Category: Allied Organizations

The Brooking competition recognizes innovative accomplishments that produce new ways of thinking and seeing within the museum field. Papers can describe examples of creativity in any aspect of museum operations, from collections, programs and exhibitions to finance, marketing and administration—or anything in between. If you can imagine your peers saying, “What a great idea—I’ve never heard of anybody doing that!” it’s a sign you’re headed in the right direction. Deadline: Feb. 1

The second question that I am most frequently asked in my work after “Can you fix it?” is “Do you have any idea what it is worth?”   Hopefully the answer to the first question is “Yes!” but my answer to the second question is “No, assigning value isn’t what conservators do, but I know the name of several good appraisers”.  It is understandable that private clients are more likely to proceed with conserving a piece with high intrinsic worth, and there is synergy between what we do and what appraisers do.  Thus it was an important outreach opportunity for AIC to have an exhibitors table at the recent Appraisers Association for America annual meeting in November in New York City.  My business partner Eugenie Milroy and I had the privilege of representing our colleagues by manning the AIC booth during the two day meeting.

There were about 300 people in attendance and during the coffee breaks the exhibitor’s area was full of appraisers perusing the tables.  We brought a laptop so that we could have the visually appealing AIC outreach PowerPoint presentation on a looped display and then use the computer to connect to the AIC website when we wanted to show people how to access the Find A Conservator feature online. Some attendees were well aware of conservation as a field, and AIC as a professional organization.  These individuals tended to stop by the booth to pick up some of AIC’s brochures, fliers and bookmarks to pass along to clients or ask specific questions.  Then there were others who, while aware of conservation, were not familiar with AIC.  Once they understood that AIC was to conservation what AAA was to appraisers, they often gave a sigh of relief to know that there is a place to turn to find us!  It was illuminating to talk to these allied professionals and learn more about their views on conservation and conservators.  In addition to these individual interactions that will hopefully turn out to be productive for AIC, the opportunity to talk with and reach out to the other exhibitors was also valuable.  There were auction houses, art storage companies, insurance agencies, and others who now know more about AIC.

It was important that AIC was represented at this meeting but we were not the only conservators there.  It was nice to catch up with colleague Yuri Yanchyshyn of Period Furniture Conservation who had a beautiful booth displaying before and after images of some of his furniture conservation treatment.  Yuri has been working with AAA for several years and has been a good ambassador for our field.  Also in attendance was conservator Gordon Lewis of The Fine Arts Conservancy whose wife is an appraiser and has a long history of working with AAA.  Having more conservators exhibit on their own at events like these and on behalf of AIC is good for our profession as a whole.  While Eugenie and I were there representing AIC, we did have questions about our own specializations and practice and we have even received one potential job lead from someone we met at the conference.

The meeting was titled Tomorrow’s Challenge: Valuing Art & Design in the 20^th Century and when there was no traffic in the Exhibitor’s area we were able to listen to a few of the talks.  The Keynote Address by James McAndrew a Forensic Specialist from law firm Gunfeld, Desiderio, Lebowitz, Silverman & Klestadt LLP was titled A Decade of Transition in the Trade of Art and Antiquities.  He discussed the role that everyone in the art world (including conservators) has to play to reduce sale of stolen and looted art.  Other sessions at the conference included topics such as:

• Following your Appraisal through the IRS
• What Museums Collect Now: A Curator’s Perspective
• Serving as an Expert Witness
• Condition is Everything!
• Ask the Folk Art Expert

If you know of a professional organization that holds an annual meeting where AIC might exhibit, please send the information on to Ruth Seyler in the AIC office.  The probability of having a booth is, of course, increased if you are willing to staff it!  There are never enough hours in the day and it can be hard to take time off from the work waiting in our studios and labs but helping AIC with outreach is good for us as a profession and, you might even find it good for business.

The expertise of conservators is an important aspect of the Connecting to Collections Online Community, and you are encouraged to go online and register! Currently 850 members strong, Heritage Preservation moderates the Connecting to Collections Online Community (www.connectingtocollections.org), a place to network with the goal of helping smaller museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies quickly locate reliable preservation resources. Live chat webinars, group discussion boards, and links to online resources are available on the community. If you have any suggestions or questions about the community, email Elsa Huxley at ehuxley [at] heritagepreservation __ org.

University Products has created a blog and YouTube channel to provide customers with the latest news from the company as well as offer helpful tips, tricks and videos.  The site aims to provide information for people taking care of major museum collections as well as those preserving family heirlooms.    Their first video clip online on box making is already online

Call for papers to be delivered at the workshop

Hazardous Chemicals: Agents of Risk and Change (1800-2000)

Conveners: Deutsches Museum Research Institute; Department of History, Maastricht University; and Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society

Location: Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

Date: 27-29 April 2012

The Research Institute of the Deutsches Museum, the Department of History at Maastricht University and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society are planning a joint workshop to be held at the Deutsches Museum, Munich, in April 2012 dealing with the history of hazardous chemicals.

Chemistry is undoubtedly a science with a great social and economic impact. During the past two centuries millions of new substances have been described, and thousands of them have become novel industrial products. In several cases the scale of production, together with by-products and wastes, has led to previously unknown effects on human health and on the environment. Growing awareness of the impacts of hazardous substances on the economy, society and the environment has stimulated new scientific insights, discussion of risk perception, and new legislation. Advances in analysis and detection of chemicals have played a large role in this respect. Since the 1960s, industrialized countries have adopted a framework for assessing and regulating toxic chemicals that remains in force today. By this means attempts have been made, with varying degrees of success, to control individual pollutants using scientific and technical tools, including risk assessment, toxicological testing, epidemiological investigations, pollution control devices, trace measurements, and waste treatment and disposal technologies.

The present workshop will focus on the interaction between (a) the growing presence of hazardous substances in the economy and the environment, and (b) the cultural, scientific, regulatory and legal responses by modern society to these hazards. In each paper a specific chemical, or group of related chemicals, will take centre stage: from the start of its industrial production, via the proliferation of its uses, and the discovery of its effects on workers, consumers and/or on the biosphere, to attempts to control its emission and use, including the development of alternative products. The workshop will focus in particular on the history of specific chemicals which have had a profound impact on the way in which ecological and health effects have been perceived. Using a ‘biographical approach’ it will trace the entire ‘life history’ (production, use, problems, risk assessment, management strategies, and disposal) of those hazardous substances, culminating at the point at which

legislative controls or alternative technical pathways were finally established. The focus will be on the main period of chemical industrialisation (ca. 1800-2000).

Examples of substances that have had profound effects on ecological thinking and on legislation, and which would be welcome candidates for analysis using this kind of ‘biographical approach,’ are: Arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, nitrates, cyanides, sulphur dioxide, radioactive substances, DDT and other halocarbons (including dioxins), aniline and aromatic amines, benzene, azo dyes, vinyl chloride, CO2, PCB’s, and CFC’s.

Of course, papers on other important cases are also most welcome!

In all cases, we prefer papers having a global or at least an international outlook; national overviews could certainly also be of great value. However, studies which have a regional or local focus are unsuitable in the context of this workshop.

Since the approach to this topic is interdisciplinary, chemists, toxicologists, historians of science and medicine, environmental historians, sociologists and scholars, active in environmental organisations, etc., are all invited to participate and to contribute a paper.

Papers that satisfy the final reviewing procedure will be published in a volume with the working title Hazardous chemicals: Agents of risk and change (1800-2000). Papers should be no longer than 10.000 words. The conference language will be English.

The Rachel Carson Center will cover the travel cost and accommodation expenses for all participants invited to deliver a paper. The conference will take place in the Kerschensteiner Kolleg of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

For the present we would like those interested in participating in the workshop to forward an abstract of the proposed paper, of approximately 600-800 words, as well as a CV. Please send these documents to the three organizers of the workshop: (Ernst Homburg, Elisabeth Vaupel and Paul Erker before 1 July 2011.

Papers will be pre-circulated and should be received no later than 1 February 2012.

Online registration is open for the Connecting to Collections webinars organized by Heritage Preservation in partnership with IMLS and AASLH.

While the content of the webinars is aimed at small to mid-sized museums, libaries, and archives, the content could also be useful to those of us who work privately but with these institutions. Topics include getting media attention for collections and the need to care for them, effective public outreach, fund raising, and how to use the resources available in the Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, given to more than 3000 institutions around the country.

The series is free of charge and open to anybody who is interested.

This week, the National Science Foundation will award a $360,000 three-year grant for preservation research to the University of Southern Mississippi, Hybrid Plastics, and the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). The research team is developing new stone strengtheners, also called consolidants, based on the latest advances in polymer science.

“This National Science Foundation grant creates opportunities for NCPTT to leverage its scientific expertise and resources by funding a partnership with university and private-sector researchers,” said Kirk Cordell, Executive Director of NCPTT. “This collaboration allows us to address fundamental challenges in stone conservation to advance the field of conservation and heritage science.”

When Mary Striegel, NCPTT’s chief of materials conservation wanted to find new partners to develop innovative treatments for deteriorating historic stone monuments and structures, they turned to scientists in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Joe Lichtenhan and his team at Hybrid Plastics were pioneering the use of a new group of polymers based on modifying POSS (Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane) molecules. Meanwhile, Derek Patton, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, was studying interactions of polymers and surfaces and has an interest in new ways to synthesize polymers. Striegel thought that POSS molecules could be applied to preservation problems.

Decay leads to loss of stone strength. The outer surface of the stone can powder away, or can fall off in pieces. Consolidants are chemicals that are applied to and strengthen the surface of stone. Commercially-available consolidants are on the market, but ever increasing restrictions on environmental regulations make it harder to use these products in an outdoor environment. Additionally, some of the products work better on materials like sandstone than on limestone or marble.

Proposed new stone consolidants are based on the POSS molecule’s ability to form a cage-like structure that provides strength and stability under a variety of environmental conditions. The polymers have properties that are similar to both ceramics and plastics. Depending on the modifications made to the molecules, the polymers can be used as adhesives, water repellents, or consolidants. This National Science Foundation grant will help the team design new polymers that can be applied directly to stone and cured using ultraviolet light.

The joint research effort is being conducted in laboratories in Hattiesburg, Miss. and in Natchitoches, La. As an added benefit, this unique, cross-cutting academic/industry/government collaboration is providing undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to learn more about cultural heritage while strengthening their scientific skills.