Topics – Page 42 – AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse

Learn more about Professional Liability Insurance from Huntington T. Block

To protect yourself and your clients, American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works (AIC) offers a customized insurance program for its members through Huntington T. Block (HTB) Insurance Agency, Inc.

1. Conservators’ Property Insurance – providing coverage of others in your care, custody and control that includes a Conservators’ Errors and Omissions (E&O) sublimit

2. Business Insurance Program – property and liability coverages will protect your business.

For the past five decades, HTB is the leading U.S. based specialty fine art insurance broker serving the insurance needs of museums, galleries, private collectors and conservators.

If you wish, we invite you to consider seeking a competitive quote proposal from HTB.

For more details on the above insurance products please click here, or you may contact HTB’s Ever Song by phone: 800-424-8830 or by email: ever.song@aon.com. Also visit the website at www.huntingtontblock.comProfessional Liability Insurance from Huntington T. Block

AIC-CERT Mentioned in New York Times Article

“At most of the art galleries in Chelsea the water that poured in from the Hudson River during Hurricane Sandy has been pumped out, and the business of sorting out artworks — separating those that survived intact from those that didn’t, figuring out which of the damaged works are reparable — is well under way. Gallery owners no longer sound as despondent as they did last week, when they returned to their businesses in the strip between 10th and 11th Avenues, from 18th to 29th Streets, and found flooded basements, high water marks five feet up their walls, and a loss of art, documentation, catalogs and reference books, to say nothing of physical spaces that will need to be rebuilt”

Additional resources for Hurricane Sandy response

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, our thoughts are with those affected during this difficult time and we at AIC would like to provide as much support as we can.

On Sunday, November 4, speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT) and Museum of Modern Art’s conservation staff conducted an introductory workshop to relay helpful information to the many artists and galleries whose works were affected by Hurricane Sandy. They provided suggestions and answered questions on how to safely handle damaged paintings, drawings, books, sculptures, and other artistic and cultural materials. Resources, including the PowerPoint presentation from the workshop, are available on the MoMA website’s Recovery page . MoMA has also issued Immediate Response for Collections, a document offering step-by-step guidelines for dealing with artworks damaged by flooding, and we will continue to lend knowledge and support to those caring for collections affected by the storm.

The Alliance for Response is a national program on cultural heritage and disaster management. The New York City branch of this organization strives to connect emergency responders with representatives of the cultural heritage community throughout the 5 boroughs. Our goal is to strengthen mitigation and response capabilities through training exercises, development of local planning efforts and improved dialogue and partnerships.

In order to do this, we invite you or your institution to become an Alliance for Response New York member. As a member, you will receive information via email on response seminars and activities, as well as emergency alerts. As you receive information from us, we encourage you to work with your institution to disseminate that information as you see fit. We also hope that you will encourage other cultural institutions to join as well, no matter how large or small. For now, if you wish to become an Alliance for Response NYC member, please email Tina March directly at tina.march@brooklynmuseum.org and provide your name, title, institution affiliation, contact information including mailing address, email and phone number.

In addition, due to the devastating effects of hurricane Sandy on the NYC arts community, we are asking conservators of all specialties in the NYC area to contact us if they would like to be connected with institutions and individuals in need of assistance. Please note this in your email along with your area of expertise.

Also, for those of you who may unfortunately have suffered damage to your property as a result of Hurricane Sandy, Alexandra Darraby of the Art Law Firm (ALF) would like to offer pro bono services to AIC members from any practice area or committee for handling storm damage-related issues including communications with clients, adjusters and brokers, what to sign or not sign, preservation and documentation of potential evidence before and after claim, loss or “salvage”, inventory assessments and other related issues. Please email info@artlawfirm.com if you feel this would be helpful to you.

ECPN September Meeting Minutes

ECPN conference call

Monday, September 17, 2012

Attendees:

Molly Gleeson (Chair)

Eliza Spaulding (Vice Chair)

Stephanie Lussier (Board Liaison)

Ruth Seyler (AIC Staff Liaison)

Ryan Winfield (AIC Staff Liaison)

Lee Ann Barnes Gordon (OSG Liaison)

Emily Williams (ETC Chair)

1. Mentoring program discussion:

Eliza explained that after the matches were made following the June deadline, she has been reaching out to the matches to get a sense of how the process works. She said that the process is long and she has written up this process, which she has shared with the committee via email. She would like to discuss the application processing time and the sustainability of the program, with the understanding that it is unavoidable that some of this work will be time-consuming. How can we make this program more efficient? For her as a leader it has been challenging to manage and see all of the matches through. Eliza said that the recent implementation of a dropbox folder for sharing the mentoring program applications has worked well.

As far as changes, Eliza raised the possibility of putting the program on hold for awhile to work on necessary changes. Ruth said that whenever something is put on hold it takes more energy to get it going again so if there are any matches that can be made, we should go ahead and make them. The match is important but it ultimately ends up being what both parties put into it. She suggested that we do the best we can to put time into the matches but we can’t promise a perfect match.

To address putting the program on hold for awhile, Stephanie suggested that we could establish a series of submission deadlines-so instead of saying that the program is on hold, we can say that we’ll be making the next round of matches on XX date, and that we’re not accepting applications at this point. Emily asked when the next regular deadline is, and Eliza replied that we just took in the September applicants and the next deadline is in December.

Eliza raised the possibility of another change that could be implemented, which is that we could bring on someone to head up the mentoring program. Ryan’s preference is to work with someone on the committee already and he also suggested that bringing someone new on board while the program is being revamped may also be a challenge. Stephanie reminded everyone that Eliza will be coming on as Chair at next annual meeting so she will need to turn these responsibilities over to someone at that point. Ryan said that one of the Professional Education and Training officers would make sense and Stephanie agreed and suggested that one of these officers could be in charge of education at the annual meeting and the other in charge of the mentoring program. Eliza said that this person could start off handling the match cycle. When Carrie steps down we could advertise that the person filling her role take on this role, or we could ask Gwen if she is interested in taking on this responsibility since she has been involved for awhile. Stephanie reminded everyone that we had a member-at-large position, which was Gwen, who was helping out with the mentoring program in this role. Ryan suggested that we consider inviting a former mentee to be a member-at-large on the committee and then take on this role.

Eliza brought up another suggestion, which is to divide the program into pre-program and post-graduate. For the pre-program mentees we could consider offering a series of resources-a reading list, suggestions for how to get more experience, etc. In Eliza’s experience many of the pre-program applicants are interested in the same things, so these customized documents could address the needs of the pre-program applicants so that the program could focus on the graduates and post-grads. Facebook could be a natural place for this information. Emerging Freelance Conservators have a similar set-up with docs and resources and their wall functions as a place for people to ask questions.

Ryan asked if it would make sense for 1 of the Professional Education and Training officers to be pre-program focused and 1 to be graduate/post-grad focused. Emily asked if ETC could take on a larger role with the post-grads. She isn’t sure if it would split the program too much-but having ETC work on this does fit into some of the professional development training that they already have an interest in. Eliza said that she sees the natural divisions being: someone being in charge of preprogram, someone in charge of making matches, and someone leading the program and in charge of making broad changes (and this could be divided into 3 or 4 positions). Stephanie said that we could look at the existing ECPN committee and see who might be able to take on different tasks-for instance, our Communications Officer could be in charge of promoting the program, one of our Professional Education and Training Officers could oversee the match process, and then possibly the Vice Chair could broadly oversee the program. Eliza said that she will write up descriptions for 3-4 roles, and then we can share with everyone on the committee and see what might make sense.

2. Next webinar: Next webinar in late fall. Tentative dates: Nov. 12-14 or Nov. 26-30. Topic is private practice and the idea would be to invite three private conservators from different specialties–Paul Messier, Rosa Lowinger, and Julia Brennan are the first group to ask. Possible format of webinar: Each speaker could speak for 10 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. Ruth encouraged checking with Paul and Rosa early especially since they travel a lot. It would be nice to collaborate with CIPP in some way on this…Julia is a CIPP member. Eliza and Molly will draft an invitation to share with everyone this week. Roles for the webinar will be discussed over email since so many are missing on this call. Ruth and Ryan will check with Eric about these potential dates.

3. Student research database: Molly will ask Carrie if she can update everyone on the conversation via email.

4. PR Toolkit: Molly will be speaking to Rachael this week about restructuring the toolkit wiki so it can be navigated more easily. Recently, Stephanie recommended working towards creating mini toolkits, building towards a larger toolkit. Molly will work with the group to outline the structure for these mini toolkits with input from Ruth.

5. Letter to grad. directors: Megan began drafting a letter. Perhaps this could be sent out by the end of Sept.? Should we also encourage the PA application in this same letter? Molly will follow up with Megan about this.

6. Update from liaisons: Lee Ann communicated that she’s been thinking about how she can do more in her liaison role. Perhaps she could write a brief summary of ECPN’s calls to share with the OSG listserv, including information like check out ECPN’s meeting minutes and tease out highlights from the call. All agreed this would be great and she can feel free to do this independently, reaching out to ECPN with draft messages when there are questions. In July, ECPN talked about how the specialty groups could support emerging conservators at the annual meeting. Has there been further discussion about this? Not really, we need to follow up on this again.

7. Change in monthly call schedule: Discuss over email.

8. Annual meeting:

a. Informational meeting: Ruth will email Molly some suggested times. It’s difficult to find a time that doesn’t overlap with something else.

b. Angels project: Ruth is close to pinning down the Angels project, which will give us more time to promote it and solicit funds for supplies. She’s been working with the Franklin Historical Society–has 5,000 textiles, a large space, approximately 40 people would be ideal for the project, they are willing to accommodate a project on Sunday, the 2nd, so this doesn’t interfere with annual meeting activities.

c. Happy hour: Conference hotel has a sports bar with a private room–could be convenient for the happy hour, reasonable prices, has a nice look and feel, people could drop in easily. Would be good to include this info. in the annual meeting brochure, so by Oct. 1st.

ECPN Webinar on November 30: “Considering your future career path: working in private practice”

The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network (ECPN) is pleased to announce that our second webinar – “Considering your future career path: working in private practice” – will take place on Friday, November 30, 2012, from 1-2pm EST.

The program will feature Paul Messier, President and Head Conservator of Paul Messier LLC, Conservation of Photographs & Works on Paper; Rosa Lowinger, Principal and Chief Conservator of Rosa Lowinger & Associates, which specializes in the conservation of objects, sculpture, and architecture; and Julia Brennan, Owner and Chief Conservator of Textile Conservation Services.

The webinar will include a moderated discussion and Q&A session, where we will learn about our speakers’ experiences establishing their businesses and their evolution, how they have learned to balance various initiatives and projects, and their advice for those considering going into private practice.

Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions before and after the webinar here on the AIC blog. Please submit your questions as comments to this post, or email them to Anisha Gupta at anishagupta72[at]gmail[dot]com. Questions will be accepted until the morning of the forum. During the webinar, your questions will be posed anonymously. All answered questions will be followed up on after the program in an AIC blog post.

Attendance is free and open to all AIC members. Registration is required and will be open until the forum starts. To register for the webinar, please visit www.conservation-us.org/ecpnforum.

ECPN’s first webinar was held in July and featured Debra Hess Norris in a presentation and discussion on self-advocacy and fundraising for independent research. With over 90 registered participants from 6 different countries, the webinar was a great success.

For more information, please visit www.conservation-us.org/ecpnforum.

ECPN Announces Graduate School Liaisons

ECPN has recently recruited students from various conservation graduate programs to act as liaisons. These liaisons will serve to enhance communication between the ECPN committee and graduate students. The students currently serving as liaisons are:

Buffalo State College: Christina Simms and Christina Taylor

Columbia: Mayank Patel and Brooke Young

NYU: Saira Haqqi

Queen’s: Samantha Fisher and Marie-Lou Beauchamp

UCLA/Getty: Casey Mallinckrodt

WUDPAC: Michelle Sullivan

If your school isn’t represented yet and you are interested in serving as a liaison please contact Megan Salazar-Walsh (salazar.walsh_at_gmail.com) to volunteer.

Galleries Need Disaster Plans Too

The destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy to many Chelsea area art galleries described in recent issues of The New York Times (“Where Creations Faced Destruction”, by Allan Kozinn, November 1, 2012) and the Wall Street Journal (“Cultural Community Suffers Losses”, November 2, 2012) points up the need for art galleries, like museums, to have disaster plans. Of all the gallery directors quoted in the articles, only two had made any (albeit inadequate) preparations for flooding—one moved works from the basement to the first floor and the other used waterproof storage containers in basement storage.

AIC-CERT to Offer Advice for Cultural Works Damaged by Hurricane Sandy at Free Public Event (New York City)

A free public presentation on recovering wet art and cultural materials will be held Sunday, November 4 from noon until 2 p.m. at The Museum of Modern Art . Speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT), along with conservators from MoMA, will provide suggestions and answer questions on how to safely handle and dry wet materials such as paintings, drawings, books, sculpture, and other artistic and cultural works. The consortium will take place in MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Theater, in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, 4 West 54 Street, New York.

The presentation is designed to be of special help to the many artists and galleries whose works were affected by Hurricane Sandy.

MoMA has also issued a document, Immediate Response for Collections, that offers guidelines for dealing with art damaged by flooding. It offers step by step measures that can be taken to conserve artworks in a variety of mediums that have been damaged by water, including library and archive collections. It also includes a list of suppliers and emergency services that can provide some of the services listed in the document. The document is available on the Museum’s web site, MoMA.org.

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations.

* Call AIC’s 24-hour assistance number at 202.661.8068 for advice by phone.

* Call 202.661.8068 to arrange for a team to come to the site to complete damage assessments and help with salvage organization.

AIC-CERT volunteers have provided assistance and advice to dozens of museums, libraries, and archives since 2007. AIC-CERT teams were on the ground following Tropical Storm Irene and flooding in Minot, North Dakota in 2011, the Midwest floods in 2008, and in the Galveston area following Hurricane Ike later that year. AIC-CERT members and other AIC conservators participated in an 18-month-long project in Haiti assisting with recovery of cultural materials damaged in the 2010 earthquake.

AIC-CERT is supported and managed by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (FAIC). In 2007 and again in 2010, FAIC received funding from the Institute of Museum & Library Services to support an advanced training program for conservators and other museum professionals that resulted in a force of 107 “rapid responders” trained to assess damage and initiate salvage of cultural collections after a disaster has occurred. They are ready to assist.

Resources and information on disaster recovery and salvage can be found on the AIC website at www.conservation-us.org/disaster. The public can also call AIC-CERT at 202.661.8068. Donations can be made at www.conservation-us.org/donate.

Hurricane Sandy Approaches the East Coast, AIC-CERT on Stand-by

With Hurricane Sandy threatening the East Coast, museums, historic sites, libraries, and archives in much of the Eastern United States will be at risk. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national association of conservation professionals, is offering free emergency response assistance to cultural organizations. Please help make sure that staff members of collecting institutions know to contact AIC-CERT when a disaster—flooding, hurricane, earthquake, fire—has damaged collections.

Call AIC’s 24-hour assistance number at 202.661.8068 for advice by phone.
Call 202.661.8068 to arrange for a team to come to the site to complete damage assessments and help with salvage organization.

Resources and information on disaster recovery and salvage can be found on the AIC website at www.conservation-us.org/disaster. The public can also call AIC-CERT at 202.661.8068.

New Archaeological Conservation Workshop at the Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research

We (LeeAnn Barnes Gordon and Suzanne Davis) are pleased to announce a new conservation workshop session at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). This year’s session will be held on Friday, Nov. 16^th from 4:20 – 6:25 pm at the Chicago Marriot Downtown Magnificent Mile, and we would like to encourage Chicago-area conservators to join us for what promises to be an interesting and constructive afternoon.

The workshop, Archaeological Conservation Strategies in the Near East, aims to foster collaboration and promote information sharing among conservators and archaeologists working in the Near East. Contributors will present multi-disciplinary projects and research on archaeological heritage from Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Iraq. Topics examined will include regional trends in conservation, balancing preservation and access, site management, treatments of challenging materials, and collaborations with local conservation and archaeological communities. A moderated discussion will engage the contributors as well as the audience, creating an ongoing dialogue that we hope will ultimately improve preservation for archaeological materials and sites in the Near East.

The first two presentations of the session will focus on site work. Hiroko Kariya will discuss the Luxor Temple Fragment Conservation Project, which includes the documentation, treatment, and monitoring of tens of thousands of sandstone fragments. Kariya’s presentation will address two particularly challenging aspects of the project: the protection of a massive number of semi-portable, inscribed fragments and providing accessibility to the collection on site for a high volume of visitors. In the following presentation, “Getting What You Came For: Conservation and Research at Tel Kedesh, Israel,” Suzanne Davis will demonstrate how on-site conservation activities can successfully contribute to archaeological research. This talk will also introduce the important discussion topic of how to balance the expectations of local conservation and archaeological authorities with the on-the-ground realities and priorities of international project teams.

Case studies presented by Krysia Spirydowicz and Catherine Foster will discuss the challenges of preserving two exceptional and fragile archaeological collections. Spirydowicz will outline the methods used to conserve ornate, wooden furniture from the royal tombs at Gordion. This presentation will highlight the difficulties of preserving ancient wooden objects, while addressing the particular conservation problems posed by the charred and fragmentary Gordion furniture. The focus of Foster’s talk will be the preservation of the Nimrud ivories, which resulted from a joint Iraq-U.S. project undertaken at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil (the Institute). The project initiated a program of conservation and improved display of the famous ivories, as well as provided training to Iraqi conservation professionals. The final presentation by Vicki Cassman will elaborate on the history and goals of the Iraqi Institute. Institute participants receive training by international conservation experts, as part of an effort to build a sustainable conservation community that will serve preservation needs at sites and museums throughout Iraq.

This workshop session will be held at the 2012 ASOR Annual Meeting on Friday, Nov. 16^thfrom 4:20 – 6:25 pm.

To learn more about ASOR and/or to register for the 2012 Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, please visit the ASOR website at www.asor.org.

Conservation Workshop ASOR 2012