In the October 18, 2013 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Clemens Bonsdorf wrote about a preservation dilemma (“Norway Debates Demolishing Picassos”). Norway’s Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs has recommended the demolition of two Brutalist style buildings that were damaged by terrorist bombings in 2011. However, those buildings contain site-specific murals designed by Picasso and executed by Carl Nesjar. While some contend that the murals—the first done by Picasso in that technique—are of historic importance, others are of the belief that “not everything that Picasso created was great and the works Nesjar applied for Picasso are not worth keeping”. It is doubtful that anyone believes that every work of art ever created is worth preserving. The question is who gets to decide which works are not.
Year: 2013
What if the artist’s intention is in conflict with the owner’s desire to preserve the work of art?
In October 15, 2013 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Lee Rosenbaum wrote about Anselm Kiefer’s last minute interventions to his works days prior to the opening of his show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (“A New Art Partnership”). Among the things Kiefer did was sweep up gravel that had fallen from one of his works. Rosenbaum noted that Kiefer “likes his works to crumble, weather and deteriorate, all of which stops when they are acquired by preservation minded collectors and museums.” We often speak about “the artist’s intention”, but what is the right thing to do when the artist’s intention and the owner’s wishes are in conflict?
Contemporary Print ID Workshop Begins Despite Government Shutdown
We were all looking forward to spending three days at the National Gallery and one day at Pyramid Atlantic looking at prints, but just as the start of the workshop approached, the government shutdown began. With the National Gallery closed indefinitely, the workshop organizers had to scramble to make alternate arrangements.
As one of the participants, I am happy to report that they were successful. The Corcoran Gallery of Art was able to provide space for us, and we had a great first day. We reviewed familiar print techniques and terminology, and learned some new ones (for me, anyway), such as CNC, or computer numerical control- using a computer to achieve detail and precision that would be difficult or impossible by hand; soap ground, or white ground- a technique using a mixture of soap flakes, linseed oil, and water to create painterly white areas; and water bite- using an acid/water mixture on a tilted plate to create subtle gradations in depth.
We have begun day two and will be going more in-depth on contemporary print processes and hear from some guest lecturers, including: Marian Dirda from the National Gallery; Shelley Langdale, of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman and Jason Urban from the website Printeresting.
Thanks to Stephanie Lussier, Scott Homolka, Abigail Choudry, and everyone from AIC and the Corcoran that made this workshop possible despite the shutdown.
Course on Chemometrics for Cultural Heritage – Level 1
Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Dates: October 31rst / November 1rst, 2013, 9am – 5pm
Target Audience: This workshop is aimed at researchers and conservators who want to be able to analyze their own laboratory data, and with a need for exploratory data analysis, development of predictive models and sample classification. No prior knowledge is required for this course.
Course Description: The course will cover the fundamentals of many commonly used Chemometric methods including Exploratory Data Analysis and pattern Recognition, Regression and Classification Methods (PCA, PLS, SIMCA,PLS-DA)and Data Pretreatment. Emphasis will be on applying these techniques in the contex
t of cultural heritage research.
The course will comprise lectures and hands-on activities. Computers will not be provided. Participants are encouraged to bring their laptops with demo versions of Solo installed. A 60 days demo license will be provided by Eigenvector to each participant.
About the Instructor: Dr. Donald Dahlberg is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Lebanon Valley College. Dahlberg earned a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University. After decades of doing research in the area of Physical Organic Chemistry, he got involved in Chemometrics while on sabbatical in 1988 at the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry at the University of Washington. There he learned chemometrics in the Bruce
Kowalski group (co-founder of chemometrics). Upon returning to LVC, he taught chemometrics to undergraduate students for over a decade. Although retired from the classroom, he continues do consulting and supervises undergraduate research in industrial chemometrics. He wrote and teaches this workshop so that those not fluent in matrix algebra can take advantage of the powerful tool of chemometrics..
How to Register: A registration form can be requested by email to ana_martins@moma.org. The deadline for registration is October 7th, 2013. Cost: $400 (includes course materials and refreshments). Participants’ number is limited to 10. For registration and inquiries please contact: ana_martins@moma.org
Financial resources for pre-program conservation interns
Internships are an important part of preparing for graduate training in conservation. They are often volunteer positions and finding ways to manage the financial demands of working without monetary compensation can be a challenge. This is most often the case for pre-program interns but certainly graduate interns and even recent graduates can face similar issues.
Here are a few tips and resources for developing a strategy to address these concerns:
Funding:
Of course the best way to make an internship financially viable is to be paid for your work. There are two strategies in applying for funding to cover the expense of your internship: You can apply on your own behalf, as an individual, or you can encourage an institution — such as a museum or historic site — with which you’d like to work to apply for funds to host a paid intern.
For individual grants, a good place to start can be with your undergraduate alma mater, even if you are no longer a current student. Most colleges and universities will provide information on available scholarships or grants that might be used towards funding internships as well as information on potential internship opportunities. And don’t forget to represent yourself: There are funding opportunities available specifically for women, minorities, new Americans, non-traditional students, and veterans and their families. The recently established Denese L. Easterly Conservation Training Pre-program Grant at Indigo Arts Alliance is open to individual applicants for funding for internships as well as other pre-program expenses such as additional required courses, supplies, and more.
For institutional grants, look for funding opportunities at the federal, state, regional, or county level with arts commissions or historic preservation offices. For example, the LA County Arts Commission offers funding for a 10-week internship at a ‘non-profit arts organization’. Check AIC’s ‘Grants and Scholarships’ page, especially the section on ‘Outside Funding Sources’, as some of those listed are national grants open to institutions and provide money that can be used to host an intern.
Finally, if you’re applying for a grant or scholarship, don’t forget to check out AIC’s ‘Five tips for a successful scholarship application’, also available through their ‘Grants and Scholarships’ page. Grant-writing can be an essential part of work in the non-profit world and developing this skill is always useful.
Necessities and considerations:
There are several other aspects to developing a successful strategy for supporting yourself during an internship, paid or volunteer.
Health care:
Health care is essential and finding it affordably priced can be tricky. With the new health care law, people may stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26, which is an advantage since family plans tend to be less expensive than those for individuals. It is possible to shop online for insurance options via sites like the federally-supported www.healthcare.gov and many states are setting up similar online marketplaces. The amount you pay will depend heavily on the type of coverage you need or want. For example, if you are generally healthy, month-to-month insurance might be a cheaper option though your co-pay and deductible will be higher. Also, if you are interning with an organization that offers health benefits to its employees, you might ask about the cost of purchasing their plan, though it is less likely to be available for volunteers.
Taxes:
There are potential tax benefits to being a volunteer intern and it’s important to make the most of these, especially if money is tight. Certain volunteer expenses can be deducted on your annual tax return if you are interning for a recognized non-profit or 501(c) organization. Also, don’t forget to make the most of education credits if you are a current student or if you are paying interest on student loans. Lastly, if you need free or low-cost tax help, the IRS provides several options.
Other types of financial support:
If you are below a certain annual income, you may qualify for food assistance, though eligibility varies from state to state. Likewise, some public transportation authorities offer subsidized fare passes for volunteers, low-income members of the community, and/or in partnership with certain businesses and organizations.
Experiences:
Based on anecdotal evidence, there is a variety of strategies and resources developed to manage a volunteer, part-time, or low-pay internship. Here are a few from the experience of others:
- Work full or part-time in a paid position simultaneous to a part-time volunteer or low-pay internship. Look for paid positions with a flexible schedule or odd hours (e.g. mornings, swing shift). When seeking opportunities, consider those beyond working in a conservation lab which might contribute to your pre-program experience, for example in a frame shop, a library, as a set builder, or painting houses. Many of these jobs give you an opportunity to develop hand skills or technical knowledge related to conservation (e.g. the use of solvents, hand tools, or collections management systems). Remember that every job is an opportunity to develop important people and communication skills.
- Supportive friends and family might be looking for ways to help. One suggestion is to request professional memberships, community college tuition, bus passes, or supplies as gifts for your birthday, graduation or at holidays.
- If possible, especially while gaining pre-program experience, live at home and work locally. If you live in a big city, it may be easier to find experience in a major museum but if you’re outside a city, try looking at local historical societies and libraries where you might volunteer. These opportunities will put you in good standing to apply to other, more specialized or even paid internships.
No doubt there are many ways to manage the financial challenge of working as a volunteer intern that haven’t been addressed or represented here. We invite you to briefly share your suggestions or experiences on how you found, cultivated, or created resources during any of your pre-program conservation internships.
One may ponder the greater question, but what of the immediate damage to the art work?
In a Huffington Post piece entitled, “Miley Cyrus Strikes Again, or the Destruction of the Pendulum,” Julia Friedman discusses the removal of Dale Eldred’s 1973 sculpture from its site on the campus of Grand Valley State University after students appropriated it for a reenactment of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” video due to its close resemblance to a wrecking ball. Friedman notes that the artist Richard Serra (who knows something about this from personal experience) believes that the removal of a site-specific work is equivalent to its destruction. Thus Eldred’s sculpture which is now in storage might be considered as “destroyed”. This is a large question we might ponder– although in a year or so when no one will be inclined to recreate Cyrus’ video, the sculpture could be reinstalled in its site. But what of the immediate damage that might have been inflicted on the sculpture when students climbed aboard it and swung?
Symposium on "Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement"
Conservators who work with European sculpture may be interested in the symposium, “Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture: Material, Manufacture, Meaning and Movement” that will take place at the University of Vermont on October 18, 2013. The papers will cover such topics as how marble and stone were chosen and supplied for sculpture, how large blocks of marble and weighty sculptures were transported, and the properties of stucco that made it a choice material for sculpture. For more information, one can contact Kelley Helmstutler, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Vermont, kelley.didio@uvm.edu
Position Announcement – Director of American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome (AAR) invites qualified individuals to apply for the position of Academy Director. The individual selected to fill this position will ideally have an established reputation in one of the four humanities disciplines served by the AAR (ancient studies, medieval studies, renaissance and early modern studies, and modern Italian studies) or one of the seven arts disciplines served by the AAR (architecture, landscape architecture, design, historic preservation and conservation, literature, music, and visual arts). Broad cultural interests, in particular in those fields of scholarship and the arts served by the AAR, is also desired for this position as well as some degree of fluency in spoken and written Italian.
Reporting to the President in New York, the Director provides intellectual and managerial leadership for all the activities and programs of the Academy in Rome. The Director (together with the Deputy Director in relation to administrative matters), manages a culturally and linguistically diverse staff of approximately 70, with direct reports from the Drue Heinz Librarian, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor, the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, the Deputy Director (joint report to the President/CEO), and the Executive Secretary to the Director.
For more information and to apply, visit aarome.org/jobs.
(Deadline for receipt of materials is October 11, 2013.)
How to Make the Most of Your Pre-Program Internship: About the Speakers
ECPN is getting excited for our upcoming webinar, “How to make the most of your pre-program internship,” featuring Emily Williams, Tom Edmondson, LeeAnn Barnes Gordon, and Ayesha Fuentes. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, September 24th from 12-1pm ET. To register for the program, please visit: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/766549178.
Get to know our speakers by reading their bios below and send in any questions about pre-program internships that you’d like them to discuss by commenting on this post or emailing Anisha Gupta at agupta[at]udel[dot]edu.
Emily Williams has an M.A. (1994) in the Conservation of Historic Objects (Archaeology) from the University of Durham in England. During graduate school she did placements at the Museum of London, the British Museum and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum, Turkey. Since 1995, she has worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, where she is the current Conservator of Archaeological Materials. While at Colonial Williamsburg she spent five months working at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Australia. She has worked on excavations in Tunisia and Belgium; served as the site conservator at Tell Banat in Syria, Tell Umm el Marra in Syria, and Kurd Qaburstan in Iraqi Kurdistan; and taught courses on the conservation of waterlogged organics in Egypt.
Emily teaches HISP 208: Introduction to Conservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She has been a Professional Associate of AIC since 2000, and is presently serving as the chair of the Education and Training Committee (ETC).
Tom Edmondson was apprentice-trained in paper conservation theory and techniques at the New England Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), North Andover, MA (now the NEDCC, Andover, MA). Following his training Tom operated a private practice paper conservation studio in Torrington, Connecticut, from April 1978 until August 1987. In 1987 he closed his studio and took the position of Senior Paper Conservator at the Conservation Center, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. Shortly after his arrival he was assigned the position of Chief Conservator of the Conservation Center, from which he resigned in September 1988, when he and Nancy Heugh, relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, to establish their current private practice of Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC. Tom has been a member of AIC since 1977, and was elected a Fellow in 1998. He served as Co-Chair of the PMG Commentaries Committee and served two 2-year terms as Chair of the AIC-Photographic Materials Group. Tom also served 7 years on the AIC Membership Committee, the last three of which he was Chair. Always advocates of mentoring aspiring conservators, Tom and his partner Nancy Heugh are the 2011 recipients of AIC’s prestigious Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award in recognition of their sustained record of excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals.
LeeAnn Barnes Gordon earned her M.S. in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation where she trained as an objects conservator. For the past two years she worked for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston as the Sherman Fairchild Fellow in Objects Conservation and was the Conservator for the Athienou Archaeological Project in Cyprus. Prior to graduate school, LeeAnn completed internships in conservation at the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Midwest Art Conservation Center, with a conservator in private practice in Minneapolis, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Athienou Archaeological Project.
Ayesha Fuentes is a current 3rd year student at the UCLA/Getty MA Program in Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials. She has worked pre-program internships with private practice paintings conservators in Seattle and Ipswich, MA as well as the Objects Conservation Lab at the MFA, Boston. She is currently completing part of her third-year internship at the Department of Culture, Thimphu, Bhutan. As a conservation graduate student, she also has worked at museum and governmental labs in Los Angeles, China, and Sri Lanka.
FAIC & the Samuel H. Kress Conservation Fellowships
Since 2011, FAIC has been proudly administering the Samuel H. Kress Conservation Fellowships. These prestigious and competitive awards are given to museums and other conservation facilities so that emerging conservators can have an exceptionally involved experience in the field following graduate work. I was truly delighted when the FAIC review committee scores indicated that Whitten and Proctor Fine Art Conservation would be in the final group of host institutions selected for the 2012-2013 cycle, becoming the first private practice to receive a Fellowship award. Jill Whitten and Rob Proctor have a rich background in teaching, mentoring, research, and publication, and I knew that they could offer a unique and challenging environment for a Kress Fellow. Scroll down to read Jill, Rob, and Gabriel weigh in on the unique perspectives offered by their private practice setting.
Enjoy,
Eric Pourchot
FAIC Institutional Advancement Director
How did you balance your roles as mentors and small business owners?
Jill and Rob: Luckily, teaching comes naturally to us. We have worked with wonderful conservators in the best institutions and we feel that we have a great deal to share. We enjoy the teaching aspects. Being so engaged in the studio is also good for our business and for completing projects.
Learn more about Whitten & Proctor’s Kress Fellowship by reading the rest of the interview…