Heritage Without Borders volunteers are delivering an object conservation course as part of Cultural Heritage Without Borders’ 20th Annual Restoration Camp in Mitrovica, Kosovo. They are updating us on their experiences in their own words. Read about cake, making a mess, insect poo and DJ-ing competitions in their blog, on the Heritage Without Borders website.
Category: Collection Care
Posts related to AIC’s Collection Care Network
42nd Annual Meeting – Textile Session, May 30, “Stressed about Pests? A Panel-led Discussion on Integrated Pest Management” Moderators: Bernice Morris, Patricia Silence, Rachael Arenstein.
This session included three presentations on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The first speaker, Bernice Morris, is the IPM coordinator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA.) Bernice said that IPM began in earnest at the PMA in 1990. She has built on this foundation, developing an IPM system consisting of dividing the museum into risk zones, the use of barcoded (numbered) blunder traps (with pheromone lures as needed), and iPhones outfitted with barcode readers. The iPhones scan the bar code on each trap. The pest type and count are entered, and the data is sent to a computer, becoming a row on a spreadsheet. This makes the gathered data accessible for analysis. The number of traps and the frequency of monitoring are dependent on zone type. In addition, all museum staff are now aware of the importance of prevention and vigilance. The staff has a “bug hotline,” and Internet reporting for pest sightings. It is a very low cost system with the exception of the iPhones, and for those with moth problems the pheromone lures are expensive but worth the investment. The textiles in the collection are most vulnerable while moving in and out of the galleries, and the museum. New acquisitions and loans come into the museum wrapped in plastic. They are isolated and examined, and if evidence of infestation is found the objects are treated with low temperature treatment or anoxia treatment to kill all insect life stages of the infestation.
Patricia Silence is the Conservator of Museum Exhibitions and Historic Interiors at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CW). As she said it is “the oldest and largest outdoor living history museum in the United States.” CW had always depended on outside pest management professionals. She and her colleagues developed a vision of what a successful IPM plan would accomplish: “prevent harm to people, collections, and buildings, use minimal pesticides, and foster a sense of ownership of the IPM program in the foundation employees.” Due to the complicated interconnected nature of the collection, architecture, landscaping, livestock, commercial entities, and residences, it was determined that it is would be best to have someone who was on the CW staff to manage the IPM. Ryan Jones was hired as the integrated pest management specialist. The IPM has been so successful the program has expanded to include monitoring and treatment of termites. He and an army of other staff members have certification for pesticide application, but housekeeping, routine trap monitoring, and building inspections and maintenance reduce the need for pesticides. A holding room, and freezing and anoxic treatments are used for objects with infestations. The staff can report pest sightings via intranet; identification sheets with common pests are made available with a pest specific follow-up sheet sent after identification. Patricia has taken a holistic approach.
Rachael Arenstein is currently the conservator at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, Israel. However, as a former conservator in private practice she spoke about some of the challenges she noticed with smaller museums that lack IPM plans. She felt that the biggest problem was most often that pest damage is not recognized and is thought to be the natural effects of age or light damage. Rachael pointed out that all museums have some kind of pest problem. Small museum are understaffed, under-resourced, collections are crowded, and if there is an infestation the staff is just “grossed out.” Mistakes are made using inappropriate products and procedures. Rachael is a member of the IPM Working Group, which grew out of colleagues banding together to learn how to deal with infestations. Over the past ten years Rachael and these colleagues have created an invaluable resource, Museumpest.net. It is everything one might want or need to know about IPM: prevention, monitoring, identification, treatment solutions, and implementation of an IPM plan, and more. Through the site you can join the Pestlist, an e-mail distribution list that allows members to ask questions, and receive answers and advice from museum and preservation professionals, entomologists, and other practitioners.
The speakers opened the floor to questions and discussion. The first question was concerned with how to get the staff to “buy into” the importance of protecting the collection. The reply to this was that presentations to staff showing damage, or potential damage were helpful. Unfortunately, it often takes a major infestation to drive home the importance of IPM. Other questions were asked about pheromone traps, how to handle a museum wide dermestid infestation, if there were any lasting effects from the use of Vikane fumigation, and “are crack and crevice” treatments of any use. The answers were helpful, but too lengthy to address here. All roads lead to http://museumpests.net (and housekeeping.)
The speakers have posted their presentations on the Museum Pest web-site:
http://museumpests.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AIC-2014-Stressed-about-Pests-Morris-FINAL.pdf
http://museumpests.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/AIC-2014-Stressed-about-Pests-Silence-FINAL.pdf
http://museumpests.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AIC-2014-Stressed-About-Pests-Arenstein-FINAL.pdf
42nd Annual Meeting — Collection Care + HVAC Session, May 31, 2014, “Sustaining Collections: Putting Theory into Practice” with James Reilly, Lois Price, John Castle, Tom Sherwood, Don K. Rowe
I was tweeting up a storm during this session (#AICSF). Why the fervor? There is nothing like hearing the conversion of smart professionals towards the gospel of collaboration, preservation management and the preservation environment. A two-year intensive review of the air handling systems at the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (Delaware) generated insights into the management of the preservation environment that provided refreshing new data on how to approach mechanical renovation projects. During the panel, each stakeholder told a part of a story that provided many “Ah Ha” moments. Here’s a sample of the tweets:
On the issue of getting all the stakeholders in the room:
I keep saying this: collaboration between facilities and conservation colleagues is a key for establishing set points.
Collections management and facilities management must be in handshake [pic of hands shaking].
On the implementation of nightly shut downs and seasonable shifts to manage the preservation environment and reduce the use of water and energy:
It’s not so simple to do shut downs and seasonably adjust set points.
Achilles heel of doing shut downs may be antiquated systems including [antiquated] monitoring. Really, you cannot just shut off the furnace!
On the struggle to adequately understand the way that air handling systems may have evolved over time due to changes in personnel, changes in technology, and changes in the built environment:
Sounds like facilities engineers could take a page out of @conservators documentation strategies and requirements. #asbuiltsnotdrawn
[A fireplace that had served as an air return decades ago was blocked during renovations wreaking havoc on the HVAC control]: Secret air return: non-working fireplace… blocked.
[Retired engineer returns to review the system and finds out that all of the built-in compensation for Gerry-rigged HVAC has been resolved]: “We always run two boilers!” “Let me tell you what: now we’re only running one.”
On the monitoring tools that are essential for understanding how your systems are running:
eClimate Notebook from IPI is such a great tool. Proud to plug it!
Winterthur reports a decrease in its energy costs, which include the reduction in the use of fresh water, and intends to repurpose energy costs into programming. Now that’s sustainable!
42nd Annual Meeting, Collection Care Session, May 29, 2014, “The Future of Risk Assessment: Developing Tools for Collections Care Professionals” by Beth Nunan
Beth Nunan of the American Museum of Natural History described an almost 10-year approach to gather data across the many departments of the museum, using the cultural property risk assessment model (modified for AMNH). No one wants their risk assessment survey to sit on a shelf, and one thing is for certain: if the data cannot be compared across collections, the data will stay unused and uninterpreted. Even if the data is used, it can be called into question if the tools that captured and analyzed the information are perceived as biased.
Here are some of the takeaways from the AMNH approach:
1) The more complex the collection program at a museum, the more difficult it is to comprehensively apply and manage a risk assessment project. At the American Museum of Natural History there are millions of specimens ranging from vertebrates to botanical specimens and including libraries and archives.
2) There is a trend that AMNH is following about being able to compare risk assessment data with other like museums. Sharing risk assessment data and finding benchmarks across the museum field is becoming important; so risk assessment surveys should consider what will be the common data points shared with other museums, and what the definitions of those data points are.
3) Once tools are developed they should be shared with other professionals to amplify the use of the tools at other institutions. Groups like Collection Care Network and others are seeking to standardize templates and tools in order to facilitate comparison.
4) Partners are crucial to the success of risk assessments. Partners are frequently allied professionals, such as curators, librarians and archivists.
It’s clear that AMNH has many challenges in developing the tools it has used for risk assessment, but I expect we will hear much more from the conservators there as they promote their tools and lead other natural history museums towards this smart way of evaluating risks.
42nd Annual Meeting – Paintings (Joint with Wooden Artifacts), May 31, “Painted Totem Poles at the American Museum of Natural History: Treatment Challenges and Solutions” by Samantha Alderson, Judith Levinson, Gabrielle Tieu, and Karl Knauer
Those who have beheld the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians at the American Museum of Natural History and its extraordinary “totem poles” will instantly recognize the potential scope of any study or treatment of such massive artifacts.
These objects are housed in the earliest wing of the museum, curated at its inception by Franz Boas, “the father of American Anthropology”, who organized the early acquisitions of the museum according to a revolutionary argument: that of “cultural relativism” in opposition to a chauvinistic, social-Darwinist organization that put “primitive” peoples at the bottom of an evolutionary tree, the pinnacle of which was white America. Today, this hall holds a landmarked status and remains relatively unchanged, as the poles are very hard to move.
Ten years ago, a renovation of the hall was proposed. Although the recession thwarted plans, the objects were still in need of stabilization and aesthetic improvements. Because this project—from its inception, through the research, testing, and execution stage, was so expansive—Samantha Alderson reminded her audience that her talk could only represent an overview of a four-year process. Those interested in a specific aspect of the project can look forward to in-depth, forthcoming publications.
One of the more important aspects of the research phase, and a professional obligation that is indispensable to the curation and conservation of native materials, was the consideration of ethical issues and provenance information. Most of these pieces entered the collection between the 1880s and the 1920s, and the majority has been on continual, open display since their arrival. Their presence in AMNH’s collection is widely acknowledged to be ethically complicated in itself, representing an era of unscrupulous dealing in Northwest Coast artifacts. (To read more about “Indians and about their procurable culture,” consult Douglas Cole’s, “Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts,” about the coincidence of a taste for these native artifacts and the establishment of many of the country’s foremost natural history collections. (p.xi)]
The carvings, including the carved columns most commonly described as ”totem poles,” would have had numerous functions within their originating cultures: house frontal poles holding entry portals to buildings, interior house posts, welcome figures, memorial poles, and mortuary posts [For a technical study on these types of carvings, please consult “Melissa H. Carr. “A Conservation Perspective on Wooden Carvings of the Pacific Northwest Coast.” Wooden Artifacts Group Postprints. 1993.].
To further hone their understanding of provenance, the 2009 CCI “Caring for Totem Poles” workshop in Alert, Canada, allowed the authors to travel through British Columbia with curatorial consultants, native carvers, and native caretakers, in order to study the techniques of manufacture. It was also important to keep abreast of the expectations of the native communities that might be borne out over the course of any treatment intervention or re-installation campaign.
The original aim of this project was to provide structural stability to those carvings which exhibited highly deteriorated surfaces caused by the weathering and biodeterioration in their original environment. These instabilities were often exacerbated by inappropriate environmental conditions and restoration interventions in the museum. The most significant issue requiring treatment was the presence of wood rot, insects, and biological growth, present in the original environment and continuing to run their course.
Although climate control was installed in 1995, soot from the age of coal heaters and lamps still blanketed the inaccessible areas of the objects. Dust from visitor traffic also dulled them, as the hall is adjacent to the entrance to the IMAX theatre. Routine and well-intentioned cleaning was ineffective against a century of accumulated grime and dust and was causing surface loss.
As there is no barrier between the objects and the visitor, touching has caused burnishing and scratching. The unfinished wood readily absorbs skin oils; and graffiti and adhered chewing gum had also become a most-unfortunate problem.
Early interventions after acquisition had caused condition problems of their own, as old fills had a hardness or density that is inappropriate for soft, weathered wood. These fill materials were only becoming more ugly, unstable, crumbly, and cracked with age.
All of these factors, taken together, provided a huge impetus for treatment.
To begin the treatment-planning stage, the conservators at AMNH performed examinations under visible and UV radiation and mapped the observed conditions and materials using a streamlined iPad-based documentation protocol. In some cases the restoration materials observed provided evidence of institutional and condition history. Although there were almost no previous treatment records of these objects, comparison with archival photographs of many of the objects showed the rate of deterioration since acquisition and provided clues as to dates of interventions and installation history.
In summary of the object-treatment stage, vacuums and sponges were first used in an attempt to reduce some of the dinginess of the surface and to increase the legibility of the painted designs. The many resinous and waxy coatings had trapped so much dust, however, that this treatment did not always have a satisfactory result.
The question of solvent toxicity held sway in all aspects of treatment, as operations were completed in makeshift spaces outside of the lab, due to the size of the objects; these areas had no fume-extraction infrastructure. Luckily, plaster fills could be softened with a warm-water-and-ethanol mixture and carved out.
Butvar B-98 and Paraloid B-72 were selected as potential consolidants and adhesives. A 5-10% Butvar B-98 solution in ethanol (i.e. without the toluene component for safety concerns) was used for surface stabilization, and Paraloid B-72 in acetone was used for adhesion of splinters and detached fragments.
Fills were designed using different materials depending on the location on the object. These were intended to reduce damage during installation, display, and regular maintenance. If the fill was not visible, shapes were cut from Volara, beveled, and adhered in place with Paraloid B-72 along the edges. These were often necessary on the tops of the poles to cover the deep voids of deteriorated wood. Some losses were back-filled with tinted glass micro-balloon mixtures of different grades and different resin-to-balloon ratios where appropriate. As some paints were solvent-sensitive, certain fills required the use of Paraloid B-67. The final fill type was a removable epoxy-bulked fill to compensate for deep losses in visible areas. These areas were first filled with polyethylene foam to prevent the fill from locking in. The edges of the fill area to be cast were protected by tamping down teflon (plumber’s) tape which conforms nicely to the wooden surface. West System 105 Epoxy Resin—with “fast” 205, “slow” 206, or “extra-slow” 209 hardeners—was used in different proportions to 3M glass microspheres and pigments to give fill material with various hardness, curing-times, textures, and colors (See Knauer’s upcoming publication in ICOM-CC Warsaw 2013 for more details). This method is notable for its invisibility, its reversibility, and its rejection of phenolic micro-balloons, which are an unstable and unsuitable and were historically used for such a wood fill merely for their brown color. Once cured, the bulked-epoxy (and the plumber’s tape) were removed and the fills were then tacked into place with B-72 to produce an aesthetically pleasing and protective cap.
Many losses which were previously filled were left unfilled, as would have been the case it they had been collected and treated today. Crack fills were incised so as to retain the appearance of a (smaller) crack.
Once the surface and structure was stabilized with the consolidation and filling operations, the team turned their attention to the various paint films to be cleaned. Many of these were proteinaceous but some were more similar to house paints. This data was consistent with the ethnographic findings and with current native practice. No preparatory layers were used, and the pigment layers were often very lean.
PLM, XRF, and SEM-EDS, as well as UV-FL imaging, thin sections, and analysis with FTIR was undertaken. Some binder analysis was also possible, but this was complicated by historical treatments. Interpretation of epi-fluorescence microscopy results was also thwarted by the presence of multiple coatings, the inter-penetration, -dissolution, and bleed-through of layers. As many as four different types of coatings were identified, and understanding and addressing the condition issues caused by these coatings became a primary concern. Cellulose Nitrate was often applied to carvings in the early 20th century. Whether this was to refurbish or protect, it has developed into a dark-brown layer which is alternately hazy and glossy and which obscured the original surface appearance. Lower regions evidenced PVA or PVAc on top of the Cellulose Nitrate. Shellac and dammar are present in isolated locations, as is an orange resin which eluded identification (even when analyzed with GCMS).
Although identification of these coatings was attempted, removal was not originally planned due to the difficulties designing a solvent system for its reduction, considering the variation in sensitivities, the interpenetration of the layers, and the unknown condition of the original paint films beneath. This plan changed when the poles were deinstalled for construction.
The treatment design was largely aided by the isolation of four house posts in the collection made by Kwakwaka’wakw artist Arthur Shaughnessy.
Commissioned by AMNH in 1923, these had never been installed outdoors but which had been coated in the same manner and exhibited in the same space. This allowed for the development of controlled methods for coating reduction.
A Teas table (or Teas chart) was used to identify potential solvents or solvent mixtures, which were tested over every color and monitored for any leaching or swelling. These initial tests were deemed unsuccessful.
In areas without paint, film reformation with acetone reduced haziness or glossiness. Where the coating was completely removed, the wood was often left with an over-cleaned appearance which necessitated some coating redistribution with MBK, MEK, and propylene glycol. Wherever possible, gels were used to reduce the exposure to toxic solvents. In painted areas, the large variation in solvent sensitivity, the inconsistency of media binders, the varying porosity of the wood, and the changing direction of the wood grain required that the conservators work inch-by-inch. DMSO, a component of “safe” stripper, and NMP were controllable over certain colors but caused considerable swelling.
February 2012, the museum saw the reinstallation of the Shaughnessy poles, marking the effective conclusion of the testing period and the successful management of a challenging triage situation by conservation staff.
It was Kwakwaka‘wakw artists like Arthur Shaughnessy who kept carving traditions active when the Canadian government prohibited the potlatch ceremony in 1885. The ban was lifted in 1951, after AMNH’s acquisition of the house posts.
The completion of treatment represents an important opportunity to educate the public: Although these monumental carvings are exhibited in a historic wing of the museum, we need to dust them off and remember that these carvings represent very, active traditional practices and communities.
There is still the need to develop more systematic solvent strategies, as well as to consult with a paintings conservator. But it is clear that these objects stand to look much improved after the grime and coatings are removed or reduced and the objects are thoughtfully reintegrated with a well-designed fill system. Thanks to the remarkable talents of the AMNH team, these stately creations are finally commanding the respect they deserve.
___
Resources:
Hall of Northwest Coast Indians :: AMNH
From the Bench: These Face Lifts Require Heavy Lifting :: IMLS
Arthur Shaughnessy house post carvings reinstalled following conservation treatment (February 2012) :: AMNH
Changing Approaches to the Conservation of Northwest Coast Totem Poles :: Reed College
Andrew Todd (1998). “Painted Memory, Painted Totems,” In Dorge, Valerie and F. Carey Howlett (eds.), Painted Wood: History and Conservation (pp. 400-411). Proceedings of a symposium organized by the Wooden Artifacts Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and the Foundation of the AIC, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1994. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust.
A Brief History of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition :: AMNH
AIC’s 42nd Annual Meeting – Opening Session, May 29, “Sustainable Collections Care on a Budget – A new museum store for Bolton, UK” by Pierrette Squires
With her excellent talk, British conservator Pierrette Squires showed that it is possible to do a major collections move project while still being economically and environmentally conscientious. Of course, doing so required an enormous amount of careful planning, creativity, and hard work, which Squires outlined.
Situated in northwest England, an area hard hit by the recession, the Bolton Library and Museum Services (http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/) sold the textile mill which previously housed its collections storage. The staff then had to move and rehouse the collection of over 40,000 objects, ranging from fluid specimens to industrial machines, to a new location in two years and with a tight budget of $1.4 million. A large part of the success of the project resulted from the conservation team being included from almost the very beginning. Because of their involvement, the move was inspired by the green values of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle,” values which contributed not only to environmental sustainability but economic sustainability as well.
The location chosen for the new collections storage was another old factory. Despite some pollution and asbestos, the building was in good shape structurally. Working closely with the mechanical engineers, the museum did careful environmental monitoring of the space. The museum made the unorthodox decision not to install air conditioning, which would be expensive, but instead to use large amounts of insulation. Other green features of the building renovation included the installation of solar power panels and of Power Perfectors (voltage optimization devices), which save money by buffering energy draw. Adjustments like these resulted in a 50% reduction in energy costs.
Less expensive alternatives for outfitting the storage area were also sought out. Rather than using an expensive system designed for museums, cheaper compact storage intended for use in other industries was selected. Used metal racks and wooden pallets were chosen for storage of larger objects. In all, 65% of the storage furniture was second hand, saving money and keeping things out of landfills.
The arrangement of collections within the storage area was also carefully planned to maximize the environmental conditions of the building. For example, more stable objects like geological specimens were placed in areas against exterior walls, while textiles and archaeological materials were placed in areas farther away from the loading dock and thus most protected from temperature and humidity swings. Fluid preserved specimens were placed in the northern and thus cooler part of the building.
The actual move of the collection continued the theme of sustainability. Local transport companies were hired to do the actual moving, which saved on gas and contributed to the local economy. Storage and packing materials were reused as often as possible. When no longer usuable, materials were recycled.
In conclusion, the move was a very successful project. Although not all the choices made in the project are applicable to every museum – one wonders about the risk of pollutants from used and wooden storage furniture, the ideas presented in this talk were interesting and thought-provoking. The talk proved that environmental sustainability and economic sustainability are not opposites but can go hand in hand.
42nd Annual Meeting, Textiles Session, May 30th, “Managing Sustainability of Light Sensitive Collections” by Stefan Michalski
Stefan Michalski began his presentation with a dramatic use of neckties. He held up 2 neckties – 1 with the colors very faded – and spoke about the common concern about potential color change and loss for textile objects on exhibition. He then went on to discuss the assumptions that are made about light levels, exhibition schedules, and gallery rotations. His presentation focused on the complex choices that conservators must make to protect collections from color change and loss, while also making them accessible.
Most of the presentation focused on a dilemma: should we rotate an entire collection or display half the collection and preserve the other half in storage. From which system will the most people gain the most benefit from the collection? The rotation system allows twice as many people to have access to the collection, but leads to irreversible damage to the entire collection over time. The half-and-half system allows fewer people to have access to the collection, but might be considered more sustainable since half the collection would be fully preserved.
He concluded that the practice of rotating objects on display might be considered shortsighted, and to the advantage of living generations of museum visitors. Over the next couple hundred years, this practice could lead to entire collections become equally faded. The museum visitors and scholars in the more distant future would not have any pristine textiles to examine – only faded textiles would be available. He suggested that the newest pieces in a collection might actually be the most fragile from a color damage perspective; a textile with pristine colors might be more likely to experience fading than one that has already had significant exposure and has reached a plateau of fading. His final comment to the audience was that conservators should carefully consider the value of experiencing pristine textiles, and question if we owe this experience to generations in the far future.
42nd Annual Meeting – Collection Care Session, May 29, “The Ossabaw Island Workshops – Preventive Conservation Training in a Real Life Setting” by David Bayne
Since 2010, there have been four Preventive Conservation workshops on Ossabaw Island, three of which have been generously funded by FAIC. These workshops have provided a unique training experience for both emerging conservation professionals and pre-program students.
Background and History of the Island
Ossabaw Island is a 26,000-acre remote barrier island off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. It has five residents, and may only be accessed by private boat. It is mostly wilderness, but there are some very interesting historic buildings, including some slave cabins of tabby construction (a technique using oyster shells, sand, and water as the mortar ingredients), the Club House (c. 1885) – where lectures take place and participants are housed, and the Torrey-West House or the “Main House” – where the actual work is carried out.
Dr. and Mrs. Torrey bought the island in 1924 and had a house built there to be their family’s winter home to escape the harsh winters of their native Michigan. The house was completed in 1926, and the Torreys spent four months (January – April) there each year afterward. The current owner of the house is Mrs. Eleanor “Sandy” Torrey West, who is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Torrey and is currently 101 years old.
In 1961, Mrs. West and her husband started an artist colony, where writers, artists, and composers could come stay in the Wests’ home and be inspired by the island’s natural beauty and tranquility. In the 1970s, this evolved into the Genesis Project, where college students and less-established artists came to work on various projects. The Genesis participants were more self-sufficient and built settlements, cooking/dining/washing facilities, and a pottery kiln at an area of the island called “Middle Place.”
With her money running out, Mrs. West decided to sell the island to the state of Georgia in 1978, but she had several stipulations. She wanted the island to remain wild and continue to be a place of inspiration, creativity, and discovery, so the state was not allowed to build a causeway or start a ferry service to the island. They also had to continue encouraging arts and sciences projects/research and allow her to continue living in her house on the island until her death.
The Workshop
The original goals of the workshop were to use the Main House to:
1. Train housekeepers working in historic houses.
2. Professionalize preventive conservation.
3. Expose professional and emerging conservators to a nascent historic house and provide an opportunity for them to take part in its institutionalization.
The workshop provides a unique opportunity for participants to learn about preventive conservation and housekeeping practices for a historic house. The things that make this program so unique are that the house…
- is still a home in which the current owner is a 101-year-old woman who resides there full-time.
- is on a remote island, and supplies must be brought out by chartered boat from the mainland.
- suffers from MANY problems, such as:
- The environment of the island (heat, humidity, salty ocean air, etc.)
- Mold and mildew
- Rotting wood
- Rusting metal
- Pests
- Extensive damage to house, furniture, pillows/cushions, carpets/rugs, books, taxidermy, etc by termites, carpet beetles, silverfish, rodents, and other pests.
- General neglect
- As Mrs. West became older, she could not take care of the house by herself, and she could not afford to pay for the amount of repairs and housekeeping that the house required.
- Arsenic
- Exotic game heads (a lioness, black rhino, water buffalo, and a few kinds of antelope) have always been a major component of the living room décor, even appearing in the original architect drawings for the house. These may have been shot by Dr. Torrey himself on a safari hunting trip to Africa. All of them were treated with an arsenic-based pesticide. Testing of the heads found that some had arsenic content that was off the charts (>160 ppb).
- The environment of the island (heat, humidity, salty ocean air, etc.)
Though current housekeepers in historic houses were the original target audience, most of the people who have completed the workshop have been pre-program conservation students. A house with such a rich and fascinating history, but so many conservation issues, provides a lot of opportunities for pre-programmers to learn and gain hands-on experience. That is probably the workshop’s greatest achievement: exposing potential conservation students to collections care and preventive conservation.
I was lucky enough to have been one of the participants in the 2013 season. It was not glamorous. We worked hard and got dirty, crawling around on the floors and under cobwebbed furniture, vacuuming, dusting, moving heavy wooden furniture, and examining sticky traps that had caught all sorts of disgusting, multi-legged creatures. Through all of this, we got exposure to integrated pest management (IPM) and the care of furniture, paintings, textiles, books, and works of art on paper. It could be gross, but it was fun and exciting, too. As David said in his presentation, “Everything is an adventure on Ossabaw.”
Another major achievement of the workshop has been in helping emerging conservation professionals by providing third-year students or recent graduates the opportunity to be instructors. In 2013, that included two former WUDPAC students, Stephanie Hulman (paintings) and Emily Schuetz Stryker (textiles). These young professionals play an essential role because they have knowledge of the most recent techniques and advancements in the field and are better able to answer pre-program students’ questions about portfolios and conservation school.
Unfortunately, Emily Schuetz Stryker died suddenly and unexpectedly earlier this year. She was a great instructor, a wonderful person, and the most talented knitter that I have ever met. The Ossabaw workshop would not have been the same without her sense of humor and her wonderful laugh.
RIP Emily Schuetz Stryker (1987 – 2014)
42nd Annual Meeting – General Session: Engaging Communities in Collection Care – Track B, May 30, "Heritage versus ‘Business of the House’: Conservation and Collection Care at the Houses of Parliament, UK” by Caroline Babington and Lara Artemis.
In this talk, presented during Thursday’s general session, Lara Artemis, the Collection Care Manager for the Parliamentary Archives at the Houses of Parliament, UK, discusses the delicate balance between conservation needs and the ‘Business of the House’ at the Houses of Parliament, in London. She discusses the innate conflict between the historical role of the Parliamentary Estates buildings and collections, and their function as the seat of government in the United Kingdom (ie. The Business of the House), which takes priority.
Throughout the presentation, Lara walks the audience through the methods by which the Conservation and Collection Care teams were able to greatly increase their presence in the decision making processes at the Houses of Parliament over the last five years. They were able to achieve this through the active engagement of internal and external stakeholders, by addressing the needs of government (quite literally in this case), by maintaining access to the buildings, collections and archives, and by working and communicating closely with the community.
Ever conscious of her audience, Lara begins her talk by first explaining what is meant by the ‘Houses of Parliament’ and ‘Business of the House’, as they differ significantly in form and function from the American system of government. In this instance, the Houses of Parliament are situated in the Palace of Westminster, and are made up of the House of Commons and the House of the Lords. The ‘Business of the House’, as she describes it, includes but is not limited to the creation of Acts of Parliament, and all other activities pertaining to the governance of the United Kingdom.
The Palace of Westminster has seen many iterations since its original construction as the primary London residence of the Kings of England in the eleventh century. Destroyed by fire in 1512 and again in 1834, the current form is heavily rebuilt with the only structure having survived the fires being Westminster Hall, built in 1097 by William Rufus. The Palace of Westminster has served as the home of Parliament since the thirteenth century.
Today, the Palace is the centre of political life in the United Kingdom, it is an emblem of parliamentary democracy as well as one of the most popular tourist attractions in London. The Palace has been UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987 and contains historic furnishings, paintings, sculptures and books, as well as original Acts of Parliament and other historic archives (including an original letter from the United States to the United Kingdom declaring their independence!). More information on the collections housed at the Palace of Westminster, including high resolution images can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/about/art-in-parliament/ .
One of the main challenges for conservators working around Parliamentary business is timing, as the conservation team can often only do their work in situ during recess breaks. For example, the conservation of House of Lords Chamber benches, which have not seen conservation treatment since the 1950s, must happen around fixed dates, such as the State Opening of Parliament, so as to minimise the impact of conservation work on the operation of the Chamber itself. Here, efficient and effective communication with stakeholders is critical to ensure that all priorities are being addressed in terms of the needs and costs associated with conservation, as well as any potential disruptions to political business.
Another challenge faced by the conservation team is that of visitor/employee damage. Beyond the more than 7000 people required to pass Acts of Parliament, which include Lords, Members of Parliament, and their associated staff, hundreds of thousands of tourists pass through the halls of Westminster Palace every year. Conservators must work to simultaneously preserve the buildings and their associated materials and collections, while maintaining accessibility to these same things.
Despite the priority given to the ‘Business of the House’, Lara is clear that Parliament has always believed in the importance of heritage preservation – the issue has been in reconciling Parliamentary priorities with conservation priorities. In order to place preservation needs higher on the Parliamentary agenda, the Collections Care team has made use of strategic communications and public engagement activities to pique the interests of both internal and external stakeholders. It was Lara herself, upon discovering that decisions were being made regarding heritage access without the presence of a conservator, who invited herself and her team to various events and facilities meetings to remind people of the preservation risks associated with enabling access to historic buildings and collections and giving a voice to conservators working at the Houses of Parliament. Illustrating their success in communicating preservation needs was the formation of the Heritage strategy and Heritage incident management groups in 2013. Further, the conservation programs are, today, fully endorsed by the House of Lords, as well as the Commons Administration and Works Committee.
Communities and other external stakeholders have been and continue to be engaged by means of education programs, collaboration and communication. Their education programs have sought to engage students through school placements and activities with children. The conservation team has also made use of social media to interact with the public and generate interest. The conservation of the cast iron roof structure is one such project that the public can follow via social media.
Though Lara was unable to give her talk in its entirety due to time constraints, she did finish with some hints and tips for conservators working in similar environments. For Lara and her team, success has been predicated upon a foundation of solid communication and outreach mixed with compromise. She urges conservators to make their voices heard, to ‘speak out’, as she says. By pointing out the benefits in both the long term and the short term, they are able to ensure that the conservation and collection care message is heard.
42nd Annual Meeting – Collections Care + HVAC Session, May 31, "The Road to Sustainable Environmental Management of Storage Conditions at the National Archives by Kostas Ntanos"
The National Archives is the official government archives of the UK and Wales. The Archives has two buildings: Q1, a building built in 1978 with three main repositories in three floors, and Q2, a newer building built in 1996 with twelve repositories over four floors.
Ntanos started by looking into records from 1973-75 to see the decision-making of how the Q1 building was designed. During this time from 1973-75, the staff discussed the requirements of environmental control and determined that temperature was more important than relative humidity and felt that if you kept temperature at mid-range, the RH would be controlled, too! Seven to eight years of mold growth prompted investigation into this building. Intensive climate-mapping was done using data loggers to determine the differences in the environment, and they saw a big difference between the center of the room (50-55%) and the ends of the room (70%).
Ntanos also used environmental assessment permanence maps to demonstrate how the environment changes through the year (he gave a poster at this AIC meeting on the mapping of material types). Once they had collected 1-2 years of information, they started making changes.
They used Energy Plus Software and put in as much information as possible about the environment and the building. They also used HAMT (Humidity and Moisture Transfer) and saw a difference with and without HAMT because of the large collection of hygroscopic material. The aim of the model was to examine options in maintaining a sustainable preservation environment for the collection. They were able to reduce energy consumption in line with sustainability targets, build resilience in light of climate change predictions, and inform ongoing capital investment. Powering down the HVAC over the weekend saved up 22% without affecting the preservation environment.