WAACNewsletter
Volume 18, Number 3 .... September 1996

Regional News

Elizabeth Welsh, Column Editor

 

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Corine Landrieu of Seattle is contributing to the joy of the planet by welcoming baby Chloe into the world. Congratulations Corine and Mack!

Nancy Thorn of Portland traveled to Brittany to work on a one-month gilding project for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. While in France, she researched the work of French sculptor Emmanuel Friemet in preparation for a possible gilding restoration of Friemet's Joan of Arc, which resides in a Portland neighborhood.

Laura Thayer of the Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane participated in organizing the Registrars Committee of the Western Region workshop: "Preservation Strategies for the Front Lines," at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle on June 12, in conjunction with the annual Washington Museums Association meeting. RCWR extends its thanks to presenting conservators Alice Bear and Linda Roundhill of Seattle, Sharon Blank of Los Angeles, curator Judy Sourakli of the UW Henry Gallery, and Alan Shipman from Washington State University in Pullman.

Elisabeth Darrow of Seattle received the Gladys Krieble Delmas Grant for studies in Venice and the Veneto for her dissertation research on the history of conservation. She will be in Venice, Paris, Milan, and Florence for several months later this fall with completion of her Ph.D. by next summer. The University of Washington also awarded her a grant for research, as did the School of Art, to assist in getting Pietro Edwards and the Conservation of the Public Pictures of Venice (1776-1819) into print soon. She is teaching art history at the University of Washington and has several articles on conservation and art history in the works. She is planning to begin a file on materials and techniques used by living Northwest artists for use by future conservators.

In June J. Claire Dean carried out a condition assessment of a pictograph site on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, which involved the participation of a number of middle school students from the tribes. Part of the work was filmed for an upcoming episode of the PBS kids' science program, "Bill Nye, the Science Guy." At present, Claire is in the field carrying out a series of conservation jobs involving rock image sites at locations in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. In August she will be working at Pictograph Cave, near Billings, Montana, with the help of Frank Preusser and Scott Nolley.

Sandy Troon of the Oregon Textile Workshop spoke about textile conservation at "Convergence 96," the Hand-weavers Guild of America's semiannual conference in Portland, July 1421. She will be teaching a workshop on textile finishing and display techniques October 5 and 6 at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts in Portland.

Susan Harless of Bend, Oregon has been working on small-scale grant writing to local foundations to fund the building of regional conservation lab facilities in conjunction with the Deschutes County Historical Society. To date, over $50,000 has been raised.

Linda Roundhill of Bothell, Washington, performed stabilization work on 22 Y'upik masks from the Burke Museum for the Anchorage Museum of History and Art's exhibit, "Our Way of Making Prayer." She has been doing consulting on the exhibit, "A Song to the Creator," at Washington State University in Pullman and will be conserving a highly articulated heron mask by Kwakwa 'kwakw carver Mungo Martin for the new permanent exhibits at the UW Burke Museum.

Gail Joice of Seattle Art Museum (SAM) reports the completion of SAM's IMS project by Marta Pinto-Llorca and her crew: Barbara Robertson, Vicki Parry, and Rock Hushka. They relocated SAM's European and Asian textile collections into a new climate-controlled storage area.

Elizabeth Chambers of the Portland Art Museum was named a Professional Associate by the AIC.

Seattle mountmaker Jamie Hascall is currently working on the mounting of new permanent exhibits for the University of Washington's Burke Museum. Recent projects have been mounts for 22 Y'upik masks from the Burke Museum for the Anchorage Museum's exhibit "Our Way of Making Prayer," as well as a mountmaking seminar for Anchorage Museum staff; and a one-month position as a seismic mitigation mounting consultant for the Smithsonian Institution's 150th anniversary traveling show: "America's Smithsonian Exhibition."

Regional Reporter:

Jamie Hascall
Hascall Museum Services
2335 N. 61st
Seattle, WA 98103
jhascall@accessone.com
(206) 525-6941

 

GREATER LOS ANGELES AND SANTA BARBARA


Clarification: A regional news item submitted for the last issue of the newsletter was edited, and the result was misleading. The item published (May 1996, page 9) incorrectly implies that Chris Stavroudis and Aneta Zebala made "necessary compositional changes" to diorama murals at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The original construction of the dioramas not their conservation treatment involved marouflaging and retouching. My apologies to Chris and Aneta! Liz Welsh, column editor


Will Thornton, currently working with the antiquities conservation department of the J. Paul Getty Museum, recently directed a large project for the Washington State Historical Society Museum in Tacoma. For 3 months, he led a team of 4 mountmakers and technicians to design and fabricate seismically appropriate mounts for the collections move into a new museum. The team included Frank Terrill, Jamie Hascall, Gary Wingert, and Sonja Foster. Objects ranged from Clovis points to mining tools, from Northwest Coast Native heritage baskets to lunch buckets. The new museum is scheduled to open late summer.

In June, Jerry Podany of the antiquities conservation department of the J. Paul Getty Museum traveled to Taiwan, where he gave a presentation and taught some seminars for a conference on disaster mitigation in museums sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Ministry and the Cultural University of Taiwan. Jerry and Jeff Maish both gave presentations at the 13th International Bronze Congress, May 28-June 1, sponsored by the Harvard U. Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass.

Bob Sieger of the antiquities conservation department of the J. Paul Getty Museum instructed a seminar on mountmaking and seismic damage mitigation for the California State Park System, June 46 in Monterey. Curators from various state park museums attended to learn more about mounts and display techniques for collections in seismically active zones.

The paintings conservation department of the J. Paul Getty Museum is sorry to bid farewell to Rafael Romero, who will be returning to Spain at the end of September, having completed a very productive and successful year's internship at the Getty. In his stead, the department is pleased to welcome Elma O'Donoghue, who comes from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where she has been working as an NEA-Mellon Fellow.

Mark Leonard (J. Paul Getty Museum), in collaboration with Jill Whitten and Rene de la Rie of the National Gallery, Washington, DC, and Bob Gamblin of Gamblin Artists Colors Company, Portland, Oregon, is working on the development of a line of improved retouching paints. Investigations have been carried out to produce paints using a low molecular weight resin as a medium, mixed with very high quality pigments. Gamblin has produced a prototype set of paints, which will be experimented with by the Getty studio and several other institutions over the next few months. The goal is to provide a fine quality, stable, and easily reversible paint that will also be less toxic than currently available materials.

Carolyn Tallent recently completed treatment of the portraits of some rather notable individuals. The first was of the Three Founders of Cal Tech, which included Robert Millikan, whose famous oil-drop experiment first measured the charge on an electron. The painting occupies pride of place in the Main Dining Hall of the Athenaeum, Cal Tech's faculty house. The second was an Andy Warhol version of Barbie, which hangs, appropriately, in the office of the CEO of Mattel.

The Sculpture Conservation Studio has been busy with sculpture and architecture projects, including completion of the stone and mosaic conservation of the 1928 Portal of the Folded Wings monument at the Pierce Brothers Valhalla mortuary, and beginning work on the Bullock's Wilshire department store. Donna Williams is now an official professional associate of the AIC. She has been doing research on galvanized steel sculpture and architectural decoration, a project that has arisen largely out of her work with the Donald Judd estate on industrial metal finishes for contemporary sculpture. In January, Rosa Lowinger served as part of a minority outreach program on behalf of the AIC. The purpose of the program was to increase awareness of the field of conservation among minority students and to recruit interns for AIC-sponsored internships throughout the United States. Rosa was recently awarded a one-month fellowship by the Ucross writer's colony in Wyoming.

Joanne Page is busy as chair of the Guild of Book Workers' Annual Standards Seminar, which will be held at the Pasadena Hilton on October 18th and 19th. Last April 19th, Joanne spoke at the first meeting of the Movable Book Society in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on "Collection Care and Simple Repairs of Movable and Pop-Up Books." The society includes book artists and designers, dealers, and collectors of movable and pop-up books. In July, Joanne attended the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.

Anna Thomson, postgraduate intern from Australia working at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History's conservation lab, finished up her final weeks of the year-long internship with such projects as the repair of a fragile wax doll for the Fowler's upcoming African doll exhibition and the installation of many Iban textiles from Borneo. Getty Multicultural Undergraduate intern Savay Visonnavong and Buffalo conservation student Mina Gregory began their summer internships in late June; they will be assisting the lab in the preparation of the installation and/or travel and loan of Amish quilts, betel nut cutters, and African dolls. Conservator Jo Hill survived a week at the Virginia AIC conference.

Gerri Ann Strickler, paper and textile conservation technician at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has been accepted as a graduate student at the Art Conservation Program of the State University College at Buffalo, New York.

Victoria Blyth-Hill, senior paper conservator at LACMA, spent three days in Lincoln, Nebraska in June conducting a CAP survey of the collection at the Lentz Center for Asian Studies. The small museum is housed in the Natural History Museum on the campus of the University of Nebraska and consists of mostly 19th- and 20th-century works of art from Asia, India, and Southeast Asia.

Joe Fronek completed conservation treatment of a large painting by Hubert Robert over the summer. The 18th-century landscape, measuring over 8' x 10' in size, was purchased for LACMA with funds provided by the Ahmanson Foundation in 1995. The scene depicts an architectural fantasy, based on Tivoli Gardens. Treatment included removal of an aged varnish layer and overpaint, revealing the picture's well preserved state.

Elma O'Donoghue presented a talk at this year's AIC conference on her ongoing project, "The Examination and Treatment of Two Overdoor Paintings by Francois Boucher at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art." The paintings are expected to be finished later this year, and will be the focus of a small exhibition, which will present them in their newly restored condition with some of the findings of Elma's research.

Susanne Friend and Duane Chartier of ConservArt Associates, and their son, Raef Friend Chartier, attended AIC in Norfolk. While both Duane and Susanne gave papers, Raef drank much milk (he was only two months old at the time). Duane's paper was entitled "Preventive Conservation at the Source: The Interaction of Artist and Conservator," and Susanne presented "Necessity and Innovation: Novel Treatment Strategies for Urethane Varnish Removal and Blind Cleavage." Susanne Friend, Melissa Santala, and Duane Chartier performed conservation and some restoration work on the San Gabriel Mission baptistry, which was damaged in the Northridge earthquake. Duane Chartier has been contracted by the Museums of New Mexico to carry out a thorough survey of WPA mural and easel paintings in eastern New Mexico. The initial survey last July included as many as 60 works and was the first phase in a multi-year plan to survey the murals and to treat the works.

Regional Reporter, SB area:

Julie Unruh
Wharton Griswold Associates
549 Hot Springs Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
(805) 565-3639

Regional Reporter, LA area:

Virginia Rasmussen
Conservation Center
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(213) 857-6168

 

ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO

The Museum of New Mexico (MNM) Conservation Department is happy to announce that Linda Landry will be the 199697 Getty Postgraduate Fellow in the Conservation of Cultural Materials; her internship will begin in the fall. Linda is carrying out her third-year internship at the Williamstown Regional Conservation Laboratory and will graduate from the Winterthur Art Conservation Program, University of Delaware, in August.

The MNM Conservation Department has recently taken on several other interns. James Cordova is the FAIC preprogram summer intern and is working on two projects: a pigment analysis database for retablos and bultos, and a comparative study of construction methods and cross sections of paint layers in bultos attributed to a 19th-century santero. James is a New Mexican santero himself and will be attending Seton Hall in museum studies in the fall.

Other summer interns are Margot Healey and Bronwyn Lloyd, both second-year students in the art conservation dept. at SUNY, Buffalo. They are working on Phase 1 of a research project partially funded by the Kress Foundation in which Spanish Colonial painted hides are being examined. They are also rehousing organic Southwest Indian archaeological material at the museum.

Current postgraduate Getty Fellow Renee Jones and preprogram intern Caroline Finch assisted Frank Matero of the University of Pennsylvania in the consolidation of Anasazi kiva murals at Mesa Verde National Monument in June. In July, Caroline assisted Duane Chartier on a survey of WPA murals in New Mexico. Caroline has been accepted to the conservation program at the Institute of Archaeology, London, for the fall of 1996.

Landis Smith gave a talk on issues in the conservation of Southwestern anthropology and folk art collections at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, during the spring semester.

Dale Kronkright and Renee Jones treated a large outdoor Herman MacNeil cement and painted plaster sculpture, "Manuelito," in Gallup, New Mexico. Claire Munzenrider and preprogram McCune Foundation intern Elizabeth Gorman de Romero are conducting a study of santos made by Jose de Gracia Gonzales.

Colorado textile conservator Debbie Juchem was at the MNM conservation lab in July mounting panos for an exhibit to open at the Museum of International Folk Art (part of the MNM). She also surveyed Navajo textiles to be included in two different exhibits at the MNM's Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Susan Barger taught a course, "Material Science of Art: Case Studies in the Detection of Art Fakes and Forgeries" at the University of New Mexico. Susan is currently carrying out an analysis of a very rare, Mexican early Christian stone sculpture of the Virgin.

Jim Roberts, formerly with the WACC-NPS facility in Tucson, has relocated and now works for the Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Matthew Crawford at the Arizona State Museum was the site conservator for the 1996 University of Arizona's Chianciano Terme excavations in Tuscany, Italy. The site is Etruscan and Early Roman period.

Nancy Odegaard has submitted her doctoral thesis to the University of Canberra Conservation Program. It is entitled "Archaeological and Ethnographic Painted Wood Objects from the North American Southwest: The Case Study of a Matrix Approach for the Conservation of Cultural Materials."

Martha Grimm recently opened an exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society. She and Bettina Raphael were conservators on the "Rain" exhibit of Heard Museum objects that are traveling to the British Museum. She is the AIC textile group secretary and Vicki Cassman is the AIC textile group president.

Regional Reporter:

Nancy Odegaard
Arizona State Museum, Bldg. 30
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 (520) 621-6314

Regional Reporter:

Landis Smith
Conservation Department
Museum of New Mexico
PO Box 2087
Santa Fe, NM 87504-2087
(505) 827-6350

 

HAWAII

Sarah Ili began a one-year Native Hawaiian collections care internship in the conservation services department of the Bishop Museum. The internship is the second supported by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

The conservation services and anthropology departments of the Bishop Museum have completed the first year of a two-year project to move ethnology collections into a new storeroom. The project is supported with a matching grant from NEH; Laura Gorman is project director.

Downey Manoukian has been working on a variety of projects for the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Contemporary Museum, and other institutional and private clients in San Francisco.

Gregory Thomas's Art Care conservation studio has relocated to North Shore, Oahu. Recent treatments include paintings for private collectors, e.g., Hanalei by D. Howard Hitchcock, and a 19th-century German hunting scene by Ludwig Beckman, as well as more modern paintings from the state Foundation on Culture and the Arts by John Young and Jean Charlot. Greg is now also providing paper conservation services with Perry Huston and Associates in Ft. Worth.

Linda Hee completed the remounting of seven lace fragments for the Sisters of St. Francis. The lace was made by Mother Marianne Kopp as samples for the women of Kalaupapa to copy. Mother Marianne worked in the Kalaupapa leprasorium from 1888 until her death in 1918.

At P.A.C.E., Inc., Laurence Pace is continuing work at the Honolulu Academy of Art on the IMS-funded conservation project to upgrade the framing of 100 paintings in its collection.

Regional Reporter:

Laurence A. Pace
P.A.C.E., Inc.
1645 Haku St.
Honolulu, HI 96819
(808) 833-1999

 

SAN DIEGO

Monica Jaworski was in Germany and Switzerland for the first half of May. She visited brush factories and the recently relocated Deutches Pensel un Burstenmuseum in Bechhoven. She says it was well worth a visit and is also just off the "Romantik Strasse," which meanders through many picturesque medieval towns. While in Switzerland she visited WAAC members Joany Samuels and Christoph von Imhoff. She reports that Joany and her husband Daniel are expecting their second child in October and that their newly renovated, 300-year-old farmhouse, with attached atelier, is fabulous. Christoph has been a frequent visitor to war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina to assess damage to cultural property. Those interested in receiving a copy of the most recent report, published by the Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, may contact Monica or Christoph.

Alfredo Antognini has recently completed the conservation treatment of "Eve and Cain," a large (43" x 60") painting by Charles W. Stetson, painted between 1888 and 1890. In June, Alfredo had an exhibition of his recent paintings, entitled "Fruits of the Earth," at the Alcala Gallery, La Jolla, sponsored by Scripps Clinic and Research Center.

Regional Reporter:

Frances Prichett
Paper Conservation
5235 35th Street
San Diego, CA 92116 (619) 283-0368

 

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA

SFMOMA's Conservation Department successfully completed a "cami-lining" treatment of Anselm Kiefer's Osiris und Isis, prior to lending the painting to Chicago's newly housed Museum of Contemporary Art. Due to the painting's immense size, fragility, and slack condition on its non-keyable strainer, every effort was made to stabilize it prior to travel. The treatment was carried out by Paula De Cristofaro and Petteri Kantola, a painting conservation intern from Finland who worked at SFMOMA this past spring.

Nica Gutman, second-year graduate student from the Buffalo State College Conservation Program, spent June and July in the paintings conservation studio at SFMOMA. She worked on paintings by Kenneth Callahan, Bumpei Usui, and Joan Brown, as well as a small sculpture by Kenneth Price. She will spend her third year internship at the Philadelphia Museum of Art beginning in September.

Paloma Garcia-Anoveros begins her Kress-funded fellowship in August. She will be working with SFMOMA conservators on the treatment of a monumental Clyfford Still painting.

Vicki Cassman, textile conservator, joined the staff of the Asian Art Museum on a part-time basis in late June. The staff of the AAM is in the midst of preparing for the Christmas 2000 move of the museum to its new location at the Old Main Library in the Civic Center. Advice gratefully received.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is very happy to welcome Ulrich Birkmaier, former fellow in the paintings conservation department at the National Gallery in Washington, as assistant paintings conservator. Ulrich received his training in Florence, followed by internships at the Doerner-Institut in Munich and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Tony Rockwell, who filled in as assistant paintings conservator full time from March through June, will remain with the department two days per week. Annette Rupprecht has also been with the department for the past two months as special project conservator, treating one of the two large van Dyck portraits owned by the museums. Jo Lynn, current fourth-year intern from the Hamilton Kerr Institute, England, will return home to Scotland in August. In January 1997, she will begin a new internship at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. In September, Brad Epley from the Buffalo Conservation Program will begin his third-year internship in the paintings conservation department. Congratulations are extended to both FAMSF preprogram interns Elise Effmann and James Squires on their acceptance into the graduate programs in conservation at NYU and Buffalo State College, respectively. They will be missed and are wished the best of luck.

At the Oakland Museum, Susana Zubiate and Angela Sinicropi completed a treatment and storage project on 45 lead ship models for the Treasure Island Museum. The ship models were cleaned and individually packaged in low relative humidity microenvironments. Kathy Gillis has returned from eight weeks of maternity leave; her beautiful son, Benjamin Waller Weitz, was born May 17.

John Burke spent two weeks in Kingston, Jamaica, on an Organization of American States-funded conservation consultancy for a proposed museum in Spanish Town. He also conducted a three-day course on anoxic microenvironments at the San Diego Natural History Museum with Sally Shelton, and participated in a panel on pest control at the recent American Association of Museums meeting in Minneapolis. At the AIC conference in Norfolk, John was elected to the position of Director of Professional Education. Along with Debbie Evans and Neil Cockerline, John recently completed teaching his ninth year of a preventive conservation course in the Mus. Studies Program at John F. Kennedy University.

James Bernstein was recently in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to assess and document bomb and water damage to the largest single collection of oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings by Polish artist Maurice Minkowski (1884-1930). Some 67 Minkowski works, as well as countless other artifacts in the Fundacion IWO (Asociacion Pro Cultura Judia) Archive, were greatly damaged in 1994 when terrorists bombed the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building, killing 87 and injuring 300 persons. The Minkowski paintings, products of a deaf-mute, have a heightened sense of observation and record Eastern European Jewish life earlier in this century, a culture dispersed and now largely lost. Accompanied by curator Bradley Berman of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, California, and archivist Zachary Baker of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, Bernstein worked closely with Argentine conservator M. Silvio Goren, coordinator of the Argentine recovery effort since the beginning of the project.

Simultaneous with a national conference of Argentine conservators, Jim was invited to lecture at the Museo Nacional des Bellas Artes, where he spoke on "Special Problems in the Conservation of Modern Painted Works and Examples of Conservation Treatment Relating to Disaster Recovery." The following evening, Jim was guest panelist for a session devoted to the discussion of "Professional Capability and Criteria for the Conservation and Restoration of Collections" sponsored by Apoyo and the Centro Argentino Para La Conservacion del Patrimonio Cultural, held at the Museo Mitre. Other participants were conservators Norma Perez, Alejandro Bustillo, Nestor Barrio and Susana Meden, with moderator M. Silvio Goren. Other projects for Jim during a very busy spring and summer include conservation of oil paintings by Richard Diebenkorn (for the 1997 retrospective), a WPA mural "Air" by Glenn Wessels, and a CAP Survey for the San Jose Museum of Art. This October 15, Jim and Debra Evans (Western Regional Paper Conservation Laboratory) will be repeating their popular "Inpainting Works on Paper" at the Campbell Center, Mount Carroll, Illinois.

Regional Reporter:

Ria German
Conservation Department
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3159
(415) 357-4050

 

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Miriam Clavir and Darrin Morrison, from the Museum of Anthropology, each presented papers in May at the annual meeting of the IIC-CG in Montreal. Darrin's paper, "Scratching the Surface," focused on the process of cooperation between the Musqueam First Nation, upon whose traditional lands the museum is located, and the museum in creating an exhibit of wet-site archaeological basketry and wood from the Fraser River delta. The exhibit, "From Under the Delta," will be at the museum through summer 1997. Miriam's paper, "Factors Influencing the Emergence of Conservation as a Field: Societal Values and Events," concentrated on the value placed on science and the integrity of the object in the field of conservation in Canada.

The Conservation Laboratory at the Museum of Anthro. welcomes Celine Bonnot this summer. Celine is taking a leave of absence from her job at the Atelier Régional de Conservation Nucléart in Grenoble, France to do a 2-month internship in Canada. Her specialization is the conservation of waterlogged archaeological wood and leather.

As part of her internship at the Museum of Anthropology, Cynthia Cripps has begun a project using the program Adobe Photoshop to manipulate photographic images in an attempt to "restore" the aesthetic of an object without altering its structure. During the past two months she also assisted collections staff in renovating the textile storage area. On June 20 and 21 she attended the workshop, "Guidelines for Selecting Materials for Use in the Display, Storage, and Transportation of Museum Objects." The workshop was taught by Scott Williams from the Canadian Conservation Institute, and was held at the Vernon Museum and Archives in Vernon, B.C.

Rosaleen Hill has just returned from Newfoundland where she presented a week-long preservation assessment workshop for the Association of Newfoundland Archives. One of the highlights of her trip was the whale and puffin-watching boat tour. When she's not on the sea, Rosaleen continues traveling around the province of British Columbia on her regular round of site visits for the B.C. Conservation Services.

Training and promotion programs have been conducted on behalf of the conservation profession through a series of lectures organized by Andrew Todd (AT Conservators Ltd.), for the Canadian Soc. for Asian Art. This series culminated in June with the visit to Vancouver by the highly respected conservator, Iwataro Oka, of the Oka Bokkodo in Kyoto, Japan. Mr. Oka was accompanied in a lecture to Canadian conservators by his former pupil and current researcher at the Tokyo Nat'l Research Institute of Cultural Properties, Kazunori Oryu. Their lecture focused on the traditional programs of training for conservators in Japan.

Other public lectures have been delivered by Andrew Todd, one of note recently to the Canadian Museums Association annual conference in Vancouver in June on the subject of preventive conservation management for totem poles. Treatment projects completed recently in Vancouver by AT Conservators Ltd., have included the overall conservation of 3 K'san Totem Poles for installation outdoors at the new wing of the Vancouver International Airport. These 3 large size poles are carved in western red cedar, and are owned by the Vancouver Museum. The treatment was concluded by application of trisodium octaborate solution to prevent biological growth on the surface. This was followed by application of a water repellent system. The poles are now well situated for comment from any traveling conservators arriving at the Vancouver airport. Currently, a project is in progress to redesign exhibit supports to conservation standards for the totem poles housed by the Museum Department of the City of Ketchikan in Alaska. A pilot project has been implemented with excellent results.

Regional Reporters:

Cynthia Cripps and Miriam Clavir
UBC Museum of Anthropology
6393 NW Marine Drive
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada
(604) 822-2981 (voice)
(604) 822-2974 (fax)

 

TEXAS

Richard J. Trela, Sr., paintings conservator and director of the Conservation Center of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, West Texas A&M University, conducted two tours of the Center for the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, and for the vice presidents of the university system. He also gave lectures on "The Need for a Proper Environment for Museum Objects," "Becoming Aware of and Involved in Museums," and "Preventive Conservation."

Csilla Felker-Dennis has completed several CAP surveys of historic buildings, including the Eddleman-McFarland House in Fort Worth and the French Legation in Austin.

Sara McElroy,conservator at the A. M. Huntington Art Gallery of the University of Texas at Austin, is working on the preliminary planning for the new museum building. She will also be attending the meetings of the ICOM Committee for Conservation in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Jessica Johnson and Kathy Hall of the Materials Conservation Laboratory, Texas Memorial Museum, will spend the summer on archaeological projects at Gordion, Turkey, and at Kommos, Crete.

Thanks to Marilyn Lenz for filling in as Regional Rep. while Kathy Hall was away.

Regional Reporter:

Kathy Hall
Texas Memorial Museum
The University of Texas at Austin
Materials Conservation Laboratory
10100 Burnet Road
Austin, Texas 78758
(512) 471-6090

 

OKLAHOMA

Gayle Clements presented two talks at Bartlesville's Internat'l Oklahoma Mozart Festival "Behind the Picture" in June.

The Gilcrease Museum will sponsor a half-day workshop at the Mountain Plains Museum Assn.'s conference at Guthrie, OK, October 3-5. The workshop will be: "Marking Museum Collections."

The Oklahoma Conservation Congress will present a workshop at the Gilcrease Museum's Conservation Department on September 9, 1996. A hands-on workshop, "You Always Hurt the One You Love: A Workshop on Responsible Book Repair," will be taught by Michael McColgin, preservation officer from the Department of Library, Archives, and Public Records, Phoenix, Arizona.

Regional Reporter:

Gayle S. Clements
Thomas Gilcrease Museum of Amer. Hist. & Art
1400 Gilcrease Museum Road
Tulsa, OK 74127-2100
(918) 596-2780

 

DENVER

Abigail Mack of the Rocky Mountain Conservation Center (RMCC) recently performed a CAP survey of the collections in the University of Denver Museum of Anthropology. In June, Abigail resigned from her position at RMCC to move to upstate New York where her husband has accepted a new position. She will be missed by her colleagues!

D. Hays Shoop, conservator of paintings at RMCC, completed conservation of nine large murals from the Denver Public Schools. The murals, entitled, "Suite of Fairy Tales," were painted in the early 1930s by Leona Bradbury. They were removed from a building slated for demolition, and reinstalled in a downtown administration building and Beechcourt School in North Denver. The largest mural was transported to its new home in a school bus!

Jeffrey Wells, RMCC photographer, photodocumented the interior of the U. of Denver Buchtel Bungalow for purposes of architectural preservation.

Charlotte Seifen, RMCC's pre-program aide, was accepted into two graduate programs, Winterthur and Buffalo. She has chosen to attend Winterthur. Congratulations, Charlotte!

Teresa Knutson, textile conservator, recently completed treatment of several historic garments from Olympic competitions for the U.S. Olympic Committee museum in Colorado Springs.

The Denver Art Museum welcomes three conservation interns for the summer of 1996. Joanne Barry, U. of Delaware/Winterthur, is working with the Native arts department, surveying and rehousing American Indian costumes for an upcoming exhibit. Heather Tudhope, Queen's University, is surveying modern and contemporary paper collections and performing remedial treatments. Libby Finney, University of Wales, Cardiff, is conserving a number of important Precolumbian ceramics.

The Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts (WCCFA) and the Museum of Western Art in Denver cosponsored a symposium in June titled: "Who Cares? Owners and Conservators of Fine Art and Artifacts Working Together." The symposium was a result of the AIC Outreach Initiative and was organized by Camilla Van Vooren from WCCFA and Judith Toliver from the museum. Camilla and fellow conservators Carmen Bria, Eileen Clancy, Judy Greenfield and Jeanne Brako, in addition to frame specialist Leon Loughridge and appraiser Bernard Ewell, gave presentations that were followed by examinations and consultations with participants who brought objects from their own collections.

Regional Reporter:

Diane Danielson
Rocky Mountain Conservation Center
2420 South University Blvd.
Denver, CO 80208
(303) 733-2712

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