Author: Ryan Winfield

Tsunami Survivors Seek Japan’s Past, in Photos

Excerpt from an article in The Wall Street Journal that demonstrates just one example of the importance of things and why conservators are so passionate about their life’s work.

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The March 11 tsunami that devastated Rikuzentakata, a small seaside city in northern Japan, wiped away thousands of homes and left 2,000 residents dead or missing. As it swept away a community, the tsunami surge also carried off its memories, stockpiled on photographic paper and catalogued in albums.

As search crews recovered bodies in the weeks following the disaster, they also collected what waterlogged family albums and muddy pictures they found scattered within the rubble. Volunteer groups have since embarked on the tedious tasks of drying, cleaning and organizing hundreds of thousands of photos.

“When they thought they had lost everything and something like an old picture reappears, we think it will give them strength to move forward,” said Tatsuya Hagiwara, a volunteer with the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.

In a scene resembling a flea market, organizers spread out albums, yearbooks, diplomas and other keepsakes across a parking lot on the edge of town. A crowd quickly gathered, many seeking pictures of family members and friends who numbered among the dead and missing.

A yelp rose from the crowd. “That’s me!” shouted Etsuko Kanno, showing a picture of a young woman in a wedding dress. The bride, laughing, covered her mouth with a white-gloved hand.

Ms. Kanno – now a 51-year-old grandmother, who arrived at the parking lot with her one-year-old granddaughter asleep on her back – said the picture was taken 26 years ago at a photo shop in neighboring Ofunato. The photographer, she recalled, snapped the picture without warning her.

“This was the happiest moment,” she said, gripping the picture. “But this is only a picture of me. I wanted a picture of my husband.”

The man she married a few days after that picture was taken died in the tsunami. The powerful waters swallowed their home, where he was spending a day off from work with his 83-year-old mother, who also died.

Pictures of her three daughters, grandchildren and husband were washed away with the rest of their possessions.

…

“I want something on paper that I can look at,” she said. “I looked around and found nothing.”

When volunteers began tackling the photo cleanup several weeks ago, they started with a wet clump of snapshots. They laid the pictures out to dry. They dusted dirt from individual photos with paint brushes, and wiped plastic album sheets clean with damp rags.

The process was time-consuming and imperfect. Only about 10% of the recovered photos, some still damp and covered in dirt, were displayed last week.

…

People who found photos belonging to them filled out a form and took the pictures. Organizers said they may take the rest of the photos by truck to the 65 different evacuation centers across the city.

For group photos, the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, one of the organizations leading the volunteering, plans to scan the pictures digitally and upload the images to the Internet. The group is working on a project to archive photos along with tsunami-related information from Rikuzentakata and nearby towns.

Archaeological objects: looted treasure or culutral discoveries?

This article in the Wall Street Journal, by Melik Kaylan insightfully discusses ever-changing perspectives of museums and the stories they tell about vast collections of objects.

Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity, a exhibit currently running at McMullen Museum, inspires a discussion of museum theory using and exhibiting cultural material to explore history and society. Here is the concluding sentence.

“Though it features, among other things, the best example of a Roman armor-suit ever found, this is not a show about rare objects of great value. Rather, it illustrates moments of consciousness in history, including the moment of the excavations to illustrate how the world then chose to digest its own ancient history. Between the World Wars, the revelations of Dura-Europos were valued largely as contributions to the history of art, illuminating the bridge between Classical and Renaissance aesthetics. The show’s present-day curators invite us to consider how their preoccupations (and ours) have changed. They focus on the successful cross-pollination of cultures at Dura-Europos, how Greek, Jewish, Parthian, Roman and Christian cultures synthesized and abided in harmony. A Sassanian helmet with a nose guard demonstrates how Romans learned from other cultures: They added a nose guard to their own helmets. The Palmyran temple frieze shows how a Roman general worshiped with local pagans. The curators prod us to view the ancients through our contemporary concerns: in a word, multiculturalism or diversity. In the study of archaeology, they seem to say, we see what we look for. It never goes out of fashion.”

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House is about to undergo another restoration campaign

From the Los Angeles Times:

For its 90th birthday, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House is getting another round of rejuvenating restoration work, with the partial makeover priced at $4.3 million.

…

The project is the third phase in the ongoing restoration of Hollyhock House – the first two phases, from 2000 to 2005, cost $21 million, mainly to repair damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake and stabilize the Barnsdall Park hillside fronting Hollywood Boulevard.

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Some of Hollyhock House’s geometrically patterned stained-glass windows will be sent out for special restorative cleaning, and the porch’s concrete floor, installed during a 1970s renovation, will be replaced by oak that matches the original 1921 floor trod by Wright’s client, Aline Barnsdall.

The work list also includes repairing cracks in two fountains on the grounds, which could pave the way for them to be refilled with water for the first time in years – although Herr says that the entire project budget may be used up on the house itself, leaving it to future fundraising to provide for the fountains’ revival.

Inside, the project aims to better anchor the living room fireplace that’s one of Hollyhock House’s hallmarks, in hopes of preventing damage in future earthquakes. Also on the agenda is re-adjusting the Modernist stone mural above the fireplace, which shifted slightly in the 1994 quake, according to a consultant’s report. Herr said an engineering report he received Wednesday had some good news: The ground under the fireplace is solid, rather than loose dirt that would pose a high risk of giving way in a quake and causing it to topple. Leaving the fireplace as-is remains an option. Herr said there’s no plan to refill the indoor moat that surrounds it, because water vapor would be harmful to furnishings.

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The California Cultural and Historical Endowment has provided $1.9 million from a grant fund created by a bond issue voters approved in 2002; Herr said the city tapped a variety of capital-project funds to come up with the required match. The project coffer also includes a $489,000 “Save America’s Treasures” grant from the National Parks Service.

Paper conservator works with the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture to treat architectural drawings

Deborah Baker, conservator of archival materials, is methodically restoring the archives of the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, preserving thousands of irreplaceable drawings from the city’s oil-boom history.

Read the article in the Tulsa World.

“The drawings include floor plans, sections and elevations for some of the most iconic landmarks in Tulsa, from downtown skyscrapers to Southern Hills Country Club. In many cases, where historic structures have been torn down, these drawings offer the only surviving records that show how the buildings looked. Unfortunately, no one ever expected to keep these drawings forever, and many of them have been folded, creased, torn and taped back together.

“These are working drawings that people rolled up and took to construction sites,” Baker says. “You’ll see coffee stains and cigarette burns. And you see a lot of stuff like this,” she says, picking up a floor plan that has been Scotch-taped together. “It’s probably been like this for 50 years.”

Carefully, millimeter by millimeter, Baker removes one piece of tape to expose a tear in the yellowed drawing. She’ll use wispy Japanese tissues to fill in the gap, painstakingly cutting and pasting the new section of paper until it fits perfectly with the old part….

The foundation hopes to relocate later this year, taking the archives to a larger space where some of the drawings will go on display for the first time.

“These are truly works of art,” says Executive Director Lee Anne Zeigler. “People are going to be amazed at the detail and intricacies, all done by hand.” Her favorites include the elaborate, art deco elevations of the Medical Arts Building, designed in 1927 by well-known architect Joseph Koberling. Standing at Sixth Street and Boulder Avenue, it was knocked down in the early 1980s to make room for ONEOK Plaza.

“Look at this detail,” Zeigler says, pointing at the decorative chain links that supported the awning over the Medical Arts entrance. “A draftsman must have spent hours and hours on this one little section. You would never see that done today.”

The foundation’s archives include more than 35,000 original drawings, most dating from the early 1900s through the 1970s, when computer-assisted design began to replace hand drawings….

A federal grant last year allowed the foundation to bring in a specialist to help restore the archives [and to train staff in preservation and basic stabilization techniques].”

Conservators and scientists identify a pigment from just a single particle using a new acid treatment-free SERS protocol

Excerpt from an American Chemical Society article below. Find the entire article here.

Researchers led by Kristin Wustholz, a chemist at the College of William & Mary, made the improvement to a protocol called surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The method pinpoints the chemical make-up of pigment from just a single microscopic particle of the colorant, instead of needing large, destructive samples required for more traditional techniques. The pigment particles required for SERS analysis are “so small they are not visible to the human eye,” Wustholz says. Removing one does not change the appearance of the masterpiece.

In the standard SERS technique, a researcher picks off a pigment particle from the painting and treats it with strong acid to separate the pigment from paint binders, varnishes, and other media. The pigment can then adsorb to a silver nanoparticle mixture. Using a Raman spectrometer, the scientist then takes a vibrational spectrum of the pigment-nanoparticle mixture to identify the pigment’s chemical signature. The silver nanoparticle acts like a signal amplifier for the pigment particle, allowing scientists to get useful information from the tiny sample.

Using two 18th century oil paintings in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Wustholz collaborated with Williamsburg conservator Shelley Svoboda to discover that the acid step wasn’t necessary (Anal. Chem., DOI: 10.1021/ac200698q).

Wustholz’s team used the new technique to identify the lip pigment in the oil painting Portrait of William Nelson by Robert Feke. They found that the red color was carmine lake, an organic pigment extracted from insect scales. The team also used the technique to study flesh tones in Portrait of Isaac Barré by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The team chose Reynolds’ painting because he typically added to his paint a complex mixture of binders and varnishes, which would normally be removed by the acid treatment. Keeping these components, which can produce spectroscopic noise, in the sample was a good way to test the limits of the new protocol, Wustholz says. The team could still identify the pigment, which was again carmine lake.

AIC Fellow James Martin introduces HS students to science & art by examining potential forgeries

The following text is from an American Chemical Society press release:

How scientists use chemistry to tell whether works of art are the valuable real thing or worthless forgeries is the topic of the latest episode in the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) award-winning Bytesize Science podcast series.

The high-definition video, “Is that ‘priceless’ painting the real deal or a cheap fake?” is available without charge at www.BytesizeScience.com and on the Bytesize Science podcast on iTunes. It is based on an article in the latest issue of ChemMatters, ACS’ quarterly magazine for high school students.

This episode describes the “Wacker Case,” one of the most famous frauds in art history, to illustrate the amazing ability of forgers to fool experts, let alone the general public, about the authenticity of works of art. The case involved 33 works allegedly painted by Vincent van Gogh and helped foster the development of scientific techniques, many based on chemistry, to examine paintings at the molecular level and determine their authenticity.

“We use the same techniques to find forgeries and to solve crimes,” James Martin says in the video. He is a scientist who has investigated forgeries for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, museums and buyers. “You start by broadly examining the object to look for alterations and restoration, and then, you try to identify materials and compounds in the painting,” Martin adds.

Watch the video on the ACS website.

March Meeting Minutes

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ECPN MEETING MINUTES

March 17, 2011

Conference Call Attendees:
Carrie Roberts

Rose Cull

Ryan Winfield

Amy Brost

Heather Brown

Amber Kerr-Allison

Stephanie Porto

I. Minutes

a. ECPN February minutes approved. Amber made the motion for approval, Rose seconded.

II. AIC Meeting 2011

a. Angels Project. Site was identified: American Philosophical Society (APS). Rose volunteering for Angels project, Saturday after the meeting. Rose encouraging ECPN members to sign up. Email your CV to Ruth and indicate your interest.

b. Outreach. Ryan will coordinate the email blast about the Portfolio Session so it goes out to student members of AIC 2-4 weeks before the meeting, with a “reminder” email the week before. Ryan indicated that email blast timing is more flexible with the smaller lists. Heather will create a Facebook event for Portfolio Session and Happy Hour. ECPN members encouraged to accept the Facebook events since attendance is visible. When Ryan does the email blast, Heather will post the message to the Facebook page.

c. Portfolio Session. (Amber) UD is in the process of choosing 2 students. Buffalo has not responded in 4 weeks, but they are in the midst of interviews, although they intend to identify students. NYU and Getty have students signed up. ANAGPIC is also coming up, so the 8 student speakers can connect there. Amber will email all 8 students the where and when of the portfolio session. Ryan indicated room has not been assigned yet, though Ruth has it selected. Ryan will follow up with Amber.

d. Room Shares. Rose posted to Cons dist list – not much call for sharing accommodations yet. Unclear if interest will increase closer to the date.

e. Photography. Heather will bring her camera to the meeting for ECPN photography.

f. Poster. Carrie/Amber to massage E&T copy in light of new developments. Rose encouraged group leaders to provide pictures of their faces for recognition at the meeting. Try to be doing something interesting. Rose indicated that Stephanie should go ahead and send a photo, even though ECC and ECPN are at the beginning of their collaboration. To add visual interest to the poster, Amber suggested taking some AIC-approved conservation images from the PPT on the AIC website, which is approved for public presentations. Ryan suggested due date of May 2 or 3 for Amy to deliver the poster file to AIC for production.

g. List Addition. Rose will send agenda and PDFs to Carrie for today’s call and add her to the AIC-Emerging list.

h. Flier. Version for 2011 Meeting. Rose indicated the flier looked completed. New Flickr page URL was inserted.

III. ANAGPIC

a. Flier for ANAGPIC. Ryan emailed Delaware to find out the process for bringing an ECPN flier to ANAGPIC. PDF format is fine. Same version as for 2011 Annual Meeting is fine. Ryan to follow up with UD.

b. Poster and Talk. Stephanie doing poster for ECC, Ryan is drafting 5-minute talk. Rose will schedule a call for mid-April to touch base with them.

IV. Communications – Other initiatives

a. Book reviewers. Michele Derrick indicated that JAIC Book review editor is Harriet Stratis. She selects the books and the book reviewers. Michele indicated that anyone interested in doing a book review should contact Harriet directly. Rose suggested this is a good topic for a future blog post.

b. Wikis. Rachael Perkins Arenstein will get back to Amy about ECPN involvement in the Wikis.

V. Outreach

a. Blog. (Heather) – Rose, Stephanie and Ryan will write a blog post about ANAGPIC. Rose will email a draft to Stephanie and Ryan. Stephanie Porto said 2 members of ECC offered to contribute to ECPN blog about being Canadian and working in the US. One paintings conservator, and one objects conservator. Perhaps identify an American who is working in Canada. (Stephanie is, but she is in private practice – identify someone in an institution if possible). Rose will send out a query or do a Facebook query to see if someone can be identified.

b. Webinars. Exploring topics such as incorporating, or starting private practice. Will do a full script, and can send to Jason to do it, if it’s very detailed. A webinar will be online soon so ECPN members can see the format, what works best, and what topics might be the best fit for the medium. Perhaps tackle in June/July after the meeting.

c. Mentoring Program. (Ryan) Have a few new applicants. Follow-up conference call with Rose, Ryan, Carrie, Stephanie, and Karen to discuss the new applicants, sometime next week, perhaps Wed/Thur. Rose will send out a request.

d. AIC News on Mentoring Program. Heather sent draft for AIC News to Lisa on Monday and she will get back to Heather. Heather will send the article to Morgan at the end of the month.

VI. Education & Training

a. New student position on the ETC. Identify AIC liaisons at the schools and fill this new position. Perhaps develop a list of one student, and one professor at each program to act as liaisons. Amber has a list of representatives from the US schools but no one from Canada yet. Buffalo has offered a student name. NYU, Delaware, and Getty have not identified students yet. Develop list for Canada also. Amber says this list would be a good start, to disseminate the request to have a student member of the ETC. Ryan and Stephanie can try to get a Queens administrative representative at ANAGPIC. Perhaps discuss the issue of school liaisons at ANAGPIC business meeting. If portfolio session becomes a yearly event, this could be another piece of the liaison role. Would involve 2-3 emails per year, to act as the contact person.

b. Student Research Website. (Amber/Carrie) Speaking every other week about this. Working on the proposal. Outline is completed, and Amber and Carrie are each writing sections. Preliminary document to be reviewed at AIC by the ETC committee. Rachel, Nancie will review also. Not mentioning CoOL yet because it may not be the host, so avoid that level of specificity in communications. Foundation will be built on ANAGPIC publications, most likely. AIC and ANAGPIC (Eryl and ANAGPIC representatives) ironing out how it will work. Carrie and Amber will put the proposal to ETC and other parties in the next 2 weeks, for their help in drafting it, and concurrently to ECPN for input. Then, will officially submit to ETC. It will be presented to FAIC if CoOL will be involved. Debbie Hess-Norris will have a meeting with program directors at AIC (not just ANAGPIC) to get buy-in from universities, in preparation for taking in papers. Copyrights, licensing, all comes into play. ANAGPIC currently holds copyrights to the papers they have. Everyone is on board to try to make it happen, so despite the complexities, it is a very exciting project.

VII. ECC

a. ECC Poster. Stephanie will send ECPN the ECC poster. A few changes were made subsequently, so the ECPN-ECC collaboration may or may not be mentioned. But the ECC poster is more for the CAC, to attract involvement within their own organization at this point. Also, it needs to be bilingual for ECC-CAC. Unclear how that will be worked in yet. The poster will be just English for ANAGPIC, and mention of collaboration may or may not be included. Mentoring program status is unclear at this time. Rose felt a sentence about collaboration made sense, just to acknowledge the two groups are working together, if it is possible to include it. ECPN poster will have Stephanie on it as ECC liaison.

b. New Facebook Page. CAC Emerging Conservators. Stephanie encouraged ECPN members to visit.

c. CAC Meeting. CAC conference is coming up in Winnipeg, and there will be an ECC meet-and-greet for anyone interested.

d. CAC Emerging Conservator Award and Grant. Presently there is one candidate for the Emerging Conservator Award. Also, with a generous donation from a retiring conservator, a “Pass the Torch” Grant was established that pays for a student to attend a workshop at the conference.

Next conference call will be April 21, 2011 at 1PM ET.

Respectfully submitted,

Amy Brost

Working Abroad: Experience of a Canada-based emerging conservator in the U.S.

As a recent graduate of the Master of Art Conservation Program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, I’m currently living the transition between being a student and the ‘real world’. The Program at Queen’s University is a two-year program in which students focus on a particular treatment stream (objects, painting, or paper) from their first day. I learned during my studies that varied work experience is extremely important. So as I neared the Program’s completion, I began a hunt for post-graduate internship and fellowship opportunities that would allow me to further my education in conservation and give me a chance to be involved in a wide range of projects. I was flexible and prepared to travel any distance.


I had several objectives for seeking international experience: 1) on account of my interest in archaeological and ethnographic objects, I wanted to have the chance to work with a range of material culture; 2) I wanted to be exposed to different conservation philosophies; and 3) I wanted to expand my tool box of practical techniques.


Preparations for venturing abroad to gain work experience can be stressful and time-consuming. To be able to complete an internship in the U.S., it was necessary for me (a citizen of the Czech Republic and permanent resident of Canada) to obtain J-1 Research Scholar status. The process consisted of filling out and submitting specific documents, paying SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) and visa fees, and attending a pre-booked interview at the U.S. Embassy or nearest consulate. In my experience, if one is prepared and has submitted all of the required documents, one should be able to obtain a U.S. visa within a week following the interview.


My time in the U.S. as a summer intern during my studies and currently as a post-graduate intern has been extremely enriching. The experience has without a doubt exceeded my original objectives. Learning about different cultures – their traditions, values, and perspectives – has been invaluable in giving me a better understanding of how to care for objects. One of the greatest lessons that working abroad has taught me is the importance of flexibility; every geographical area provides its own challenges. In addition to many professional benefits, working abroad gives one the chance to see new places, meet new people, try new things, and simply enjoy the adventures that a foreign country has to offer.


Personal tips for preparing for a work experience abroad:


1) When contacting individuals or institutions with whom you’d like to work abroad, don’t be afraid of asking about available opportunities and the possibility for financial assistance. I’ve had the pleasure of finding conservators who had been extremely supportive and helpful beyond guiding me through the paperwork for the internship. Even if you are not offered any additional assistance, never hesitate to ask for information.


2) Regarding visas, I would advise that you review any visa requirements as soon as possible. Once you’ve made an agreement with the host institution, it’s important to start completing the paperwork immediately as the documents have to be processed and approved by a number of individuals at the host institution. You should also obtain the visa a good time in advance before your scheduled departure. This will ensure that if any unexpected set-backs should occur – for example, if it becomes necessary to provide additional documents – that there will be sufficient time to take care of the matter. I’ve learned that an invitation letter from the host institution is a vital document.


3) I’ve found it extremely helpful to get in touch with other students, who are travelling to the same institution to complete internships or other requirements, prior to departure.


Happy travels!

Ida Pohoriljakova

Post-Graduate Intern, Arizona State Museum

Blogging at the AIC Annual Meeting

AIC is continually striving to expand access to the stimulating and important content that is presented at our annual meeting. Last year, at the 2010 meeting, we initiated two new “firsts”: we had members blogging about talks and workshops and we hosted all available poster presentations online. We received a lot of feedback that this extra information was extremely useful to those who were unable to attend, as well as those who were there, but unable to see everything that they had hoped. We are planning on continuing these services again this year in Philadelphia but we need your help!

If you are attending the upcoming AIC annual meeting in Philadelphia I hope that you will volunteer to blog from the conference on AIC’s soon to be newly relaunched blog. You need not be an experienced blogger nor particularly tech savvy. The WordPress blog format is extremely easy to use and any necessary hand-holding will happily be provided to make you feel comfortable online. There also is no pressure to be particularly witty. Although active tense, first-person and personal style are all encouraged in blog posts (this is a chance to free yourself from the writing constraints of condition reports!), the writing is expected to be more like reporting and professional in tone overall. The goal is for readers to learn more about the talk than they would gain from the abstract. Additional guidelines and training will be provided for all volunteers.


I am looking for 2-4 people for each specialty group session and general session and 1-2 people per workshop. If you will be attending one of the conference tours we’d love to hear from you too.


Last year our blog saw a huge increase in traffic due to annual meeting posts. We know that many colleagues are looking forward to hearing more about the conference and hope that some of you will volunteer, share your thoughts from the meeting, and take the opportunity to become more comfortable with some of the social networking tools of our present and future! If you are interested in volunteering or hearing more, please contact me off list using the information below.


Thank you,

Rachael

AIC e-Editor


Rachael Perkins Arenstein

A.M. Art Conservation, LLC

Art Conservation, Preservation & Collection Management

rachael@AMArtConservation.com

www.AMArtConservation.com