January 2001 Volume 23 Number 1
January 2001 Volume 23 Number 1
Nancy Odegaard has been awarded a sabbatical from the University of Arizona until August 2001. She has recently been teaching preventive conservation in the Dominican Republic and Peru for the US State Department, materials characterization at the Campbell Center, and speaking on the issue of pesticides at numerous conferences.
Laura Downey, Assistant Conservator at the Arizona State Museum, is conducting a condition assessment of the recently acquired Avery collection of Native American Art, and participating in the PEM Field Trial conducted by the Image Permanence Institute. She is also consulting on an NEA-funded project to conserve the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography.
Martha Grimm has been serving as a guest lecturer in the Museum Studies program at Arizona State University. She is currently working on treatments projects from clients in Texas, Arizona, and Missouri.
This fall and winter Marilen Pool is working with Nancy Odegaard and Alyce Sadongei on a publication based on the ASM project conducted last year regarding pesticide contaminated cultural materials in museum collections. She is also in negotiations with the National Museum of the American Indian for a project entitled "Research, Oral Histories and Documentation on the Treatment of Objects in NMAI Collections." This eight month project is scheduled to begin in April 2001.
Linda Morris has been working on four fire damaged marouflage murals from the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Phoenix. The church caught on fire just before Easter of this year. Assisting on the project are interns Catherine de Bantel and Carol Lavoie.
Nanette Skov attended the ICN and ICOM-CC sponsored symposium on archaeological textile conservation in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 13-17. She hopes to take new information from the conference to Peru with her next year. She is presently preparing ancient Peruvian textiles for the Tucson Museum of Art exhibit for the Art Of The Americas, Palice Pavilian, scheduled to open in the spring of 2001.
Gretchen Voeks has been working with several National Parks in California, Arizona, Colorado, and Alaska to complete condition surveys determining conservation needs. She is also assisting in the removal of a large lighthouse lens from exhibition to storage at the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia. Assistant Audrey Harrison is completing treatment of a collection of concha belts from Hubbell Trading Post. Grace Katter-man is working on treatments of archaeological basketry from Joshua Tree. Conservators Micheala Niero and Bob Tjadon completed a condition survey and storage plan for 290 kachina dolls in late September.
Regional Reporter:
Gretchen Voeks
Western Archeological and Conservation Center
National Park Service
1415 N. 6th Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85711
520/670-6501 ext. 251
Gretchen_Voeks@nps.gov
Last October, Victoria Blyth-Hill announced the publication of the LACMA Conservation Center Brochure. The brochure, 24 pages long, provides an introduction to conservation activities at the Center, furnishing descriptions and photographs of each of the sections, the staff, and major projects in the Center. The brochure is intended as an educational and fund-raising tool and will be provided to training programs, colleagues at other institutions, members and patrons of the museum, as well as funding agencies. Copies of the brochure are available on a limited basis, through the Conservation Center office.
There were three recent promotions in the Conservation Center at LACMA.John Hirx was promoted to Head Objects Conservator, Catherine McLean to Senior Textiles Conservator and Virginia Rasmussen to Paintings Conservator, as of September 1, 2000. Conservators at LACMA continued work in preparation for Made in California. The museum's millennium exhibition opened in two sections last October 18th and November 18th and runs through March 2001. Among major projects in the show, textiles conservators, led by contract conservator Irena Calinescu, re-upholstered furniture designed by Schindler, and Catherine McLean coordinated dry cleaning and installation of an artwork by Chris Burden, consisting of thirty police uniforms, currently on display in the lower level of the Anderson building. In October, Laramie Hickey-Friedman joined the Objects Conservation Section at LACMA for a one-year Mellon Fellowship. Stefanie Scheerer has started work as a Mellon Fellow doing research on lasers in conservation at LACMA.
Meg Abraham gave talks at the Eastern Analytical Symposium in New Jersey and the WAAC Annual Meeting, describing initial results of studies using lasers as a tool for art conservation. Odile Madden also gave a talk at the WAAC meeting describing early results of studies on ivory colorants with emphasis on Japanese netsuke and related conservation techniques.
Paper Conservators at LACMA are thrilled to have International Fellow Soko Furuhata joining them in the paper conservation lab for two years. Soko received her MA from the Camberwell program in England (1997) and has been working with private conservator Masako Koyano since that time.
In October, Wendy Partridge joined Paintings Conservation at LACMA for an advanced internship, made possible by a grant from the Ahmanson Foundation. Also last fall, paintings conservators at LACMA began the examination and treatment of a large collection of newly acquired 18th and 19th c. French sketches. The collection consists of over forty works, including paintings by Boucher, Vouet, Boilly, Flandrin, Falgui�re, Carpeaux, Restout, and Valenciennes.
Last November, Joe Fronek delivered a talk to the Collectors Committee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, on the Dutch landscape painting collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward William Carter. Joe described the condition of the paintings in the collection, as well as the techniques of 17th century Dutch painters. The talk was given in conjunction with LACMA's exhibition, Earth, Sea, and Light: Four Dutch Masterpieces from the Carter Collection. Four major works were featured in the exhibition: Jacob van Ruisdael's The Great Oak, Aelbert Cuyp's The Flight into Egypt, Jan van Huysum's Bouquet of Flowers in an Urn, and Simon de Vlieger's View of a Beach.
The Bernard and Edith Lewin Study Center for Latin American Art opened last December at LACMA. Conservators treated several paintings and works on paper in preparation for the opening of the Study Center, including works by Jos� Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, and Jean Charlot. A number of these works are included in the Center's inaugural exhibition, currently on display at LACMA West.
Terry Schaeffer gave a presentation at the Image Permanence session of the 16th International Non-Impact Printing Conference sponsored by the Society of Imaging Science and Technology in October. It proved to be a fine opportunity to present the conservation community's point of view to designers and fabricators of contemporary print media. Terry Schaeffer, Maureen Russel, Susan Schmalz, Meg Abraham, Wendy Partridge, Odile Madden, and Laramie Hickey-Friedman attended the annual WAAC conference in Nevada City and presented talks.
Duane Chartier and Susanne Friend of ConservArt Associates, Inc. organized the annual meeting of the National New Deal Preservation Association that was hosted by the Long Beach Museum of Art on October 31, 2000. In addition, Duane chaired the meeting as the NNDPA's vice president and helped the very able Robin Dunitz (author of "Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals") in giving the conservation component of a tour of WPA murals in Long Beach and Orange County.
Susanne Friend of ConservArt Associates, Inc., gave a lecture at the University of Southern California on October 10 describing the conservation of the Jinks Room, a series of nine murals by Maynard Dixon created for the Anita Baldwin mansion in Sierra Madre in 1914. The murals had been marouflaged with lead white and were removed by ConservArt in 1999, after which the mansion was destroyed. Six of the murals were given to the University of Southern California where they are currently on display. ConservArt Associates, Inc. installed a new 11'6" x 21' mural by artist Richard Wyatt in the Long Beach City Hall on September 24, 2000. The painting was marouflaged to the main wall of the lobby.
Annelies Van Loon has joined the Department of Paintings Conservation at the J.Paul Getty Museum as Graduate Intern for the period of October 1, 2000 to October 1, 2001. They are delighted to be working with her and pleased to have their first intern from the Limburg Conservation Institute in Maastricht, The Netherlands.
A focus exhibition on the technique of Renaissance painting will open at the Getty on December 5 and be on view until August 2001. Making a Renaissance Panel describes the processes that were employed by artists and craftsmen to create panel paintings in sixteenth century Europe. Joachim Beuckelaer's Miraculous Draught of Fishes is the subject of the investigation and the exhibition includes material on him, the guild, and workshop practice in sixteenth century Antwerp. A technical section is included which describes various methods used to identify materials.
The Antiquities Conservation Department of the J. Paul Getty Museum continues their work on objects to be displayed in the renovated Villa Museum in Malibu and to monitor the Ancient Art Exhibition currently on display at the Getty Center. The Department welcomes Mackenzie Lowry as a mount maker helping in the effort.
Jeff Maish and David Scott have been investigating the composition of blue glass enamel beads from a Hellenistic gold wreath. They have also been looking at pigments and restorations from the Collection's fayum portraits. Eric Risser, the 1999-2000, intern is staying on for awhile longer to assist in the reconstruction of an over-life size torso of Julius Caesar which is being conserved for the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
A larger than life statue of Marcus Aurelius, also belonging to the Pergamon was recently conserved by the Department and went on exhibition in Dec. 2000. The exhibition highlights the conservation of the statue over the past two years. Carolyn Riccardelli is the current 2000-2001 intern in the department. This is her third year internship for the Buffalo State College Art Conservation department. While at the Getty, Carolyn is treating an Attic red column krater, collaborating with the Antiquities Curatorial intern on the technical examination of a Roman tinned-bronze situla and is researching materials that might be used in the backing of wall painting and mosaics on archaeological sites.
Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation at the Getty Museum is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Assistant Conservators. Arlen Heginbotham received his graduate degree in Conservation at the Buffalo program and was formerly with Robert Mussy Associates in Boston. Julie Wolfe is also a graduate of the Buffalo program and was most recently at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Also recently arrived in the department is Graduate Intern, Maria Franzon. Maria is a fourth year student at the Institute of Conservation, G�teberg University, Sweden. Her area of concentration this year will be the analysis of glass and enamels.
Beth Szuhay, conservation fellow from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, is finishing a portion of her third year internship at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History. She has worked on a survey of Maori Textiles, implemented treatment of several Yoruba beaded objects, and continued treatment of an Egungun costume. She completes her third year internship at the Textile Conservation Center at the Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. Suza Szewiola continues to work as a part-time technician at the Fowler Museum with Jo Q. Hill. Besides daily lab maintenance activities, she is currently involved in condition reporting Ghanaian movie posters for an upcoming exhibit.
As of November 20, 2000, the Sculpture Conservation Studio has a new and larger studio located at 3300 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. 90034. They are located at the corner of Motor and National Boulevard. They welcome everyone to stop by and visit the great new space. The new telephone number is 310 - 839-5300. The staff has just finished working on five plaques for the Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego and is about to start on a survey of the art in the City of Santa Monica. Very late news: Aneta Zebala and her husband Tony celebrated the birth Wednesday, January 31, of twin boys to join brother Oliver. They have been named Marco and Lucas.
Regional Reporter:
Virginia Rasmussen
Conservation Center
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323/857-6168
vlr@art.lacma.org
The Colorado Preservation Alliance co-sponsored the Colorado Digitization Project's third annual leadership seminar for Colorado's archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums on November 30-December 1. The pre-conference was devoted to preservation issues in the scanning and digitization process. Participating conservators included Dave Harvey (objects), Heather Tudhope (photographs and paper) and Teresa Knutson (textiles) from the Art Conservation Center at the University of Denver (ACCDU), and Karen Jones (book and paper) from Jefferson County Library and Colorado State University.
Lori Mellon, ACCDU Director, presented a program to the Society of American Archivists' annual meeting entitled "Regional Conservation Services in the Mountain/Plains States". Lori also attended the semi-annual RAP/ARCC meeting in Minneapolis in November.
The ACCDU recently held a successful fund-raising event at the Ron Judish Gallery during the exhibition of new John DeAndrea sculptures. Lori Mellon and members of the Advisory Board announced the newly formed "Friends of the ACCDU" support group.
Nina Owczarek, from Wilmington, Delaware, has joined ACCDU as a pre-program aide.
D. Hays Shoop, ACCDU Paintings Conservator, attended a Tear Repair workshop, sponsored by the Paintings Group, in Chicago. Hays lectured to the International Women's Club Welcome To Colorado group. The topic was "Queen City Blues: What Colorado's Climate Can Do to Your Collection." Hays also recently spent time at the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins repairing murals painted by inmates in the 1940s.
David Harvey, ACCDU Objects Conservator, worked at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Michigan on an extensive Fireback Conservation Project. Dave also attended the WAAC conference in November.
Teresa Knutson, Textile and Costume Conservator, spent a week at the Carnegie Museum of Art, in Pittsburgh, PA, as the exhibit consultant on textile mounts and constructed four mannequins for their exhibition called Aluminum By Design: Jewelry To Jets.
Heather Tudhope, ACCDU Paper Conservator, performed an NEH-funded collection survey for the Joachim Museum in Dickinson, ND. She also gave a presentation on storage and handling to the local museum community.
Victoria Montana Ryan, Paintings Conservator, gave an on-site Collections Care Workshop to museum professionals at the Nevada State Museum.
Jessica Fletcher has been hired as Assistant Conservator at the Denver Art Museum (DAM). A recent graduate of the Art Conservation Department of Buffalo State College, she is specializing in ethnographic and archaeological conservation. She recently presented a paper at the Eastern Analytical Symposium entitled "Stuccoed Tripod Vessels from Teotihuacan: An Examination of Materials and Manufacture."
Conservators Carl Patterson, Judy Greenfield, and Jessica Fletcher are pleased to announce the completion of a three-year NEH project to condition and rehouse the DAM's entire native arts collection. Graduate students at the Colorado School of Mines are working with the Denver Art Museum and its conservation department on several joint analytical projects using the rich resources of the Pre-Columbian collections. Spanish Colonial silver is currently being prepared with the help of the museum's conservation volunteer council for a new installation of silver, gold, and emeralds from the New World.
Amy Laugesen, an outdoor sculpture conservator, recently joined forces with the staff of the DAM preparing sculptures on loan to the Jacqueline Kennedy garden at the White House.
Museum conservation staff are currently working on an installation of Oceanic art for an upcoming exhibit, Giants of Melanesia. Denver paper conservator, Eileen Clancy is stabilizing several large examples of barkcloth for the same exhibit.
Carl Patterson and Judy Greenfield recently conducted a one-day workshop for the Utah Museums Association entitled "Museum Collections: Preventive Conservation and Collections Care" and co-presented a session on "MAP and CAP: Help for Small Museums." Carl Patterson has just completed a CAP survey of the Heyburn Elementary School in Heyburn, Idaho.
Judy Greenfield is working on contract at the Denver Art Museum through January 2001, assessing the condition of 2,000 Pre-Columbian Costa Rican objects, mostly gold, jade, and ceramics. Curatorial information, along with digital photographs and the condition assessment of each piece, will be published in a scholarly catalogue.
Deb Juchem, Textile Conservator, completed treatment of a forty-two star American flag for the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM for the Jewish Pioneers exhibit. Deb has also recently treated several Gaetano Pesce upholstered chairs for the Denver Art Museum and a Saltillo blanket for the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Regional Reporter:
Diane Danielson
The Art Conservation Center at the University of Denver
2420 South University Blvd.
Denver, CO 80208
303/733-2712
ddaniels@du.edu
Amanda Hunter Johnson, a 3rd year student in the Winterthur program, is this year's intern in the paper lab at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Catherine Betz continues as pre-program intern in the paper lab and in paintings. Debra Evans and Amanda are performing a CAP survey at the Los Gatos Museum. This summer and fall Debra and Jim Bernstein taught inpainting workshops at NYU and at the Art Gallery of Ontario; Janice Schopfer attended a course on medieval manuscript painting at the Montefiascone program in Italy. This study dovetails with her ongoing treatment of medieval paintings on vellum for a Bay Area collection. Bob Futernick has assumed the position of Acting Assistant Director at the Fine Arts Museums.
Meg Geiss-Mooney, textile conservator in private practice, presented a basic care of textiles (flat) workshop in five venues (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota) for the Upper Midwest Conservation Association in August. Near the end, she felt like she had a case of the "if this is Tuesday, this must be Wisconsin" syndrome. But she got to go to the circus with Neil Cockerline, Director of the UMCA Field Services Department!
Michelle Barger and Jill Sterrett at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art have been working on four research projects in preparation for the Eva Hesse exhibition which will open at SFMOMA in February 2002. The exhibition and catalogue promise to be exciting for the field of conservation, as much of the focus will be on the materials and techniques used by Hesse.
Jill and Michelle were able to spend time in the Hesse archives at Oberlin College, and have been able to see many works in various collections in the United States. Working with Karl Buchberg at MoMA, Jill spent one week in November closely examining a representative range of Hesse's works on paper. Using IR, UV, and magnification, they were able to greatly enhance the understanding of Hesse's techniques on paper.
Michelle, working jointly with Sharon Blank, a consultant on the project, is undertaking a research project on sculptures by Hesse containing rubber. The results of analysis will be compared with thorough exhibition and storage histories in order to better understand the mechanisms for deterioration.
The third project was a roundtable held in November in New York which included assistants, friends and family of Hesse, conservators, curators, and art historians. The dialogue included first hand knowledge of Hesse's techniques, discussion of the challenges involved in caring for and exhibiting her later sculpture, and when or if these works become "unexhibitable." Transcripts from the roundtable will be included in the exhibition catalogue. The fourth project will be on Hesse's sculptures containing polyester and will be undertaken by Michelle and Sharon after the opening of the exhibition..
Alina Remba, Assistant Paintings Conservator at SFMOMA, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach preventive conservation for two months next winter at the Antorchas Foundation in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
SFMOMA paper conservation lab welcomes fellow Jessica Baldwin. Jessica trained at Camberwell College, London, in paper conservation. Her experience includes Windsor Castle (THE Queen's Collection!) and work with private conservators in London. For the past five and a half years she has been working at Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland.
Theresa Andrews was a participant in the Mellon sponsored collaborative workshop entitled "Contemporary Photographic Processes." The week-long workshop took place in June and was held at the Chicago Art Institute.
Regional reporter:
Paloma A�overos
Lucasfilm Ltd. Archives
P.O. Box 2009
San Rafael, CA 94912
Rel: 415/662 1650
Fax: 415/662 1553
paloma.anoveros@lucasfilm.com
Karen Pavelka reports the following updates from the Preservation and Conservation Studies (PCS) Program in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Thanks to the strong support of Dean Shaffer, PCS once again has a strong and stable complement of faculty. Three people have joined the teaching ranks this fall; and another full time member is coming in the spring, along with yet another whom they will share with the archival enterprise curriculum. During the interim, PCS has maintained a stability thanks to two faculty members who are continuing with the program. Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, a graduate of the Columbia Program and the first preservation officer for the General Libraries at UT Austin, has joined the faculty on a half-time basis. This means that she not only is teaching advanced preservation courses, but also is participating fully in the life of the program. Ellen has been a long and faithful member of the PCS Advisory Committee.
Paul Wilson from Australia is teaching the revised introduction to preservation course. Paul completed the Certificate of Advanced Study in Preservation Administration during the year that PCS opened at UT and this fall joined the GSLIS faculty in a two-year visiting position primarily to teach courses in archival enterprise, including his speciality of moving image archives.
Priscilla A. Spitler is directing the beginning Book Lab course this fall, filling in for our newest member of the permanent faculty, Chela Metzger, identified below. Priscilla worked with Craig Jensen in BookLab, has served as president of the Lone Star Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers, and heads her own Hands On Bookbinding firm in Smithville, Texas.
In January, 2001, Consuela "Chela" Metzger will join the faculty as the book conservation educator. Chela will shoulder responsibility for all book courses and offer work in other areas of the Library and Information Science curriculum strengthening the Preservation and Conservation presence in the studies of students throughout the school. Chela holds a Master of Library Science from Simmons College specializing in preservation administration and the history of visual communication, and a Certificate in Hand Bookbinding from the North Bennet Street School. She moves to UT from her position as Project Conservator at the Huntington Library, and will arrive fresh from serving an extended Fulbright Lectureship at the University Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This coming spring, Patricia K. Galloway, creator of the program for managing electronic records and digital assets for the State of Mississippi, will begin teaching the required and elective courses on preservation in the digital environment.
Karen also reported these updates about PCS students. Eliza Gilligan has completed her third-year internship at the New England Document Conservation Center and taken a position in the Preservation Department of Michigan State University.
Jennifer Hain is conducting a second culminating internship, this one at the New York Botanical Garden. At the annual meeting of the Association of North American Graduate Programs in Conservation (ANAGPIC) in Washington, D.C., she spoke on "Collections Conservation in a Natural History Museum Library: Preserving Oversized Journals" in which she described her work managing preservation issues at the Ft. Worth Botanical Garden.
Tara Kennedy has joined the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution after completing her third-year internship in the conservation lab of the National Archives in Washington. At the ANAGPIC meeting last spring, she gave a talk on "Spectrofluorometric Examination Of Ball Point Inks: A Preliminary Analytical Study."
Christine McCarthy is joining the Preservation Department of the University of Maryland following her third-year internship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kazuko Hioki and Jennifer Sainato are conducting internships at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia. Maria E. Gonzalez is a second-year student in the GSLIS pursuing a certificate of specialization in Preservation Administration. Her special interests are the preservation of cultural records and the potential of computer video documentary for instructional purposes. As Teaching Assistant for Dr. Julie Hallmark, she assisted in the design and implementation of a distance education library reference course for the Monterrey Inst. of Technology in Mexico.
Students who joined the PCS program in fall 2000 include: Marlan Green, who came to PCS from the Conservation Division of the Library of Congress where he worked for almost two years as a special collections conservator. Before moving to LC, Marlan already had worked for two years at the University of the South in preservation and archives.
Jamye Jamison entered our program with four years of experience in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She graduated in 1996 from Princeton University with an B.A. in Art History. Rebecca Elder holds a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and came to PCS after working in political fundraising and professional theater.
Jill Hawkins has brought a B.S. in Industrial Technology with a concentration in Drafting and Design from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and experience in Collection Development at the Austin Public Library with her to PCS. Currently she is employed in the Benson Latin American Collection of the General Libraries of UT-Austin working on a microfilming project of rare Mexican newspapers.
Jenny L. Hudson, from Wimberley, Texas, entered the PA specialization with a background that includes a B.A. in English/History from UT-Austin and work teaching English in Japan.
Dan Paterson, beginning his studies in conservation, comes to the program from the Newberry Library in Chicago. Frank (Francisco) Trujillo has come to pursue his career in conservation, building upon his two years working as an apprentice to a conservator in private practice in St. Paul, MN, 1998-2000. He has a B.A. in History/English from Notre Dame University, 1992.
This news from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. Two interns are coming to the HRHRC Photograph Conservation Lab this Spring. Sara Shpargel, 3rd-year graduate student in the State University College at Buffalo Art Conservation Program, will be working with Barbara Brown for a two month internship starting in mid-February. Gwenola Furic, 3rd-year graduate student in photograph conservation at the IFROA program in Paris, France, will start her three-month internship in the lab in May.
Annegret Seger, from Berlin, Germany is working with Stephanie Watkins, Head of the Paper Conservation Laboratory at the HRHRC, for six months on a CDS (German cultural exchange) grant. The first six months of the CDS grant were spent studying with book conservator, Maria Fredericks at the Butler Library at Columbia University. Annegret has prior training in book conservation a the Duke August Library in Wolfenbuettel, Germany.
Prue McKay, a second year paper major from the University of Canberra, Australia, in the Bachelor of Applied Science program (the conservation of cultural materials course) has recently spent six weeks of her summer work project (our winter, of course!) also working with Stephanie in the paper lab. Prue continues on her break learning from Piers Townshend at the Tate Gallery, London.
Ken Grant has a new title, Exhibitions Conservator, and is now working on issues related to the new exhibition galleries presently being planned for the renovation of two floors within the Ransom Center building. He will also continue to work in the paper conservation lab part-time.
The HRHRC conservation staff has recently finished treatments for a major upcoming exhibition: From Gutenberg to Gone with the Wind: Treasures from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, which will be installed at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, TX. The show opens in the Spring of 2001 and offers a rare opportunity to see the "tip of the iceberg" of the varied and unique collections of the HRHRC.
Regional Reporter:
Ken Grant
Conservation Department
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
University of Texas at Austin
P.O. Box 7219
Austin, TX 78713
tel: 512/471-9117
fax: 512/471-9646
kgrant@mail.utexas.edu
Bishop Museum CRCC (Cultural Resources & Collections Care) staff recently prepared and stabilized its collection of Kahili for the renovation of the Kahili Room in Hawaiian Hall. Preparations are underway to renovate the Legacy Hall, including the cleaning of a large wall mural depicting a map of the Pacific Ocean with voyaging routes, the installation of an outrigger canoe, and installation of traditional Hawaiian surfboards.
Diana Dicus recently visited the Objects Lab to treat and prepare a feather cloak for loan to Iolani Palace. Linda Hee will treat and prepare two cloaks for display in Bishop Museum's galleries at Hilton Hawaiian Village and a third cloak for display in Hawaiian Hall.
Alan Miller has briefly returned to the conservation staff and Simonette dela Torre, recently from Washington, DC, has been hired as a Conservation Assistant.
The second "Behind the Scenes" interpretive tour program is underway and focuses on the life of Kalakaua. This tour provides an opportunity for visitors to see rare and fragile objects in storage; the first program focused on Kamehameha. The Museum is currently looking to fill the position of Environmental Conservator. Details can be found on the museum's website.
Laura Gorman completed treatments of a group of Tang ceramics for the Honolulu Academy of Arts. She recently cleaned the font used in the late 1800s to baptize Hawaiian royalty at Honolulu's Episcopal cathedral. Laura conducted a CAP survey of the CNMI Museum on Saipan. She attended both the WAAC meeting in Nevada City and the Midwest meeting in Memphis which included a special tour of Graceland.
Greg Thomas is currently treating an oil painting by William Twigg-Smith from the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. He is also treating a portrait with extensive insect damage attributed to A. van Dyck. Recently Greg completed a partial transfer of an oil on canvas seascape by D. H. Hitchcock, and his on-site work has included work for the USS Arizona Memorial. Several paintings treated by Greg from a corporate collection, including a buon fresco easel painting by J. Charlot.
Larry Pace has been very fortunate to have Simonette dela Torre and Alan Miller working as part-time assistants on a large variety of projects including collection surveys, maintenance of outdoor sculpture, and the treatment of oil and acrylic paintings.
Dawne Steel Pullman spent several days in November with Larry helping with some challenging inpainting projects. She was briefly in Hawaii on her way back to the mainland from an extended stay in Japan. As a group they are currently working on paintings belonging to individuals and corporate collections, as well as paintings in the collection of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Mission Houses Museum, Bishop Museum, and the Honolulu Academy of Art.
Work will begin in the next several months on the conservation of a large multi-paneled mural belonging to the University of Hawaii and a large 3 story fresco by the muralist Pablo O'Higgins, a student of Diego Rivera. Larry will be running (well actually jogging and walking) his 7th Honolulu Marathon on the second Sunday of December. For several days following the Marathon there will be very little activity at the Studio.
Regional Reporter:
Laurence Pace
1645 Haku Street
Honolulu, HI 96819-1648
808/833-1999
fax 808/839-0320
lapace@lava.net
Conservator Gayle Clements of Gilcrease Museum's Department of Art Conservation took part in a panel discussion for Oklahoma Museum Association's 2000 statewide meeting. The discussion centered around art in public places. Panelists shared information with attendees on the state of Oklahoma's Bill 2493 - Art in Public Places Act. Examples of Public Art Maps were distributed and Save Outdoor Sculpture's videos were critiqued.
The Oklahoma Chapter of ASID, American Society of Interior Designers, toured the Department of Art Conservation at Gilcrease Museum. The event established a liaison between interior designers and the art conservation profession. To participate in October's "Mentor A Child Program" the Gilcrease Museum Department of Art Conservation conducted a puppet play at a charter school for the disadvantaged. The school's annual "Role Model" Program invites an outstanding community contributor to share with the students a message on how to succeed in life. The puppet show stressed to the students "stay in school and choose friends wisely."
The Department of Art Conservation is embarking on a pilot project POP "Puppets of Preservation." The puppet show will introduce preservation principles to school age children grades first through third. The presentations will occur before gallery tours with the children. The puppets will stress to the children ideas such as "we do not touch the artworks during the tour, etc."
Regional Reporter:
Gayle S. Clements
Department of Conservation
Gilcrease Museum
Tulsa, OK
918/596-2780
The conservation lab at the Museum of Anthropology of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver has been very busy for the last few months. Darrin Morrison has recently returned from a trip to Samoa where he was working on preparations for a major upcoming exhibit of the Museum's important Burnett Collection of ethnographic objects from the South Pacific.
In addition to an already hectic schedule at MOA, Dr. Miriam Clavir has also been commuting to Seattle once a week to teach a conservation course at the University of Washington. Two new staff joined Miriam and Darrin in the conservation lab this September. Heidi Swierenga returned to MOA to take up the position of Assistant Conservator, after completing her MAC at Queen's University. Dee Stubbs, a graduate of the art conservation program of Sir Sandford Fleming College, is here for one year in an advanced internship funded through the grants program of the Getty Conservation Institute.
Jack Thompson reports that the pond for Mill of Dunnydeer was drained in September/October to permit installation of pipe and a valve to provide water to the papermill, and ground was broken for the mill. A test section of wattle & daub was prepared at hovel number one and testing continues.... An edited version of the mill log which Jack is keeping is being serialized in the Idaho Center for the Book's Newsletter, and the first installment has been published (V 7, # 2, Oct., 2000). In his spare time Jack has been working on a private collection of Asian folding screens.
The Caber Press has published 5 new titles, and a catalog listing the nineteen titles published under this imprint. The new titles are: A Dard Hunter Reader: A collection of early articles by and about Dard Hunter; The Art & Science of Gilding, by Ford & Mimmack (1909); Working Horn, Ivory & Tortoishell, by Charles Holtzapffel (1843); Leather Work, by Georges de Recy; Maude Nathan, trans. (1905); The Effect of Moisture in Paper, by Helen U. Kiely (1927).
Charles Rhyne has included the following link for topics of interest and papers by WAAC members presented at the October IIC conference in Melbourne. http://www.natmus.min.dk/cons/iic/conferences/melbrn/mlbnpapr.html.
There are two very new additions to the WAAC family; Elizabeth Czerwinski has a new baby girl and is now on maternity leave, and Peter Malarkey also has a new baby, Lucy.
At the WAAC meeting in Nevada City, J. Claire Dean began her term as our new Vice President. In October she managed (after three days stranded in Anchorage due to foul weather) to get to the Aleutian Islands to carry out a CAP survey for the new Museum of the Aleutians. In early January she will be making her annual visit to Twenty-nine Palms, CA, to clean up various messes left at rock art sites by the US Marines on the Marine Corp base there. Plans are also underway to bring a pre-program intern from South Africa to Oregon for a six month internship, starting in March.
Regional Reporter:
Peter Malarkey
206/378-1051
pmpc@att.net
Renee Jolly had a baby named Maya Isabel Jolly on 31st October 2000. Renee is currently on maternity leave from her post at the Museum of New Mexico until the end of January 2001.
Betina Raphael in the midst of an NEA-funded project for conservation of silver Navajo jewelry with the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe. She is also doing a conservation condition survey of pre-Columbian at the Museum of Peoples and Cultures in Provo, Utah on the campus of Brigham Young University.
M. Susan Barger gave two workshops on the care of photographic collections for the N.M. Historic Records Review Board as part of a NHPRC grant for training archivists in the state. She also participated in a Preservation Fair for the same organizations to teach methods for the management of family archives.
Regional Reporter:
Susan Barger
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
505/466-3709
barger@unm.edu
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