In the June 18-19, 2016 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Anna Russell writes about Vic Muniz’s Mauritshuis, the Haag show, “Versos” which consists of his meticulous reconstructions of the backs of famous paintings like Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (“Famous Artworks’ B-Sides”). While works of art in their own right, because they provide insights into the materials, construction, and conservation history of those famous paintings, what wonderful tools Muniz’s paintings could be in public education.
Month: June 2016
44th Annual Meeting – Emergency Session, May 17, 2016, “Emergency Preservation during Armed Conflict: Protecting the Ma’arra Museum in Syria” by Brian Daniels and Corine Wegener
I wanted to attend this presentation because I couldn’t imagine what type of emergency response would be possible in a situation as horrific as the one in Syria. When your life is in danger or there isn’t enough to eat, how can you think about saving artifacts or cultural sites? What I learned from Brian Daniels’ talk was inspiring and thought-provoking.
Brian Daniels is the director of Research and Programs at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. A primary focus of the Center is community archaeology, an archaeological practice dedicated to engaging local communities in the preservation of cultural heritage. Could some of the practices of community archaeology be usefully carried over to a conflict zone? How could a response to safeguarding Syrian heritage be local, empowering, and post-colonial? How could Syrian cultural heritage professionals be involved?
This thinking led to the creation of the SHOSI (Safeguarding the Heritage of Syrian Initiative) project where outside experts and Syrian professionals worked together to determine what might be saved and how it could be done. Daniels gave three examples of the work undertaken by the team.
The first was at the Ma’aara Museum where there were numerous large Roman and early Christian mosaics installed into the fabric of the building. Based on protocols developed to protect Leonardo’s Last Supper during World War II, the Syrian team faced the mosaics with a water based adhesive and fabrics readily available at Turkey’s equivalent of Home Depot. Sandbags were placed in front of wall-mounted mosaics or on top of floor mounted ones. The non-Syrian experts helped procure the necessary supplies. The museum was bombed on two separate occasions, but the mosaics survived.
The second example was the intervention at the bronze-age site of Ebla known for a major find of cuneiform tablets in the 1960s. Satellite images showed changes in the excavated structures, suggesting disturbance to the site as a result of looting. The Syrian team confirmed that the mud brick buildings had been tunneled into. They used concrete blocks and a mud mortar to help shore up the walls, and as a result the damaged walls did not collapse in the winter rains.
The last example was not a success story. The 5th-century Church of St. Simeon Stylites is part of an important early Byzantine complex. Armed groups were operating near the church and looters were digging in the complex for mosaics. As the team was trying to decide what to do, the area was bombed and the church was damaged.
I am not an archaeological conservator, and one of the powerful aspects of the presentation was seeing images of these incredible Syrian sites. And the extreme risks that Syrian heritage professionals were taking seemed much more real when you saw that their faces had to be blurred out in the presentation.
As with many talks at this meeting, Daniels and Wegener have been thinking about how our profession can be inclusive, responsive, and involved in the pressing problems of the 21st century.
44th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, May 15, 2016, “The History, Technical Study, and Treatment of Francis Bacon’s Painting 1946” by Ellen Davis, Michael Duffy, Chris McGlinchey, and Lauren Klein
I am interested in artists’ involvement with the conservation of their pieces, and I love Francis Bacon’s paintings so I was happy when I saw that this presentation needed a blogger.
Francis Bacon considered Painting 1946 to be a break-through work. It was purchased by MoMA in1948 two years after it was painted. Because Bacon used pastel ground in water as well as oil paint, the painting almost immediately had issues with the media flaking and fading.
In 1959 and again in 1971 Bacon proposed scraping down the pastel and repainting the background. In 1959 the museum was interested in this option, but for unclear reasons, Bacon did not end up reworking the piece. In 1971 before Bacon’s retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris, Bacon again offered to repaint the background. This time MoMA did not want the artist to address the issues with his piece, but agreed that the painting needed conservation.
Before the Paris retrospective, conservator Jean Volker consolidated with gelatin and inpainted with crushed pastel. Francis Bacon was thrilled with the results and believed that the painting had been given a new life. He decided that he even liked the faded colors better.
Over the years, the pastel inpainting faded and no longer matched the original, gelatin consolidation residues turned gray, and there was continued flaking. The painting again needed treatment. Given Bacon’s satisfaction with the 1971 results, it was decided that the goal should be to return the piece to its post-1971 treatment state, but using more stable materials.
Ellen Davis’ treatment involved removing the gelatin aqueously through tissue followed by silicone solvent cyclomethicone D5 (to avoid tide lines). Lifting paint was consolidated with TRI-Funori. Where possible the faded inpainting was reduced mechanically. The new inpainting was carried out with more light-fast pastels.
As Davis noted at the end of her presentation, this painting can only be as stable as its original materials. It is fortunate that it is in a collection where it can be carefully monitored.
Congress Approves Update of Toxic Substances Control Act
Just when you thought the government was hopelessly deadlocked on pretty much everything, Congress has approved a major overhaul of the nation’s primary chemical safety law for the first time in 40 years!
H.R.2576 – Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Originally enacted in 1976, the TSCA governs how industrial chemicals are tested and regulated (including everything found in household items, industrial use and conservation labs).
H.R.2576 revises “the process and requirements for evaluating and determining whether regulatory control of a chemical is warranted” by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It includes enforceable deadlines and schedules for both currently manufactured as well as new chemicals before they are allowed to enter the market. The law also contains provisions on animal testing and “cancer clusters,” describes funding and safety information that must be provided by manufacturers, and emphasizes investigation of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals (PBTs).
Most importantly, the EPA can now take action on reviewing chemicals solely based on environmental and safety concerns. Chemical safety reviews will be more science-based (instead of current cost-benefit balances) and take into consideration populations that are disproportionately at risk, such as vulnerable groups (e.g., pregnant women, children, seniors) or those groups that have greater exposure to the chemical (i.e., chemical workers).
What does this mean for you? The new legislation gives the EPA the authority to investigate and regulate chemicals by removing many of the bureaucratic hurdles that previously made the process burdensome and restrictive, and had resulted in only a small number of chemicals having meaningful health and safety information. For example, have you ever come across phrases such as “not listed as a carcinogen” and “generally recognized as safe?” These statements do not necessarily indicate that a chemical is not toxic, but may mean that it has never been tested or has insufficient research.
The EPA must come up with a list of high-priority chemicals to undergo review on a specific schedule. If their current Work Plan for Chemical Assessments is any indication, we should hopefully see more significant health and safety information on commonly used conservation chemicals.
For more details, good summaries can be found in Science Magazine, American Chemical Society and the International Business Times.
UPDATE: On Wednesday, June 22, 2016, President Obama signed the bill to overhaul the TSCA stating, “I’m absolutely confident that we can regulate toxic chemicals in a way that’s both good for our families and ultimately good for business and our economy. Here in America, folks should have the confidence to know that the laundry detergent we buy isn’t going to make us sick, the mattresses our babies sleep on aren’t going to harm them.”
Environmental Defense Fund lead senior scientist Richard Denison said, “President Obama’s signature today launches a new law that will help to improve public health for years to come. While not perfect, the Lautenberg Act fixes the biggest problems with a badly broken law that has left our health at risk. Now the hard part must begin: tending to decades of neglect when it comes to unreviewed and unregulated chemicals.”
44th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper, May 17th, “TEK-Wiping Out the Competition: The Ideal Reusable Absorbent Material,” by Kaslyne O’Connor
This amazing material is made up of 55% cellulose and 45% polyester. It is formed by the process of hydroentangling, so it is a non-woven material. It does not contain any binders and its pH is naturally at about 6. It resists solvents and does not leave behind any residues. It has amazing wet strength, unlike blotters, and is dimensionally stable, so it won’t stretch when wet either.
Tek-Wipe is absorbent, reusable, sustainable, and economical. It costs significantly less than blotters. It is available for purchase in either sheets or rolls and in both a lightweight and heavyweight form.
It can be used for many things such as in disaster salvage kits as an absorbent material, for Gore-tex humidification in place of blotters, for capillary washing, with the suction table in place of filter paper, and in phytate treatments for books written in iron gall ink because it is so thin it won’t put stress on the binding. Tek-Wipe can also be used as a support for transporting wet objects and can be used for dry cleaning glass plate negatives.
Kaslyne’s first case study example was the treatment of a print that had been coated in varnish. The Tek-Wipe was soaked in ethanol and placed on the face of the print along with a sheet of Mylar and even weight for 15 minutes. This was repeated twice to make sure all of the varnish was removed from the paper. From the images that were shown in the presentation it appeared that the varnish was solubilized by the ethanol and absorbed by the Tek-Wipe and thus removed from the print.
The second case study was about a hand colored Audubon engraving that had been trimmed and mounted to a pulp board. They determined that the adhesive was strong and mechanical removal was too time consuming so they used a combination of humidification and mechanical removal using Tek-Wipe. For this treatment, sheets of Tek-Wipe were soaked in water and laid out flat. The print was placed back down on the Tek-Wipe and a sheet of acrylic was placed on top with weight added to ensure even contact. Once the pulp board was humidified it was taken out of the stack and the board was removed mechanically with ease. After the board was removed the print could be washed and light bleached.
Since Tek-Wipe is very absorbent and good for washing and varnish removal it gets stained. Don’t worry though, it is washable! It can be washed by hand or in the washing machine and you can reuse it! Kaslyne did warn not to scrub it because it can break the fiber bonds and cause fibrillation. Tek-wipe can be dried on a rack, but it will dry in the shape of its support so Kaslyne recommended flattening it on a table with a brayer with no weight or restraint needed.
Job Posting: Assistant Sculpture & Decorative Arts Conservator – Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA)
Assistant Sculpture & Decorative Arts Conservator
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
3-year, full-time position
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is excited to offer an Assistant Conservator position in the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Conservation Department. This three-year position is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation. The primary focus of this position will be the research and technical analysis of the VMFA African Art Collection. The successful applicant will report directly to the Head of Sculpture and Decorative Arts conservation (S&DAC) and will participate in all operations and responsibilities associated with S&DAC. These duties include maintenance and preventive care for three-dimensional objects in the museum’s permanent collection through examination, technical analysis, conservation research, documentation and treatment of objects. The successful candidate must demonstrate knowledge of and commitment to the highest conservation standards in order to preserve the integrity and historic significance of each work of art. Also, he/she must demonstrate proficiency in high quality and aesthetically appropriate conservation treatments in accordance with the American Institute for Conservation’s Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice. The Assistant Conservator duties will include public relations and educational responsibilities such as conservation studio tours; speaking to visiting groups; assisting with workshops, seminars and lectures related to conservation; responding to public inquiries; and training museum staff in collections care. He/she will also assist with the maintenance of departmental records through accurate written and photographic documentation. The Andrew Mellon Foundation grant is committed to encouraging diversity in the museum profession. For more information about the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, please go to www.vmfa.museum.
Qualifications:
Applicants must have a graduate degree from a recognized art conservation training program, specializing in objects plus considerable postgraduate experience or equivalent experience, education, and training. The successful candidate must have a thorough knowledge of conservation principles and practices; knowledge of analytical techniques frequently used in conservation experience; and knowledge of safe methods of handling chemicals and hazardous materials based on OSHA standards. He/she must demonstrate the ability to propose and perform treatments based on an evaluation of the aesthetic, historic, and scientific characteristics of a wide range of objects; the ability to document treatments in written and photographic form; and skill in writing clear, succinct and accurate condition and treatment reports and proposals. He/she must be proficient in operating photographic and scientific equipment and conducting materials testing. Frequent domestic and/or international travel is likely required during the tenure of the successful candidate. Experience with word processing, spreadsheets and database software is also required. Familiarity with TMS (The Museum System) is desirable. The selected candidate will have the ability to work independently and in concert with other museum co-workers and outside contractors. The successful candidate must be able to wear a respirator equipped with organic vapor cartridges. A security background check will be required.
Hiring Range:
The position is full-time and includes full state benefits. Salary will be determined based on qualifications and experience.
To apply, log onto the Commonwealth of Virginia Online Employment System at https://virginiajobs.peopleadmin.com/ and submit your application, letter of intent and resume. The position is open until filled. Please contact the HR office at 804.340.1485 if you need assistance. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is accredited by the American Association of Museums. EOE/AA
The job posting can be found online here:
http://vmfa.museum/about/job-posting/assistant-sculpture-decorative-arts-conservator-african-art/
Job Posting: Paper Conservator – Missouri State Archives/Local Records Preservation Program (Jefferson City, Missouri)
Paper Conservator
Missouri State Archives/Local Records Preservation Program
Jefferson City, Missouri
Starting Salary: $3,129 per month
The Missouri State Archives is seeking a paper conservator to treat historically significant paper records, primarily from the 19th and early 20th century from the Archives and local government offices. The primary work is conservation treatment; some work in outreach (training and consultation) is required.
This is a permanent, fulltime position working alongside two other conservators in a well-equipped conservation lab.
Qualifications:
Minimum Education/Experience: Bachelor’s degree required. At least 2 years advanced training in conservation acquired through formal studies or a combination of apprenticeship, advanced courses, and internships. Knowledge of the chemical and physical properties of books/paper and an understanding of the causes of deterioration.
Preferred Education/Experience: Advanced degree/certificate in paper conservation through an accredited graduate or equivalent certificate program, formal apprenticeship, or equivalent experience OR Master’s degree in library science or archival administration, art, art history, history, historical preservation, or related field, with one year experience in paper conservation. Sound knowledge of organic and physical chemistry.
The complete job description, qualifications, and application procedures are available at http://www.sos.mo.gov/default.aspx?PageID=8534.
The minimum posting period will end 7/5/16. After the minimum posting period, the position may be closed to new applicants and filled at any time.
44th Annual Meeting – Paintings Session, 16 May 2016, “Bocour paints and Barnett Newman paintings: context and correlations,” by Dr. Corina Rogge and Bradford Epley
Barnett Newman was fairly private about his technique, and until recently, much less was known about his methods and materials than many other artists from the same era. Over the last few years, Dr. Corina Rogge and Bradford Epley have conducted an extensive study of Newman’s technique centered on the 2015 Menil Collection exhibit Barnett Newman: The Late Work, which included paintings drawn from the Menil and collections across the United States and Europe. By analyzing each of the paintings brought together for the show along with studio materials and Newman ephemera, the Menil team were able to learn a great deal about Newman’s working method, and Dr. Rogge’s presentation on the second day of the PSG sessions explored his loyal use of paints produced by Leonard Bocour.
Bocour began producing paint in the early 1930s, opening a storefront in Manhattan which quickly became a hang-out spot for AbEx artists. In 1947, Bocour Artist Colors introduced the solvent-borne acrylic Magna, and in 1963, the water-borne acrylic Aqua-Tec, which was a favorite of Newman’s. In addition to these and other lines, Bocour often produced bespoke colors for his artists, and Newman himself often hand-mixed pigments and other additives into Bocour paints, complicating the issue when trying to understand which paints are present on Newman’s various works.
Dr. Rogge highlighted some of the idiosyncrasies of Bocour’s paints, such as the fact that the names of colors don’t necessarily correspond to the actual colorants in the paint. For instance, she found that Bocour Hand Ground Oil Ultramarine Red was colored with manganese violet pigment, while his Bellini Oil Colors Cobalt Blue was actually ultramarine. Generally, these misleading names aren’t too much of an issue, but in certain colors synthetic organic dyes – which Bocour referred to as “toners” – were added, and this is where things get dicey. His so-called cadmium colors like red and yellow contained a mixture of (not necessarily cadmium-based) inorganic pigments and organic dyes, which causes them to be light-sensitive and susceptible to fading or color shifts. She also found that the paint formulas went through changes in their colorants, binders, and additives over their years of production, and offered this handy tip: the address listed on the tube will indicate the period from which it originates – Bocour tubes initially listed simply “New York City,” and then, in 1943, there’s the addition of a two-letter postal zone, and the addition of the newly created five-digit zip code in 1963-64.
The Menil team collaborated with the National Gallery to analyze the historic Bocour materials in their Art Materials Research and Study Center, and with Harvard Art Museum’s Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art to analyze the Newman studio paints in their collection. They also received a timely gift: sculptor Robert Murray, a friend and sometimes studio assistant of Newman’s, was an invited lecturer and guest at the Menil symposium accompanying the exhibition of Newman’s late works. Murray then donated to the Menil paints from Newman’s studio, including many Bocour products. By analyzing the pigment ratios of Newman’s hand-mixed additions to the standard Bocour colors, Dr. Rogge was able to group certain paintings together as having been created at the same time.
Rogge and Epley’s broad study of Barnett Newman’s work has benefitted from some excellent collaboration and has highlighted the great value of our national study centers for historic artists’ materials. Their study is allowing scholars to understand the chronology and evolution of his late works, many of which were simply found in his studio after his passing. Her presentation emphasized the fact that the apparent aesthetic simplicity of Newman’s canvases belies not only the surprising complexity of his working method but also his fervent commitment to technical excellence and the physical longevity of his work.
44th Annual Meeting- Textiles Session, May 16, "A Biological Disaster to Costume," by Cathy Zaret, Mary Ballard, and Carol Grissom
When we hear the word “disaster,” images of fire or flood and the subsequent damage might spring to mind, but what about the silent, tiny disaster that might be steadily digesting your collection? Cathy Zaret, presenting for Mary Ballard, provided a graphic example of just how damaging an infestation can be in her talk, “A Biological Disaster to Costume.”
The site of this infestation was a townhouse on Vermont Avenue in Washington, DC that housed the Black Fashion Museum. Founded in 1979 by Lois K. Alexander Lane, the museum’s collection is comprised of over 700 costumes, 300 accessories and 60 boxes of archival material; all designed, sewn or worn by African Americans. Notable highlights include the dress worn by Rosa Parks in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, costumes designed by Geoffrey Holder for “The Wiz,” and the wedding dress, designed by Ann Lowe, worn Jacqueline Bouvier when she became Mrs. Kennedy.
The Black Fashion Museum was the life’s work and passion of Lane and after her death in 2007, the future of the collection was uncertain. Lane’s daughter, Joyce Bailey, ultimately donated the collection in its entirety to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, but while its fate was decided, the collection was sealed in a building without climate control and without monitoring. When the Smithsonian conservation team arrived to assess the collection, what they found was a dramatic example of the importance of good housekeeping. The collection was crawling with carpet beetles. Cathy offered the speculation that ground zero, a red dress surrounded by waves of red frass (a slight exaggeration on my part, cue horror movie soundtrack), was in a closet on the second floor, near a walled up fireplace. Left to run riot, what might have been a beetle or two became an infestation of epic proportions.
Carpet beetles (usually referencing genus Anthrenus and the various species including varied, museum and furniture carpet beetles) are ubiquitous throughout the United States (and beyond). The adults feed on pollen and nectar and are attracted to light, but females will seek dark and secluded places to lay their eggs. One female can lay 30-40 eggs on a food source. The developing larva can wreak havoc during their 3-36 month development as they feed on proteinaceous materials. As the infestation of the infamous red dress was undiscovered for some time, larva fed and matured into egg-laying adults, multiplying the hungry mouths with each generation.
In describing the way that Mary Ballard and her team addressed the infestation, Cathy stressed that an active infestation is a disaster that can come home with you. Carpet beetles, though they keep on giving, are not a gift you want to give to your friends (or museum). Quarantine is essential. Access to the site should be restricted and precautions taken to prevent the spread of the infestation. When working in the townhouse, team members were encouraged to wear clothing of cellulosic materials and to wash those clothes immediately after leaving the site. You can never say immediately too many times!
As the insect activity had to be addressed before the collection could be processed, the contents of the townhouse were documented in situ, triage packed and moved by truck to the support center of the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute. At the MCI, the entire collection of the Black Fashion Museum underwent an anoxic treatment using argon gas. In an environment with less than 1000ppm of oxygen for 30 consecutive days (the time for treatment will vary based on gas used, temperature, RH, and species), all life-stages should be rendered unviable. At the MCI, two vapor impermeable bubbles, each 8’x11’x11’ were constructed and the ambient oxygen was slowly reduced.
The bubbles were monitored during treatment (safety first! Always have a partner and monitor the oxygen levels around the bubbles), and the argon was topped off to ensure that oxygen levels were kept below the necessary minimum.
After the completion of the anoxic treatment, a condition survey and surface cleaning was still required for the contents of the 273 boxes moved from the townhouse. Although the treatment should have rendered all life-stages unviable, cast off larval skins and insect remains can provide a food source for future insects. Every surface, every layer of tulle in a massive confection of nylon net, needed to be vacuumed. As at the townhouse, nozzles and brushes needed to be washed after each use.
This massive treatment was absolutely essential in incorporating the Black Fashion Museum into the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I’m looking forward to viewing some of the iconic and historic objects on display when the museum opens this fall!
If you haven’t checked it out, the NMAAHC webpage has a lot of material to explore and information about the upcoming grand opening.
For additional information, MuseumPests.net is the go-to site for identification and great fact sheets on different solutions.
44th Annual Meeting – General Session, May 15, “Preserving Trauma: Treatment Challenges at the 9/11 Memorial Museum” by John Childs and Maureen Merrigan
John Childs presented the treatment and installation challenges the conservation team faced at the 9/11 Memorial museum.
After 9/11, spontaneous memorials appeared, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum became the permanent memorial for this tragic event. It created a need to save and preserve physical evidence of the attacks, ranging from bits of paper to enormous steel girder and fire engines, not because of what it was but how it demonstrated in a physical way the trauma of that day. As conservators, we recognize where value lies in making treatment decisions, but poor condition itself is valued for the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Three treatments that posed philosophical challenges were explored in this talk.
The first was a Warner Bros. sign, which was saved from the store on the concourse level of the World Trade Center by some workers who found the material evocative. The object included letters as well as portions of the wall it was installed on. The question became how much of the sign to include in exhibition: the whole thing? The letters, cement tile, and mortar? Just the letters? Childs questioned whether this discussion was legitimate. Museums don’t usually select portions of an object but when extracting bits of wreckage, where are the boundaries between one object from another? There were so many layers that they distracted from the letters, so the decision was made to saw off wall board from the letters because that is where the value lies. It was then affixed to aluminum honeycomb and rendered legible as an object but also preserved the trauma it suffered. It takes its place among evocative objects from the site.
The second treatment involved the B2 parking level wall from the garage. The preservation of trauma is the primary conservation goal: the preservation of trauma of specific events, 9/11, but also of February 21, 1993, the truck bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center. Part of the B2 parking level wall, complete with scorch marks, was covered, wrapped, and transported to museum. It arrived during construction of the building and protections against flooding were not in place at this time. Hurricane Sandy flooded the area and seven feet of water went into the museum site, submerging large objects under water. It took five days to pump the water out and clean the objects. Vehicles or steel were primarily the large objects and medium pressure steam was used to clean these objects. The B2 slab was now covered with a layer of silt on its surface, on top of the soot from 9/11. The decision was made to completely remove evidence of Sandy, though Sandy was now another trauma suffered in NY. The value of the collection lies in its history and this would be hiding that history, but the mission of the museum was not to preserve the memory of Sandy. They had to remove the trauma of Sandy while preserving trauma of 9/11. They delayed treatment and found that as the silt dried, it could be brushed off without disturbing the 9/11 soot underneath. They waited until it was installed vertically in the exhibition and brushed the surface into a HEPA vacuum, revealing the soot.
Dust was an enormously significant part of the story, including silica, asbestos, and man-made vitreous fibers, creating a decidedly unhealthy environment. This really amounted to human remains. Dust was all that people had left of loved ones. Dust had a unique place in that story, as both a lethal and sacred substance. Childs stated that there is a palpable and justifiable fear of it in NY still today. Dust was donated to the museum, and one of the most significant donations is a display of Chelsea Jeans, a store on Broadway a couple of blocks from the site. The owner found the store under a thick layer of dust and left part of the store undisturbed, sealed behind glass to protect customers. He donated the storefront to the New York Historical Society, who used asbestos mitigation to deinstall and move it to NYHS. It was put on display in 2006 in a specially designed case and then donated to the 9/11 museum. To install it, the museum had to hire an environmental mitigation company to create an asbestos containment chamber in the galleries. Those working on the display took a course on asbestos training, had medical tests and a respirator fit testing. The containment chamber consisted of crates for objects, crates for glass sealing case, entry chamber (air lock), and a shower for decontamination after exiting enclosure. They all wore respirators and disposable coveralls. Given the situation, they had to make installation decisions as they were working, and they had a window so curators could be involved from the outside. The case was installed in a way that curators thought would best represent the original display. Glazers were installed and sealed the glass. Many people not used to standard museum procedures were very involved in this process, making cooperation and compromise absolutely necessary. This exhibition combines, in one setting, all of the disparate meanings of dust on 9/11 and is in the section on response and recovery of the museum.
For the 9/11 museum, damage and destruction is the story. For conservation, it is critical to appropriately save the evidence of damage that will tell the story effectively. Childs expressed how it can be emotionally charged with horror, sadness, and loss. The museum and experience have a profound meaning for a huge number of people, and Childs ended his talk by expressing what an absolute honor it was to participate.