Honolulu.

On October 28th the Honolulu Acad. of Arts opens the exhibition: Spellbound Legends: Japanese Prints Depicting Ghosts & Myths, curated by Susan Sayre Batton. This exhibition will display Kuniyoshi prints from the 1840's, recently disbound from an album and treated. Bound by a collector in 1883 in no apparent order, the prints have retained their original, vibrant color. Spellbound Legends includes an explanation of the conservation process and before-treatment color prints.

Greg Thomas has been treating paintings for the Hawaii Judiciary History Center, the State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, and private collectors. Greg's recent work has included contemporary paintings by John Young and Louis Pohl, portraits by George Torrey and Shirley Russell, as well as landscapes by David Tagami and D. Howard Hitchcock.

Downey Manoukian is beginning a private practice in paper conservation, having recently left Bishop Museum Conservation Services. She can be reached by writing PO Box 1609, Waianae, HI 96792; voice mail: (808)291-1298.

John Griswold, of Wharton Griswold Associates (Santa Barbara), was in Hawaii for one week conserving an outdoor bronze equestrian sculpture by the artist Botero at the estate of a private collector in Kahala. The sculpture had suffered chloride damage due to its close proximity to the ocean.

TEXAS

Cheryl Carrabba, paper conservator, Austin, worked for 1 week on contract to the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle. Together with Carolina Veenstra, a Seattle bookbinder, she outlined treatment approaches for hundreds of collection maps to receive much-needed tape removal. Cheryl married David, October 14, 1995.

Mark Van Gelder, paintings conservator, Austin, is working on a group of portraits for the Capital Restoration Project, sponsored by the Texas State Preservation Board.

Anne Zanikos, paintings conservator, San Antonio, is treating a portrait of Brigadier General Brooke, historical commander of Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston.

Perry Huston (Perry Huston and Associates) is performing an on-site survey of paintings at the Marion Koogler McNay Museum in San Antonio. He has completed work on the Library of Congress murals and is currently working on-site with his conservation team (Debra Seldon, Larry Keck, and Maura Duffy) at the Allen County Courthouse, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, on murals painted by Charles Holloway in 1902. Holly White completed remounting and reframing three large Vuillard pastels, an oversize Frank Stella collage, and an oversize Frank Stella print. Helen Houp completed work on several portraits belonging to the State of Texas for the Capital Restoration Project.

The conservation labs of the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) are hosting numerous interns. Judith Emprechtinger is an Austrian graduate conservation student from the Instituto per l' Arte e il Restauro, Firenze, Italy. Alexandra Greathead is from the Camberwell Conservation Program, London, England. Emmanuelle Grosso is a student from the Universite Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne, Paris, France. Christine Gutzmer, Stardichiv Freiburg, Germany, is finishing a 9-month mid-career internship. Maria Angela Machado is a Brazilian graduate of Associacao Brasileira de Encadernacao e Restauro, San Paulo, Brazil. Barbara Reed is a Canadian graduate conservation student from the Queen's Art Conservation Programme, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

The Preservation and Conservation Studies conservator and preservation administrator students at the University of Texas at Austin's Graduate School of Library and Information Science hosted an open house for the Friends of the Dard Hunter Annual Meeting on Friday, October 13, 1995. This was an opportunity to show the lab facilities and the students work to those in the related field of papermaking. The Friends of Dard Hunter also visited the HRC Conservation Labs and Booklab. Karen Pavelka (HRC) gave a talk during the visit.

Jessie Johnson, Materials Conservation Laboratory (MCL), Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin, was an invited speaker at The Practical Impact of Science on Field Archaeology, sponsored by The Weiner Laboratory, University of Cyprus, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, in Nicosia, Cyprus, July 22-23, 1995. Kathy Hall, natural history conservator for the MCL, completed a condition survey of objects and housings in the invertebrate paleontology collection. This information will be used to identify problems in the collection and develop a long-term program for improved care.

For the third consecutive year, the Conservation Center of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum is the recipient of a general operating support grant from the Amarillo Area Foundation. Richard Trela, senior paintings conservator and director of the conservation center, completed 2 NIC-CAP assessments: one for Hutchinson County Historical Museum, Borger, Texas, and the other for the Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, Montana. Richard also co-conducted a CAP workshop for members of the Texas Panhandle Resource Sharing Consortium.

OKLAHOMA

Gayle Clements, conservator at the Gilcrease Museum, gave a session in September at the Northern Oklahoma Science/Math Teachers Workshop sponsored by Conoco in Ponca City, Oklahoma. The session was: Identifying Textiles as Safe or Unsafe for Exhibit Cases in a Museum. A session was also given at the Oklahoma Museums Association annual fall conference in September about the Gilcrease Museum's Textile Rehousing Project, which is being conducted with volunteers under the supervision of Gayle Clements. Over 400 textiles are being rehoused.

The Oklahoma Conservation Congress met at the Philbrook Museum in November. The program theme was: Disasters and Your Plan. A tour of the Philbrook followed.

COLORADO

The Rocky Mountain Conservation Center (RMCC) reports that Lori Mellon attended the October NIC and Field Services Meeting with the ARCC members and NEH in Washington, DC. The focus of the meeting was collaboration. Abigail Mack and Victoria Montana Ryan have served as field service conservators for a CCA grant enabling RMCC to bring conservation services to small and rural museums throughout Colorado. Victoria and Eileen Clancy attended the MPMA conference, presenting topics on preventive conservation of paintings and paper. Diane Danielson and Karen Ashley are perfecting a new system to coordinate all administrative business functions on a computer database. Integrated Pest Management, the 7th in a series of RMRC technical bulletins, was recently sent to over 300 museums.

The Colorado Historical Society is developing 2 new off-site storage facilities:
the Museum Support Center Pueblo is a 14,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the storage of large artifacts and archaeological collections, and the Museum Support Center Denver is a 21,000-square-foot facility acquired as part of the redevelopment of Lowry Air Force Base.

Vance Dickenson, Colorado Artifact Conservation Center, is pleased to report that the inmates of the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility successfully completed the treatment of two Civil War cannons that have been returned to their location at the main entrance of the Colorado State Capitol Building. The treatment project was undertaken as a partnership project of the Colorado Historical Society and the Colorado Department of Corrections.

At the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts, Carmen Bria, chief conservator, and Camilla J. Van Vooren, paintings conservator, completed the conservation and reinstallation of The Hayride Scene, one of three Allen Tupper True murals that were salvaged last year from the Georgia Nelson Building at Graland Country Day School in Denver. The 6-foot by 10-foot mural, which had been painted directly on the plaster wall, was mounted to aluminum honeycomb panel using epoxy resin. Mounted, it weighed in excess of 1,000 pounds. The other two murals remain in storage; conservation treatment on them will commence in the coming year.

Conservator Carl Patterson of the Denver Art Museum performed a CAP survey for the Hotel de Paris, Georgetown, which identified urgent structural problems resulting in a grant application for emergency funding to the State of Colorado. Carl is also pleased to announce the completion of an IMS-funded survey and rehousing project involving the majority of the museum's art on paper. Eileen Clancy, Rocky Mountain Conservation Center's conservator of paper, and Wendy Fairchild, of Archival Preservation, served as consultants.

Linda Merk-Gould and Mayda S. Jensen have recently competed sculpture conservation projects for the City and County of Denver.

Jeanne Brako of the Colorado Historical Society and Carl Patterson are jointly conserving artifacts for Denver's 3-venue exhibit, Colorado: One Land Many Visions, due to open in spring of l996.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

WAAC Newsletter thanks Alice Bear for once again, handling the Pacific Northwest regional reporter responsibilities after Jodie Utter left to attend graduate school. We are pleased to report that Jamie Hascall has volunteered to be the new regional reporter for the area.

Alice Bear has launched a new business, Emergency Supplies for Collections (ESC). Based in Seattle, ESC provides museums, archives, and libraries with professional advice and supplies for emergency response and recovery. Get in touch with Alice for ESC's stock list and description of available services.

Jamie Hascall spent the month of August consulting on the seismic-mitigation object mounting needs for the upcoming America's Smithsonian Exhibition, a 60,000-square-foot exhibit that will tour 12 cities. He also led a mountmaking seminar for the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames, Iowa, and is currently building mounts for the Anchorage Museums Association's exhibit, Living Tradition of Yup ik Masks.

Jack Thompson has been making copperas and cooking oak galls in preparation for an article on the manufacture of writing ink for Disputatio: An International Transdisciplinary Journal of the Late Middle Ages. The Caber Press, the publishing division of Thompson Conservation Laboratory, has recently enlarged its offerings; write or call for a catalog. Jack was also featured last September in two radio broadcasts on NPR, in the Engines of Our Ingenuity series by John Lienhard at the University of Houston. One broadcast addressed the question -Just what is a conservator conserving? and involved a visit to Thompson Conservation Laboratory; the other explained the history that led to the use of wood pulp for papermaking.

Troy G. Lucas reports that Lucas Conservation is finishing work on a collection of Howard Sewall paintings for Timberline Lodge in Government Camp, Oregon, and will soon begin work on 7 Emil Jacques murals for St. Mary's Cathedral in Portland. Art student Vicki Paries, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, has joined the Lucas Conservation staff.

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) received a 1995 IMS Conservation Special Projects grant to establish a storage and research room for Asian, European, and American textile collections at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Sandra Troon (Oregon Textile Workshop) is the consulting conservator for the project. The museum will be hiring half-time collection assistants for the art-move phase.

Julie Creahan, conservation technician/collection care manager at SAM, is taking a year's leave during 1996 to accompany her husband for a year of dissertation research in Costa Rica. She is interested in volunteering on a conservation project there-please contact her if you know of appropriate opportunities. During Julie's leave, Marta Pinto-Llorca will be the acting collection care manager at SAM.

SAN DIEGO

Bruce Kamerling, curator of collections for the San Diego Historical Society, died peacefully in his sleep on October 17, 1995, after a long illness. Mr. Kamerling was a noted painter, sculptor, art historian, and author. He had been a member of WAAC since 1977. A memorial service was held at the Marston House Museum, Balboa Park, a historic house that he had been responsible for restoring.

In October, Monica Jaworski attended the Artivity show at the Pasadena Convention Center, an annual trade show for artists and suppliers of art materials. Demonstrations and workshops were held on such topics as mural painting, faux painting, watercoloring, and air-brushing.

In August, Frances Pritchett, paper conservator in private practice, and Laura Downey, assistant paper conservator at the Balboa Art Conservation Center, attended the Care of Photographic Collections course taught by photograph conservator Gary Albright at the Campbell Center in Mt. Carroll, Illinois.

Regional Reporter:
Frances Pritchett
Paper Conservation
5235 35th Street
San Diego, CA 92116
(619) 283-0368

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

Will Shank, SFMOMA chief conservator, finishes his visiting appointment as a Fulbright Scholar/Getty Fellow at the Tate Gallery, London, in December. He continues his sabbatical as a Getty Fellow in Paintings Conservation at the Centro Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, in Madrid. There, during January, he will be working with chief conservator Pilar Sedano Espin and her staff, studying the early paintings of Salvador Dali.

Recent Bay Area Art Conservation Guild (BAACG) activities have included organizing a panel of conservation professionals at the Western Museums Conference, sponsoring an interspecialty studio tips session for BAACG members, and organizing conservators to participate in educational booths at two upcoming trade shows, Preservation West and Restoration San Francisco. Katharine Untch is BAACG president and Carrie Ann Calay is membership secretary.

The Oakland Museum Conservation Center is pleased to have two new part-time interns in the lab. They are: Stuart Lauters, conservation technician at the California State Archives since 1988, and Christina Bartholomeo, a visiting objects conservator from Madrid, Spain.

John Burke participated in an IMS-funded pest survey, held a training session, and helped in the development of integrated pest management for the Mendocino County Museum. The focus of the training session was on the development of anoxic pest eradication techniques.

This fall, James Bernstein conducted lectures and demonstrations at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts (NYU) and at the State University College at Buffalo: Construction, Care, and Conservation of Painted Modern Works, and Compensation Techniques, What Every Conservator Should Know about Filling and Inpainting.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAM) staff has been busy readying textiles for the opening of the Legion of Honor in November. Of special interest was the radiography of an early 16th-century Italian Brigandine to determine its unusual structure, done in conjunction with the objects conservation lab. Skylights and light levels at the Legion of Honor continue to be a hot topic amongst the FAM staff. The Legion was not designed to exhibit light-sensitive objects, and several members of the conservation staff have been working to find a screening material that will be agreeable to all. Preprogram intern Beth Szuhay has been working one day per week in both the FAM textile and objects labs. She has previous intern experience at St. John the Divine and at the American Museum of Natural History objects lab in New York. She hbeen on maternity leave. Julie will return to the lab in January 1996. Objects conservator Tracy Power will be working full time as an associate conservator beginning in January. Conservator Teresa Heady is working on the rehousing of the textile collection in storage.

Michele Barger has come from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to work with Tracy Power in her private practice.

Neil Cockerline moderated a panel discussion, Streamlining Conservation, for the Western Museum Association's Annual Meeting, held this year in Oakland. The session, organized by Katharine Untch and representing the Bay Area Art Conservation Guild, included panelists Theresa Meyer Andrews, Madeleine Fang, and Meg Geiss-Mooney. The panel discussed how to know when a conservator is needed, how to find a conservator to fit a specific need, and stressed preventative measures and prioritization of collections as a long-term cost savings measure.

GREATER LOS ANGELES AND SANTA BARBARA

WAAC Newsletter thanks Sasha Stollman and John Griswold for serving as regional reporters for the Santa Barbara conservation community. We are pleased to report that Julie Unruh, also of Wharton Griswold Associates, will be the new regional reporter for the area.

Last October, Denise Domergue was a guest speaker at a seminar entitled Caring for Your Art and Artifacts, given at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage.

Mark Watters completed conservation treatments on several works on paper including a Willem de Kooning pastel, a Jasper Johns painting, and an Arshile Gorky oil pastel and graphite drawing for the reopening of the Temporary Contemporary of MOCA.

Cara Varnell, textile conservator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has curated her first museum exhibition, Adrian: The Couture Years, 1942-1952, open until 7 January 1996 in the costume and textile galleries at LACMA.

Aneta Zebala and Debra May, of Aneta Zebala Paintings Conservation, recently completed the conservation treatment of a vandalized mural painting at Pomona College: Prometheus, by Jose Clemente Orozco (1932). They are currently working on another mural painting for Pomona College, Genesis, by Rico Lebrun (1960).

Joanne Page recently finished work on the Gladys English Collection for the LA Public Library, a collection of original art for illustrations in children's books. Her latest project is binding an artist's book that commemorates AIDS victims; the volume went on display in a Santa Monica gallery on December 1, National AIDS Awareness Day. Joanne is also chair of next year's Guild of Bookworkers' Standards Seminar, which will be held October 18 and 19 at the Pasadena Hilton.

Gerri Ann Strickler joined the staff of the Conservation Center at LACMA as a paper and textile conservation technician in August. Gerri received a BA in art conservation from the University of Delaware in December 1994 and intends to pursue a master's degree. During her short time at LACMA, Gerri has prepared an exhibition of over a hundred contemporary prints from the Cirrus Archive for display, initiated a routine monitoring system for works of art on paper and photographs on display in the galleries, and has been working with the curatorial department to remedy problems with temperature, humidity, light levels, and framing.

Jonna Larson, third year student from the Institute of Conservation, Goteborgs University, Sweden, is interning in paper conservation at LACMA under the supervision of Victoria Blyth-Hill. Jonna has been working on a variety of projects, including a group of 18th-century engravings, a portfolio of 12 Mexican lithographs, and modern master prints from the museum's recent Young bequest. She has also worked closely with Lisa Forman and Terry Schaeffer in the monitoring of LACMA's photo collection using its new spectrodensitometer.

At the WAAC Meeting in Sequoia-Montecito, Victoria Blyth-Hill presented Paper Conservation: 1975-1995, a synopsis distilled from a survey of veteran paper conservators and conservation suppliers in the WAAC membership. Terry Schaeffer, paper conservation scientist, presented Use of a Spectrodensitometer to Monitor Changes in Appearance of Modern Gelatin Silver Prints using examples from LACMA's collection of photographs.

Lisa Forman was at the Hara Museum in Japan in October and November for the final venue of Camera I, a photograph exhibition of self-portraits. Lisa was joined in Tokyo by Morten Rhyls, photo conservator at the Museum of Photography in Odense, Denmark. Working with co-chairman Mark Roosa, chief preservation officer at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Lisa also has been preparing for the December 11, 1995 LAPNET symposium on Exhibits, Loans, and Preservation: Maintaining a Delicate Balance. The symposium is directed to librarians and collections with little experience in loaning works of art and who have low budgets.

Susan Sayre Batton is back at LACMA 2 days a week for a year-long IMS-funded survey of the rare books and portfolios in the Robert Gore Rifkind Collection of German Expressionist Art. Susan has designed a survey form specifically for this collection, which outlines condition and sets conservation and curatorial priorities. In June, Susan left the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies (LACPS), where she was associate director for 2 years. Throughout May and June, she exhibited a collaborative artist's book with photographer Robert Flick at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica.

Victoria Blyth-Hill was in England from November 6-16 on a combined business trip and vacation. The Victoria and Albert Museum was the last venue for the Jain Indian art exhibition, where she and colleagues John Hirx, (NEA/Mellon Fellow in objects conservation) and Jennifer Weber (registrar) condition-reported and supervised installation of this large multimedia show. John and Jennifer stayed for the opening with the Queen, but Victoria and husband Charles Hill traveled for a few days in the country visiting British conservators. In September, Victoria presented a slide lecture on paper conservation, with emphasis on Japanese paper and works of art created using Japanese paper, at the Palos Verdes Community Arts Center in conjunction with their Washi exhibition.

Melissa Santala has joined ConservArt Associates as their new assistant paintings conservator. She is a Queen's University Conservation Program graduate and has interned at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Melissa started work in September and has helped with the first stage of installation of Richard Wyatt's latest mural in the East Portal of Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Duane Chartier, Susanne Friend, and Melissa traveled to Oklahoma City in December to continue the marouflage and installation of the last of five of Wilson Hurley's monumental landscape triptychs at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Sanchita Balachandran, pretraining conservation intern at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and art history major, has been accepted by the Cambridge Scholar exchange program: for 6 months she will study, work, and travel in London and Europe. She is currently working on a mural project with Aneta Zebala during her fall semester at the Claremont Colleges, and she plans to participate in some conservation projects while she is abroad. Linda Shahinian, volunteer at the Fowler, is rehousing a collection of Precolumbian textile fragments donated to the laboratory; the textiles will be used as a teaching collection to instruct on such topics as weaving techniques, dye methods, and iconography. Postgraduate conservation intern Anna Thomson is preparing a group of Yoruba beaded artifacts for a conservation grant application, and volunteer Joli Kishi assisted in the mounting of the beaded and sequined beaded flags now on exhibit in the Fowler's Getty Gallery- The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou.

Conservator Jo Hill has just finished teaching the conservation section of the Fowler's UCLA course on museum studies. She also presented an object-labeling workshop sponsored by the Registrars Committee at the Western Museum Association's recent meeting in Oakland. The workshop is part of a nationwide effort by AAM and AIC to inform the museum community on up-to-date practices and philosophies of marking objects with accession numbers.