May 2001 Volume 23 Number 2

Regional News

OKLAHOMA

After providing many issues worth of news from Oklahoma, Gayle Clements has stepped down from the post of Regional Reporter for her area. Lots of thanks are due to Gayle for routinely sending in news from her neck of the woods. If there are any members out there who would like to take on the role of Regional reporter for Oklahoma and general area, please contact the Column Editor, J. Claire Dean at clairedean@aol.com.

GREATER LOS ANGELES / SANTA BARBARA

Last March, Tom Learner from the Tate Gallery in London presented a talk, "The Impact of Modern Paints" at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The lecture introduced the main types of 'modern' paints and examined their use and properties by considering paintings in the Tate Collection of ten influential artists from Britain and America - Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, John Hoyland, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.

The LACMA Conservation Center's International Fellow, Soko Furuhata, continues to be a great contributor to the paper conservation lab. In addition to helping with the exhibition and treatment workloads, she has proven herself to be a great courier - her first trip was a flight/ truck trip to Japan. In April, Soko attended the week-long Workshop on the Removal of Pressure-Sensitive Tapes & Tape Stains in Washington taught by Elissa O'Loughlin and Linda Stiber Morenus. Afterwards she had her first trip to the Big Apple.

Margot Healey and Soko Furuhata had a bit of fun with an installation at LA's MoCA working with the artist Jason Rhoades to install/repair a 26 piece cardboard box/styrofoam/ mixed-media "unit." The piece, entitled "WHOLE #12," is one of the 19 "units" comprising Rhoade's "Swedish Erotica and Fiero Parts" installation, a 1994 show MoCA reproduced within a portion of its Public Offerings exhibit. It was a great opportunity to learn the artist's desires for the preservation of this work.

Chail Norton continues her work towards graduate school. She started her first semester of organic chemistry in Feb. Margot Healey attended the AIC/PMG winter meeting in Houston. The paper lab will be hosting a Queens student this summer who will work on a variety of projects, including tape removal.

Wendy Partridge, Paintings Conservation's Ahmanson Fellow for 2000-2001, and Elma O'Donoghue are continuing their examination and treatment of 18th and 19th c. French sketches, acquired last year by LACMA's Center for European Paintings and Sculpture. Wendy has been restoring an early 18th c. composition by Jean Jouvenet, The Raising of Lazarus and Elma is working on a study by Gabriel Francois Doyen, Nobility Offering the Russian Imperial Children to Minerva.

The Paintings Conservation Section will be receiving a Camilla Chandler Frost Summer Intern this year from NYU, to assist in the survey of the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Masters.

In April, Terry Schaeffer gave a lecture on The Physics of Light and its Interaction with Matter to the new certificate course in Collections Management for Costume and Textile Collections at Cal State Long Beach. She has also been working on her forthcoming book, Effects of Light on Materials in Collections: Data on Photoflash and Related Sources, to be published this fall by the Getty Conservation Institute in its Research in Conservation Series.

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Director of the Conservation Center, was in New York in late January to install LACMA's van Gogh drawing the Postman Roulin at MOMA. She also gave a lunch time lecture at NYU to the conservation students which focused on training opportunities at LACMA.

Glenn Wharton has completed the conservation of the Kamehameha I sculpture on the Island of Hawai'i. He worked with Michael Jones of Honolulu, and a team drawn from the local community. The community's involvement in the project is being recorded by Hawai'i Public Television in a documentary film. The project is a participant in Animating Democracy, a national program that funds community dialogue in the public art process.

At the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, conservation technician Suza Szewiola's current activities include an ongoing project to prepare samples of conservation materials (i.e., demonstration set of dry pigments mixed with fill materials).

Assistant conservator Irena Calinescu has a several month contract to perform treatments on the museum's permanent collections. Welcome to pre-training interns Monica Herrada and Katalin Szeker-Somogyi!

Jo Hill's recent challenge was to stabilize and prepare to mount 75 movie posters from Ghana (painted flour sacks advertising adventure and monster films), within a two-month deadline period. As the testing and implementation of treatment solutions shows an example of an objects/textiles conservator's approach to applying archival, reversible paintings/textiles methods and materials to ethnographic pieces, she plans to offer one local and two national hands-on workshops to demonstrate exploration of treatment adhesive choices.

Ann Ruggles, conservator from the National Gallery of Canada, will be returning this summer to continue work on her museum's Montagna, St. Jerome, which she began conserving at the Getty studio last year. Also joining the department this summer is Christoph Schoelzel, conservator from Dresden's Staatliche Kunstsammulungen who will stay for a three month period to conserve his collection's Holy Family by Mantegna. During this period, Elisabeth Mention will be on leave in Spain and France.

In the Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation Department at the Getty Museum, Brian Considine has been preparing for the upcoming AIC-WAG Furniture Study Tour to France which he will be co-leading from May 5-24th. He is also preparing a review for the JAIC of the recent two volume publication from the Met entitled The Gubbio Studiolo and its Conservation, and awaiting the publication by the Getty this summer of his translation of Masterpieces of the Marqueters.

Jane Bassett traveled to Dresden in March to examine bronzes collected in the late 17th/early 18th century by Augustus the Strong. There, at the Green Vault, she attended a meeting of the French Bronze Study Group, a gathering of scholars that are undertaking a much-needed critical study of French bronzes.

Julie Wolfe and Arlen Heginbotham are settling into their new positions in the department. Julie recently attended a class on environmental monitoring for museums and archives taught by William Lull at NYU. She has also been working on technical analysis of renaissance bronzes. Arlen has begun to work on a technical study of central European glass in the museum's collection and is preparing for the upcoming show Devices of Wonder, which will open in November.

Maria Franzon, the current graduate intern, is working a pair of 17th-century German ceramic stove tiles, and is conducting research on the analysis of enamels. The department is happy to have Dr. Raquel Carreras in residence through June. Dr. Carreras is a specialist in wood identification from the Centro Nacional de Conservacion, Restauracion y Museologia in Havana, Cuba. She is conducting research for her manual of wood identification which will be designed specifically for art conservators.

Duane Chartier was asked by Mann Theaters to assess the condition of the hand and footprints in front of Mann's Chinese Theater as part of a study to improve the cement pouring method. Each set of stars' prints is actually poured into a removable pan so that the ceremony can always take place in a central part of the forecourt of the theater.

The structural stability of the prints has not always been optimal, and ConservArt is testing methods for a new pan type that will permit greater ease of removal, storage and will reduce cracking. Dr. Chartier also assisted in the ceremony for actor Anthony Hopkins in January.

Susanne Friend and Duane Chartier of ConservArt Associates, Inc. traveled to Tulsa, OK in February to install an 8' x 14' landscape by artist Wilson Hurley that they had earlier marouflaged onto their interlocking aluminum honeycomb panel system. Susanne later returned to varnish the painting and also to work on some plaster sculptures for the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

Last March, David Bomford presented a talk, "Rembrandt Revealed: Old Uncertainties, New Deductions," at the J.Paul Getty Museum. The talk presented new findings regarding Rembrandt scholarship and attribution, and discussed interesting recent technical findings.

As of April 7, 2001, Aneta Zebala has moved her paintings conservation studio to a new location. The new studio is at 2237 22nd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405. The telephone remains the same.

News from the Autry: after working part-time for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage for a year, Tania Collas will be joining the staff full time as Assistant Conservator beginning April 5th. They are thrilled. Richard Moll gave two lectures on Paper and Photographic Conservation: the first at Christie's Auction House (Beverly Hills) to the members of the American Art Council (LACMA), and the second to a luncheon gathering of ARCO employees and retirees. The lectures were followed by question and answer session when various specific topics related to the audience's personal collections were addressed.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN

Victoria Montana Ryan and D. Hays Shoop, ACCDU Paintings Conservators, recently spoke at the Phipps Mansion about the conservation of two paintings in the collection: Gainsborough's Lady Clarges and Hoppner's Captain Charles Hope, R.N. This was a fundraising event hosted by The Friends of the Art Conservation Center.

Heather Tudhope, Paper Conservator, assisted by pre-program aide, Nina Owczarek, traveled to Basin, WY to present a workshop on the General Care, Handling, and Storage of Coll. to attendees at the Big Horn County Library.

Colorado State University Libraries is one of approximately 180 field test sites for the Preservation Environmental Monitor developed by the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This datalogger is equipped with software that extrapolates the useful life of a collection based on time weighted temperature and relative humidity data. Karen Jones, Assoc. Preservation Librarian at CSUL, attended the introductory class with 30 other representatives from institutions across the West and Midwest. For more information on the PEM, visit http://www.rit.edu/~661www1/sub_pages/8page17aa.htm Deb Juchem, Textile Conservator, has stabilized and remounted a large, raised-work Victorian fire screen for a private collector in Texas. She has also surveyed a collection of 68 Navajo saddle blankets for the Museum of Indian Art and Culture in Sante Fe, NM. Deb constructed a custom-made mannequin, for the Greeley City Museum, to display a costume of one of their founding citizens. She also did a solvent cleaning of the upholstery on an original Gaetano Pesce chair for a private collector in Los Angeles, CA.

Eileen Clancy, Paper Conservator, has recently surveyed collections at Mesa Verde National Park, Wyoming State Archives, and the Univ. of Wyoming Art Museum.

ARIZONA

Laura Downey attended the training workshop for the field trial of the Climate Notebook Software at the Image Permanence Institute in Rochester, NY.

Linda Morris continued working on varnish removal for three burnt murals from the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Phoenix, AZ. The project is nearing completion with two murals treated and one underway.

Nancy Odegaard attended the professional course in the conservation of archaeological ceramics at West Dean College, England in January. She is currently working on an archaeological leather moccasin project with the University of Utah.

Marilen Pool has been continuing to work on a publication with Nancy Odegaard on pesticide contaminated museum collections. She has also been working on the conservation of a collection of archaeological materials from Fort Verde State Park. In April she will begin an eight month contract with the National Museum of the American Indian investigating the pesticide use history of their collections.

Nanette Skov has been busy conserving and mounting archaeological textiles from Peru for the new exhibit opening at the Palice Pavilion (Exhibit of the Americas) at the Tucson Museum of Art. She will go to Arequipa, Peru in mid-June to work on museum archaeological textiles. Anyone interested in going should contact her at nanetteskov@hotmail.com.

Gretchen Voeks assisted the Coast Guard in returning a 1st Order Fresnel Lens to the Heceta Head lighthouse in Oregon, and documenting the process. She and student Audrey Harrison have been working with Death Valley National Park to put together an overall preservation plan for Scotty's Castle and the park's numerous object storage areas.

Audrey and Museum Studies intern Cheri Vitez are currently working on repairing a group of historic, archaeological ceramics for Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Washington.

SAN DEIGO

(Note: Both the Editor and the Column Editor appologize for the lack of news from San Diego in the last issue of the Newsletter. It's not that nothing of importance occurred there in the previous months, rather a breakdown in communication took place. The missing news is belatedly included here. Again, we are sorry).

The Balboa Art Conservation Center (BACC) has established the Western Region Field Service Office (WRFSO). This is made possible by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Beverly Perkins, who was hired as the Western Region Field Service Officer in January, is working with BACC Conservators, a core group of regional consultants, and "Leader" museums to enhance preservation outreach in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. One of the goals of the WRFSO is to strengthen the relationships of small and mid-sized museums and historical societies with preservation resources, such as conservators, in their area.

Will Chandler reports that over the past year, the San Diego Museum of Art has been taking care of a great deal of deferred maintenance, including the installation of a new HVAC system. In the course of refurbishing the museum's lobby, the historical wooden ceiling and cast "Artstone" ornamentation were cleaned and conserved by Los Angeles objects conservator Donna Williams.

Donna has also completed work on the chandeliers, as well as the cast iron surround to the entrance door. Will was hired by the museum to determine the original wall color, which proved to be yellow ochre, and to document the architects' design sources for the interior ornamentation. The results of the refurbishment have been very successful and, by returning to the original design scheme, the visual confusion that resulted from ignoring that scheme has been satisfactorily resolved.

PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Artech Fine Art Services has remodeled a 19,000 sq ft warehouse in Renton, WA, and has moved Storage, Installation, and Packing - Crating Departments to that facility. They now have 9,500 sq ft of museum quality, climate controlled storage and a climate controlled viewing room, as well as two loading docks, five minutes from Seatac airport. The frameshop, Artech-Denman, and administrative offices are still in downtown Seattle. Phone for all of the above is still 206/728-8822.

Nicholas Dorman will arrive in late April as the Seattle Art Museum's Chief Paintings Conservator. Nick currently works at the Doerner Institute and teaches at the Technische Universitat in Munich. He received his Masters in the Conservation of Fine Art from the University of Northumbria. He will be responsible for designing the museum's new Neukom Conservation Studio and will supervise the museum's first in-house conservation department.

Frank Terrill has had an article published in the January issue of Tribal Arts Magazine. The piece is an investigation of technical and ethical aspects of surrogate materials based upon paper fill compensations in a spruce root woven hat and whalebone pipe holder, replicate ivory for which would violate federal endangered species and tribal rights legislations. Frank has been very busy with object repairs since the recent earthquake.

Jan Cavanaugh is relocating to Seattle in April. She graduated from the Queens University painting conservation program in August, 2000. She will be working with Peter Malarkey treating and reinstalling several timber-related murals by Kenneth Callahan. Originally installed in a lumber mill cafeteria, they were deinstalled in the 1970's and more recently incorporated into the design of Everett Station, a multi-use mass transit center in Everett, Washington, scheduled for completion in April 2002.

J. Claire Dean once again survived her annual field work for the US Marines, including mistaking a fully fledged Marine Corps Major for a lowly military bus driver. She spent most of March in Texas working at various sites for Texas Parks and Wildlife, and avoided getting arrested for illegal entry into Mexico when the boat she was in on the Rio Grande, driven by a National Park Service archaeologist, got lost in a fog bank. By the time they regained their bearings, she had already written the screenplay for the sequel to Traffic.

She ended that particular spell of field work by carrying out a damage assessment for the National Park Service at a site just outside Tucson, Arizona. While there she took the opportunity to visit Arizona Regional Reporter, Gretchen Voecks, and surprised her into thinking that she (Claire) had come to personally collect her copy for this issue of Regional News a day early!

NEW MEXICO

The Conservation Department of the Museum of New Mexico assisted the New Mexico Association of Museum in drafting and submitting a grant proposal to the IMLS leadership grant program to assist small museums in New Mexico in improving their environmental conditions and in helping them prepare for conservation assessments. The Conservation Department has installed a Musis 2007, a multi-spectral imaging instrument, which will be used for investigation of paintings and painted objects. In February, Dale Kronkreit of the Conservation Department of the Museum of New Mexico attended a conference given by Nicolet in Houston to learn more about the interpretation of FTIR spectra.

Mina Gregory of the Conservation Department of the Museum of New Mexico is getting married on 3 June 2001 to Caleb Thompson in Santa Fe.

Linda Landry has left the Museum of New Mexico and has taken a job in St. Louis.

David Rasch, Conservator & Collections Manager at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, was recently elected to the board of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, a private, nonprofit, membership organization dedicated to the preservation of Santa Fe's historic buildings and neighborhoods.

M. Susan Barger worked to facilitate the transfer of the conservation library of Kendra Deerenee Lovette of Baltimore, Maryland to the Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center in Omaha, Nebraska. This is a major collection of books on paper and book conservation and related technologies. It includes books, dictionaries, industrial and scientific treatises, paper samples, journals, and more.

Duplicate of any journals in the Lovette collection already held by the Ford Center will be sent to the National Library of Cuba. It is the hope of Kendra Lovette, who is no longer able to work because of multiple sclerosis, that the placement of her library will make it possible for conservators and students in the middle of the country to have access to a major conservation library. Further, it is Lovette's hope that this gift will inspire others to make arrangements for their libraries when they can no longer work.

TEXAS

Betsy Manship reports that in honor of the upcoming 2001 AIC Annual Meeting in Dallas, Art Restorations, Inc., will host an Open House on Thursday, May 31, 2001, from 3 - 6 PM. There will be a shuttle every 1/2 hour from the Adam's Mark Hotel. They would like to invite everyone to tour their newly expanded conservation facility and enjoy "Big D" hospitality.

Anne Zanikos has purchased a building and set up a new lab. Her new address is 1023 Shook Ave., San Antonio, TX 78212. Her phone number is the same. Anne has recently been working in Mexico on a 16th-century Santo of San Raphael.

Csilla Felker Dennis reports that she has two CAP projects lined up for this summer: one at the A.W.Perry Homestead Museum, Carrollton,TX.; and the other at the Collin County Central Museum, McKinney, TX. She also has conducted conservation lectures for professional day at the Hockaday School in Dallas.

Sandra R. Blackard, AIC Fellow, has relocated to the Austin area and is offering her services as Art Conservation Consultant to private clients, historical groups, and institutions. Services include pre-purchase stability inspections, formal conservation assessments, and general conservation advice. Specific treatment related problems will be referred to conservators in the appropriate specialty. She can be reached at 512.388.9545 or blackard@airmail.net.

In late April, Annegret Seger, German book conservator, completed her six month CDS (German Cultural Exchange) internship in the paper conservation lab of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of Stephanie Watkins, Head of Paper Conservation. Annegret has returned to Berlin and is actively pursuing opportunities for employment or additional study.

Former HRHRC paper lab intern, Prue McKay, is back in Australia finishing up conservation studies at the University of Canberra. Sara Shpargel, 3rd-year graduate student in the State University College at Buffalo Art Conservation Program, completed her two month internship in the HRHRC Photograph Conservation Lab where she worked with Barbara Brown. Sara returned to the Chicago Historical Society to complete her internship working with Carol Turchan. Sara has been accepted into the Mellon Advanced Residency Program at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY and will be start her fellowship there at the end of the summer.

In mid-February, HRHRC conservators, Olivia Primanis, Barbara Brown, and Stephanie Watkins along with Associate Director, Sue Murphy and interns Sara Shpargel and Annegret Seger, attended the AIC-Photographic Materials Group Meeting in Houston, TX. In conjunction with the meeting, the lab was visited by several photographic conservators, including the members of the Mellon Advanced Residency Program at the George Eastman House.

SAN FRANCISCO

Antoinette Dwan conducted a workshop on paper bleaching and another on paper drying. On-going sessions are planned for the spring. She continues to work one day a week at SFMOMA on exhibitions, as well as continue private conservation projects.

In the Conservation Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Alina Remba, paintings conservator, was in Argentina for three months as a Fulbright Scholar where she taught a course on Preventive Conservation.

Michelle Barger served as a speaker and panelist at the Soft Packing for Shipping and Storage workshops sponsored by the Registrar Committee Western Region and PACIN. The workshops were held at the de Saisset Museum of Santa Clara University and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Thanks to the efforts of Paula De Cristofaro, Dr. Tom Learner, a conservation scientist at the Tate Gallery in London, gave a lecture on modern paints in March, in the Wattis Theatre of SFMOMA. His presentation covered ideas from his recent book The Impact of Modern Paints.

In addition, Jill Sterrett, Head of Conservation and Paper Conservator, helped organize three digital preservation seminars that addressed the specific preservation imperatives of the Museum's digital media acquisitions. Some of the speakers were: Howard Besser; associate professor in the School for Information Management and Systems at UC Berkeley who served as both Advisor and Discussant in the seminars; Jon Ippolito, Assistant Curator of Media Arts at the Guggenheim; Mona Jimenez, visual artist and media consultant; and Pip Laurenson, Sculpture Conservator for Electronic Media and Kinetic Arts for the Tate Gallery in London. These seminars are providing a structure for planning and thinking about how to collect and preserve digital media as accessioned "objects."

Architectural conservator in private practice Molly Lambert has been conducting public art conservation reviews for new public art projects in the Bay Area—the Rosie The Riveter Memorial in Richmond and a series of public art projects in three new BART Stations on the peninsula (South San Francisco, Millbrae, and San Brun). Public art conservation reviews help the commissioning agency evaluate the materials selected by the artist in order to predict the maintenance and conservation needs of the proposed work of art.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Conservators (Lesley Bone, Elisabeth Cornu, Sarah Gates, Joanne Hackett, Carl Grimm, Patricia O'Regan, Natasa Morovic) are working with the museum registrars and technicians in packing up the collections of the M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. This historic undertaking is a great challenge and opportunity.

The collections are being assessed and packed for storage at an off-site location for a four to five year period while the new museum building is being constructed in Golden Gate Park. The packing process involves thousands of artifacts, ranging from paintings, textiles, decorative arts, furniture, sculptures, ethnographic art, to large period rooms.

The objects are also being imaged and barcoded, under the supervision of Bob Futernick, Acting Associate Director and Chief Conservator of the Fine Arts Museums. In their work, the conservators have made every effort to find packing and storage materials which are of archival quality, and to modularize the storage systems so that objects can remain packed while being accessible for conservation treatment and study.

The museum is committed to having at least one good electronic record and photograph for each object in the collection, and so far the team has imaged and processed 92,000 artifacts out of a collection of 127,000 at both the deYoung and Legion of Honor Museums. The images are of high enough quality to serve a multitude of purposes: conservation assessment, curatorial work as well as for future publications. The packing process for the M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum is anticipated to be completed by late summer 2001. The laboratories will then close, and the professional staff will move to temporary quarters off-site.

In the FAMSF objects laboratory Elisabeth Cornu has once again been in Cuba co-teaching a wood course. Natasa Morovic is currently working on a large frame from the William Keith painting California Ranch which is being loaned to Senator Dianne Feintein's office in Washington DC.

In the FAMSF Paper Lab Giulia Egidi, a paper conservator from the conservation program in Spoleto, Italy, is presently an intern.

Paintings conservators at the FAMSF have been preparing a group of 88 paintings for the traveling exhibit American Accents. Pre-program interns Catherine Betz and Christina Milton are preparing for their interviews in April, and Lisa Sardegna continues to fulfill requirements for application to graduate school next year. Third-year intern, Lance Moore, has received a Mellon fellowship to study paintings conservation at the Metropolitan Museum next year.

The Textile Lab Staff, including Sarah Gates and Yadin Larochette, have finished off a six year project funded by both the NEA and IMLS, to conserve two of the largest and most beautiful 16th c. Belgian tapestries, The Triumph of Fortitude and The Triumph of Prudence. They were interviewed by the SF Chronicle staff writer Jesse Hamlin and a detailed article appeared Feb. 7th on the front page of the Art/Datebook section. Both tapestries are on display in all their 15' x 18' glory at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Gallery 2, until November 2001. They are accompanied by four large "chat panels" which illustrate and describe some of the most exciting "events" of the treatment, including the re-spelling of one the figure's names and the large in-fill of an eagle's wing based on a tapestry at the Walker in Liverpool.

This is unusual in that it is rare for a conservation treatment to be brought to the public's notice during an exhibition - don't miss it!! The lab hopes to undertake the conservation of the third tapestry in the series, Justice, while in temporary home in South San Francisco, starting in May.

Will Shank presented the first lecture in the newly inaugurated Norton Simon Theater at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena in January. He discussed the painting techniques of Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Klee, and Feininger, artists represented in the Galka Scheyer "Blue Four" Collection at the NSM. Will contributed to a catalog of the paintings, written by art historian Vivian Barnett, which is currently in production.

Will visited Argentina last October as guest of the U.S. State Department. While there, he toured museum collections in Buenos Aires, La Plata, and Rosario, and he presented a series of seminars on the care of contemporary artworks, along with Argentine conservators Viviana Dominguez and Silvio Goren. He is at present working with Curator Claire Perry and Registrar/Conservator Susan Roberts-Manganelli on a condition survey of the American Paintings at Stanford University's Cantor Center for the Visual Arts.

The Oakland Museum of California conservation lab has been preparing to move into its new location adjacent to the museum campus. Development of the new site is currently underway with projected completion in early 2002.

Meanwhile, conservation projects continue: The lab won a California Preservation Foundation award for its work on the Sunol Water Temple; conservation on the statuary on the facade of Mission Santa Clara has been completed; a microclimate was designed for a lock of Beethoven's hair; objects from the Beijing Palace Museum were treated for the Forbidden City exhibition; and CO₂ fumigation undertaken for collections from the deYoung, Asian Art, and Mexican museums.

Current projects in the lab include a large flag case for San Francisco City Hall, a severely vandalized composite marble statue of Columbus in the San Jose City Hall, a spacesuit for Chabot Observatory, a Bufano sculpture for the Academy of Sciences with conservator Molly Lambert, and some of the museum's large outdoor sculptures.

Milada Machova has been working on several paintings from the collection, including a severely damaged Jay DeFeo, and was principal conservator for the Houston installation of the Chinese exhibition.

Julie Trosper recently returned from 6 weeks in Egypt where she is the site conservator for the Graeco-Roman port of Berenike. Both Julie and John Burke also recently surveyed the Gold Nugget Museum in Paradise, California. John recently completed translating the full text and images of every back issue of the Journal into HTML for the AIC website, and just started his 14th year of teaching at JFKU.

Tim Vitale has been working on a survey of the museum's photographic holdings, as well as treatments of several works on paper from the Art Department collection. And, the OMCC lab has also been blessed with the presence of Anne Rosenthal (another Preservation Foundation award winner) who is working on a few large murals, and with Meg Geiss-Mooney, who has been surveying a collection of Chinese flags from the Asian Art Museum.

Paloma Anoveros, regional reporter for the Bay Area, has left her position as Collections Manager at Lucasfilm Ltd. Paloma will be consulting in collections management.