Conserving Modernity: The Articulation of Innovation
The 9th Biennial North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC)
November 12-15, 2013
San Francisco, California
Registration for the conference, workshops, and tours is now open! Go to http://natcconference.comfor a glimpse of the papers and posters to be presented and to register. Keep in mind that space is limited for workshops and tours, so be sure to sign up now!
Full conference registration includes:
Entrance to all paper and poster presentations at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park on November 14th and 15th, as well as refreshments and lunches.
The opening reception, which will take place in Jackson Square and is being co-hosted by the Lotus Gallery and Peter Pap Oriental Rugs.
The closing reception at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.
Anne Battram presented a shortened version of a talk given at the “first International Conference in Europe focused on upholstery history,” held in Vadstena, Sweden. Proceedings of the Sweden conference, “The Forgotten History- Upholstery Conservation” ed. Karin Lohm are available from Linköping University. Several people noted that this publication can be difficult to obtain- check with Anne or the University. Archetype may also have copies.
The talk gave an introduction to the history of slipcovers in America, and was jam-packed with specific examples and great visuals.
Anne explained that slipcovers have been used for seating furniture, footstools, and tables. They are often used to protect the surface below, which might be an expensive or fragile upholstery fabric, underupholstery, or finished wood. In a home, sturdy slipcovers might be removed to create a fancier appearance in honor of an esteemed guest. But in some instances, the slipcover itself is made of an expensive, extravagant material, and can be removed and stored when not in use. One example of a close-fitting, fancy slipcover was secured to the chair using cords attached to the cover, threaded through holes drilled in the frame.
Adding slipcovers to worn or outdated furniture has been used as a less expensive alternative to having them reupholstered. Slipcovers also allowed rooms to be re-decorated “en suite” with matching fabric for the upholstery, cushions, and window treatments.
Slipcovers are differentiated from dustcovers, which are used to protect furniture when it is not in use (e.g. in storage or when a house was closed). Dustcovers tend to be less form-fitting, usually extend all the way to the floor, and often are made from solid colored fabric.
Striped and checked fabrics were popular for slipcovers used to protect upholstery from everyday use. Sturdy chintz and toile patterns were also common. Colonial Williamsburg has an example of a leather slipcover.
Construction details vary: some examples of early slipcovers were made with the seams facing out and bound, (giving an appearance similar to welting) which would make the fitting process simpler and add definition to the final shape. Some slipcovers are very loose, barely fitted and might be attached with ties. Skirts and flounces added to a slipcover would give added protection to projecting curved or carved legs.
Check out the postprints, and the proceedings from the Sweden conference, for all the well-researched details on slipcovers.
The CIPP strikes again with a well-attended and informative seminar to assist all of us in Private Practice. This year the topics covered business structures, service agreements aka the contract and insurance with an overarching theme of Risk Management. We then had an interactive roll-play so we could see an example of how the pieces all work together.
Business structures are one component for risk management and are determined by state law. The details of a Sole-Proprietor, Limited Liability Company and Corporation were covered (I’ll add to the wiki soon). The main differences: Sole-proprietor can have their personal assets attached by a creditor. An LLC (not no liability, just limited) has the pass-through taxation benefits of a sole-proprietor, but is made up of members, who can be individuals, corporations or other LLCs. Corporations have shareholders with stock holdings as well as Officers, Directors, Committees and annual meetings. So while thinking about what structure is best for your business, one needs to consider all the intricacies that go with each structure, as well as your tolerance for risk and tolerance for paperwork. Check out the business links on the CIPP web-page: http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/cipp/blinks.html.
Taxes play a part in your business structure –Sole-proprietors are pass-through, so they go with your personal tax return. Corporations do it a little differently and so the IRS has come up with some options: S-corp and C-corp. And then there is an LLC, which can file using most of the tax options. I would recommend consulting with an accountant. Conservators In Private Practice seminar at the 41st Annual Meeting
Ms. Darraby, in conjunction with CIPP and the AIC Board, produced a Professional Services Agreement in 2009 and it can be ordered from AIC: http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=store.&prod_cat_ID=17. It is free to CIPP members and comes with guidelines for use. The template was reviewed by lawyers and insurers and uses language that will hold up in court. Because each state has its own special idiosyncrasies, it is important to adjust the template for your business and the state it is in. And here is where I would recommend consulting with an attorney, especially if a client asks to make changes in your service agreement. A balance is needed to make sure your business is protected and you are upholding best practices for the client and their art. Sometimes one must ‘just say no’, although I know that can be extremely difficult.
Next we had a panel discussion regarding insurance with representatives from DeWitt Stern and Claire Marmion, an adjuster from Haven Art Group. Insurance can be the survival of your business because it protects you and your assets. But, you must read all the fine print and consult with your broker to make sure you have the coverage you need.
A few key points:
-Superstorm Sandy has led to some changes, such as restricting water coverage and likely higher premiums going forward.
-Your homeowner’s policy probably does not cover your home business.
-General Liability insurance follows you as business owner – so you may have coverage while working on-site.
As an adjuster, Claire outlined some key things an insurance company would want from us if we come in as the conservator assessing a piece post-event:
the treatment proposal needs to state categorically if the damage is reversible or not, i.e. will the client be pleased post-treatment.
Include as much exact detail about the treatment steps as possible
Be upfront about your fee to assess
Commit to a cost – a range is ok
Give a timeline for finishing the work; if you can expedite the treatment for an additional fee, add that in too.
If the insurance company is being too slow and you know leaving the piece in its’ current condition will be problematic the longer it goes untreated, be sure to have the client push the broker to push the claim through.
We had a few paintings conservators who had done assessments that took a very long time to go through the insurance process and the wait made the treatment more difficult and time-consuming.
The interactive element was fun. We were given a scenario and paired up to discuss what the different people should/could do. We then had four intrepid volunteers (Sue Blakney, Yuri Yanchyshyn, Gordon Lewis and Claire Marmion) enact the meeting between the parties to see what the solution might end up being and then discuss the outcome. Ms Darraby noted that the volunteers were just too nice!
Please add comments, especially if you feel I left out something!
Photo of Christopher A. Maines of National Gallery of Art giving his presentation at AIC 2013: Traditional Artist Materials in Early Paintings by Andy Warhol
I was looking forward to hearing this talk by Christopher Maines, Conservation Scientist from the National Gallery of Art, on artist materials used by Andy Warhol in his earlier artworks, especially since it mentioned the possibility of traditional materials. Maines began his talk with a brief summary on Warhol’s early techniques as a commercial artist between 1949-1960, specifically the blotted-line technique. Warhol’s first pop paintings during 1960 and 1962 consisted of acrylic paints on primed, stretched canvas which he hand-painted, such as 1962’s A Boy for Meg. The end of the 1960s, Warhol moved into using hand-cut silk screens with synthetic polymer paints, such as 1962’s Green Marilyn. Warhol continued to use these silk screens and synthetic polymers into the 1980s, before dying in 1987. In summary, Warhol chose to use these particular materials because they were quick drying, offered a thrill or chancy nature, and Warhol was accepting of any imperfections which occurred during the creative process, such as drips. A Boy for Meg. Andy Warhol 1962 (left). 129 DIE IN JET!. Andy Warhol 1962 (right).
Maines continued to discuss synthetic polymer paints and thoughts when they were originally introduced. The NGA began analysis of Warhol’s A Boy for Meg in preparation for an upcoming exhibition to determine it’s material composition. The artwork was sampled in four places and GC-MS analysis revealed Warhol was using drying oil and egg when he was transitioning from his commercial work into his pop paintings. It was likely that Warhol was using egg as a material because he was already familiar with its behavior. NGA was fortunate enough to be granted the opportunity to sample from two other artworks from this time period owned by museums in Germany: 129 DIE IN JET! and DAILY NEWS. Both revealed drying oil and egg in these samples, as acrylic paints over a ground layer consisting of drying oil and egg.
I found this talk very interesting, especially to know that Andy Warhol was using a mixture of traditional and modern materials in his artworks. Scientific analysis can provide such fantastic insight to the working materials and methods of artists and I am very glad NGA shared their findings for this time period of Warhol’s career at this year’s AIC Annual Meeting.
Any there any other Warhol fans out there? What are some of your favorites of Warhol works? If you could read the scientific analysis report for any famous artwork to find out exactly what the artist used, what would it be? Please share any thoughts or comments!
NOTE: Other authors on lecture are Suzanne Q. Lomax, Organic Chemist and Jay Krueger, Senior Conservator of Modern Paintings, both at the National Gallery of Art.
A slight communications glitch caused the group from the Indiana State Museum Tour to start without the group that was only doing the Indiana Historical Society tour; we knew that they were supposed to rendesvous with us, but they didn’t know that we existed.
We finally caught up with the other half of our tour group in the Isolation Area of the Indiana Historical Society building, where Paper Conservator Ramona Duncan-Huse was explaining how they set aside a purpose-built space to quarantine, inspect, and treat incoming collections. Because the Historical Society actively acquires entire pallets of archive boxes, staff cannot examine every single item as it enters the collection. This holding room gives the Conservation Department the opportunity to detect insect evidence or mold and prevent cross-contamination with other collections. The room was the envy of many on the tour who could only dream about a room with such great features: negative pressure, floor drains, industrial freezers, etc. The Historical Society’s mold treatment room was a smaller room contained within the Isolation Area that had polyethylene sheeting over its entrance, easily-cleaned tile walls, and its own negative pressure air handler, designed to prevent the outflow of airborne particles through doorways.
After being “wowed” by both the size and quality of the contaminated holding area, the tour moved on to the conservation exhibit. The “History Lab” is a delightful, interactive, kid-friendly installation in a second-floor gallery adjacent to the conservation lab. The exhibits’ objective is to explain what conservation is and what conservators do. The exhibit has been popular with audiences and funders, so the Conservation Department will be undertaking a renovation and expansion of the exhibit and the Conservation Lab. Facilitator Nancy Thomas oversees the hands-on paper mending practice area in the current exhibit. There are also computer-based interactive exercises.
Romona Duncan-Huse turned over the next part of the tour to Sarah Anderson, the designer who is helping to transform the History Lab in its next phase, scheduled to open in September. She showed storyboards for the new exhibit and explained its objectives. The current exhibit is very popular with school groups and families, but some visitors see it as a children’s exhibit and walk right past it. There will be “before and after” objects, and lots of touchable materials, as well as touchscreen computer-based items. Duncan-Huse maintains a conservation Pinterest page, so they plan to incorporate that into the new exhibit. The new exhibit will explore more of the “why” and “how” of conservation treatment decisions, and it will be a lighter, more open design (think Brookstone or Sharper Image meets Apple Store meets Williams-Sonoma); it still incorporates hands-on interactive activities, but with a more sophisticated feel than the old exhibit.
With the new gallery construction slated to begin in June, the impending removal of some walls of the conservation lab meant that there were no treatments in progress during our visit. Conservation staff were happy to describe some of their recent activities to us. Tamara Hemerlein, the Local History Services Officer, explained the IMLS Statewide Connecting the Collections (C2C) project, which includes a traveling conservation panel exhibit, “Endangered Heritage.” The project also includes training for volunteers and museum boards around the state, and she has done 85 site visits to collecting institutions. In late August, they plan to release Deterioria and the Agents of Destruction, a conservation graphic novel. They let us see advance proofs, and it is AWESOME! Several members of the tour (including me) were involved with C2C, so we were all jealous. I asked if they had plans for conservator action figures.
After the lab tour, we had the opportunity to visit the galleries on our own. I went back to the conservation exhibit to get a closer look and to take a few pictures. I want to thank Ramona Duncan-Huse and everyone at the Indiana Historical Society for such an interesting tour.
I’m am extremely excited that I signed up to write a blog post for this Paintings Group Session at the 41st Annual Meeting for AIC: The Contemporary in Conservation this week in Indianapolis. As an emerging conservator specializing in the conservation of paintings, I found this discussion very important for our field and I was so pleased that Matthew Cushman gathered this renowned group of conservators together for the discussion. The discussion (Current Challenges and Opportunities in Paintings Conservation) was well attended and the four presentations provoked important questions and topics for group discussion. This post isn’t intended for solely paintings conservators, but for all fine art conservators, restorers, and any people looking to find out more about the preservation and future of fine art. Photo of discussion panel for Current Challenges and Opportunities in Paintings Conservation (from left: Tiarna Doherty, Joyce Hill Stoner, Rustin Levenson, Rob Proctor, and Alan Phenix).
If you ask me if I’m connected, I might at first think, well, I have a smartphone where I can access my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, my family and I share a Google calendar, so sure, I guess I’m connected. But what does it really mean to be connected? With all of these devices, apps, and programs, I find that it is becoming increasingly easier to never leave the comfort of my home or desk in order to feel like I’m an active part of a community – whether it be my neighborhood, my family, or the conservation field.
But nothing replaces the experience of connecting with other people face-to-face. Our field is experiencing some big changes, and making the effort to go to conferences each year, and even venturing a bit outside of our close-knit community, may be more valuable than ever before. By attending allied professionals meetings, I believe that we will find that this not only benefits us as individuals, but our field as a whole.
Last week I spent 2 very full days at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Baltimore and I returned feeling inspired and energized with new ideas. AAM attendees filing into the general session in the ballroom at the Baltimore Convention Center
This was my first time attending this meeting, and as Chair of the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN), I went on behalf of our group in an attempt to promote ECPN to the wider museum community, to connect with the AAM Emerging Museum Professionals (EMP) network, and to seek ideas and ways for ECPN to collaborate with other emerging museum professionals. In the interest of supporting the significant work of ECPN, The University of Delaware generously supported my participation. A shot from the AAM opening reception at the American Visionary Art Museum
I was fortunate to have a meeting buddy – ECPN Vice Chair Eliza Spaulding also attended the conference, and between the two of us, we sought out as many opportunities to take in all AAM had to offer. Some of the highlights included:
Keynote talk by Freeman Hrabowski, III, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) about the role of museums in inspiring future generations
And of course we attended several interesting sessions, met many new people, and had a chance to visit the booths at the MuseumExpo.
Eliza and I are excited to share some of our experiences at AAM, and how these have given us ideas for future projects, at the ECPN informational meeting during the AIC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis this week. The ECPN meeting will take place on Friday, May 31 from 5:30-6:30 pm in the JW Marriott Meeting Rooms 201-203.
We hope to see you there!
At the 2012 AIC Annual Meeting we hosted the first ever AIC Great Debate. By all accounts, it was a rousing success. While last year’s debate was good, this year we’re hoping to make it better.
The 2013 Great Debate will take place on Saturday, June 1 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm as the final session in the General Session. Now not only will everyone have the opportunity to attend, but you’ll have a good reason to stay to the very end of the Annual Meeting! And, as the ultimate way to promote dialogue, camaraderie, and, well, fun, we will have a cash bar in the room. Finally, I’m working on walk up music for the teams: hint all of the musicians were born in Indiana.
But, before I list this year’s debate topics and participants, I want to make a very important disclaimer: I created the AIC Great Debate as an intellectual exercise to demonstrate that conservators are clever enough to see a tough topic from both sides and discuss it openly.
With this in mind, in many cases I have personally invited participants to debate from a position that is contrary to their personal beliefs. This not only adds a fun twist it proves the point that the Debate is not meant to provide a forum so we can prove one side is right, but rather to engage in a public dialogue to surface all of this issues around difficult topics. And though I’m listing participant’s institutional affiliations (so you’ll get a chance to know them better), in no way am I suggesting that the participants are representing an institutional position in the Debate. TOPIC 1:
The greatest act of preservation for inherently fragile or fugitive cultural property is exhibition, even if the duration goes far beyond what is currently recommended.
Affirmative Team
2012 Great Debate
Rosa Lowinger (Rosa Lowinger & Associates)
Patty Miller (2 Arts Conservation)
Jodie Utter (Amon Carter Museum of American Art)
Negative Team
John Campbell (Campbell Contemporary Sculpture Conservation)
Fletcher Durant (New York Public Library)
Jessica Ford (University of Delaware Art Conservation Graduate School)
TOPIC 2:
While volunteers used on preservation projects often allow us to accomplish more work, they undermine our capacity to regularly employ conservation and collections care professionals.
Affirmative Team
Rose Cull (Kress Fellow in Sculpture Conservation at Tate)
Kelly Keegan (Art Institute of Chicago)
Dawn Walus (Boston Athenaeum)
Negative Team
Will Hoffman (Mariners Museum)
Michele Marincola (Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts/Metropolitan Museum)
Beverly Perkins (Buffalo Bill Center of the West)
Like last year, I’d like to ask you for help to make the AIC Great Debate successful. We need you! We need you in the audience to be lively, interested, engaged, and fun. And I don’t mean just to cheer on your favorite conservator or team; we need you to participate in the Great Debate at AIC!
There will be a significant amount of time in which the audience will get to ask each team questions to which they have to respond.
And, finally, we need you to decide who wins the debate. The winning team for each topic will be the one who sways the most opinions in the audience.
If you’re interested in reading about how the AIC Great Debate went last year, there are reviews on this blog of each debate topic.
2012 TOPIC #1: Publishing accurate and complete “how-to guides” for conservation and restoration treatments online is the best way for us to care for cultural heritage in the 21st century. Read the review here.
2012 TOPIC #2: Having conservators perform treatments in the gallery is the most successful way to generate funding for museums and raise awareness about the profession. Read the review here.
Speakers Abigail Quandt, Will Noel, Renee Wolcott, and Jim Hinz answered audience questions during the first day’s question and answer session. Laura Hortz Stanton (right) was the moderator. Photo credit: CCAHA A question and answer session at “The Next Chapter” conference. Photo credit: CCAHA
“The Next Chapter:Rare Books in Modern Times” conference had an ambitious goal, to offer talks of benefit to anyone with a professional interest in rare books. The conference was presented by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, and hosted by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.
One of the aspects I most appreciated about “The Next Chapter” was the collaborative spirit fostered by having speakers from a diversity of rare book-related professions. Librarians, preservation administrators, conservators, a curator, and a professor of book arts shared their expertise and insights with an audience of more than 100 rare book professionals and students. The presentations ranged from practical preservation basics to inspiring achievements in conservation, digitization, and exhibition methods.
Chela Metzger, Conservator of Library Collections at the Winterthur Museum, gave an overview of contemporary rare book conservation and a brief historical perspective of book conservation. She discussed collaborative digitization and public engagement projects involving conservators and other professionals.
Abigail Quandt, Senior Conservator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum, presented the historical evolution of codex bindings from Coptic Egypt through the early European Renaissance, and some examples of later handwritten Eastern Mediterranean books.
For altered or damaged rare manuscripts, digitization methods may help to reveal the original text and page order. Will Noel, Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Special Collections Center and The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, discussed the challenges of digitizing and conserving the Archimedes Palimpsest and three other Byzantine manuscripts.
Not all rare books were originally ornate or expensive. Renée Wolcott, Book Conservator at CCAHA, discussed the construction, history, and preservation challenges for the simple, inexpensive American scaleboard bindings of the mid-17th to early 19th centuries.
Jim Hinz, CCAHA’s Director of Book Conservation, spoke about projects that combined book conservation and digital imaging, including the preservation of Bruce Springstein’s original spiral-bound notebooks of lyrics.
For those seeking basic how-to information, Janet Gertz offered two talks on setting preservation priorities and selection for digitization. She is the director of the Columbia University Libraries Preservation and Digital Conversion Division.
Maria Fredericks, Drue Heinz Book Conservator at the Morgan Library & Museum, discussed her institution’s impressive state-of-the-art exhibition program.
Public outreach is an important focus for rare book collections. Christine Nelson, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum, presented digital strategies to engage the public, educate, and inspire dialogue about special collections.
Eric Pumroy, Director of Library Collections and Seymour Adelman Head of Special Collections for Bryn Mawr College, spoke about ways of promoting and preserving rare book collections, including the use of social media, adopt-a-book programs, exhibits about conservation, and recognition of donors.
In his talk about the University of Alabama’s hands-on MFA book arts classes in Cuba, Professor Steve Miller shared the joy of creation, and a welcome perspective from contemporary makers of hand-crafted, limited edition books. Miller is the Coordinator of the MFA in the Book Arts Program, School of Library Sciences, for the University of Alabama.
Conference participants were invited to attend two optional events, an open house reception at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, and a rare books talk in the American Philosophical Society’s reading room by Roy Goodman, Assistant Librarian and Curator of Printed Materials. At the reception, CCAHA staff discussed their current conservation treatments and storage housing projects.
The diversity of subjects and perspectives presented during the talks ensured that there was something of interest for everyone. We learned from each other and gained a better understanding of other aspects of the field. “The Next Chapter “ was an inspiring and valuable conference.
The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies offers valuable opportunities for conservators to update their skills, and to increase their productivity and scope of practice through its excellent series of conservation refresher courses.
Last summer I attended the new course, “Book Repair Techniques for Special Collections,” at the Campbell Center in Mount Carroll, Illinois. The four-day course provided me and the other four participants with an informative and practical immersion in the theory and ethics of rare books conservation, an overview of binding history and structures, and hands-on experience with rare books stabilization techniques.
Our instructor, Olivia Primanis, the senior book conservator at the University of Texas at Austin’s Humanities Research Center, presented the course as a combination of lectures, class discussions, technique demonstrations, and hands-on practice.
Each student filled out a condition report and treatment proposal for a damaged book they brought with them, then discussed it with the class so we could consider treatment options as a group. Elise Calvi, conservator at the Indiana Historical Society, practiced joint tacketing to reattach a board. Photo credit: The Campbell Center
The hands-on portion of the course included opportunities to practice testing methods, paring leather, lifting leather and cloth covers, consolidating corners, rebacking, reattaching spines and boards, and repairing damaged sewing. The small class allowed Olivia to give each student plenty of individual attention.
I found Olivia to be a gifted and inspiring teacher who excelled at teaching treatment techniques and sharing the knowledge and insights she’d gained during her career as a bookbinder, conservator, and former library conservation program instructor.
An aspect of the class that I found especially valuable was Olivia’s emphasis on treatment decision-making and being aware of the factors that influence our decisions, such as time available for the treatment or the conservator’s knowledge of techniques. She spoke about how preferred treatment approaches have evolved over time, corresponding with changing bias in book conservation, and challenged us to consider how our current biases might be viewed by conservators in the future.
Olivia discussed the importance of determining the cause of the failure or damage before treating the book, considering whether the planned treatment would transfer the stress to a different location, and recognizing when repairing broken book structures might not be best for the book. Certain types of physical and bibliographic evidence may need to be preserved, such as wax in a liturgical book or a historical patina and fingerprints indicating use.
She reminded us that each step of the conservation treatment influenced the way the book moved. We had the opportunity to explore this for ourselves by handling an identical set of books she had treated using different techniques, and by trying the techniques during the hands-on practice.
The Campbell Center’s remote yet charming small town location could have been a disadvantage, but the staff and instructors worked hard to build community among concurrent classes through optional trips in the evenings to area restaurants and the Raven’s Grin, the town’s unique haunted house. The course fee included housing in the Campbell Center campus dormitory, communal breakfasts and lunches, and access to the library’s computers and wireless internet.
The informal, collaborative environment encouraged students and instructors from different classes to share and learn from each other. Our class was treated to an excellent guest lecture on leather and parchment when Dr. Sheila Fairbrass-Siegler, a conservator and chemist who taught the concurrent “Introduction to Organic and Inorganic Materials” course, offered to present the talk for us one afternoon.
Olivia’s course gave me the opportunity to learn and practice new treatment techniques, and to focus deeply on why and how we treat rare books, including the consequences of our treatment decisions.
“Book Repair Techniques for Special Collections” will benefit general collections conservators, conservation technicians, library bookbinders, and conservators of paper and photographs who wish to expand their skills.
The workshop will be offered again on July 24 to 27, 2013 at the Campbell Center. In addition, Dr. Fairbrass-Siegler will teach a new “Parchment Conservation” workshop at the center from July 17 to 20, 2013. A limited number of $300 FAIC scholarships are available. For more information, visit www.campbellcenter.org.
