AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse
Former Blog of the American Institute for Conservation
In this 23 minute video ( http://moppenheim.com/#Jill_Whitten ) for m/Oppenheim’s Insight, Jill Whitten discusses changes in the art conservation field over the last two decades based on her experience as conservator of paintings in various museums and in private practice.
The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network is creating a poster for the 2012 AIC Annual Meeting entitled, Creative Endeavors and Expressive Ideas: Emerging Conservators Engaging through Outreach and Public Scholarship. The poster will highlight several case studies of emerging conservators using outreach to connect with public audiences, allied professionals, and other conservators. Selected contributions will be featured in the poster or as part of companion posts – including a ‘How-to’ section – on the ECPN blog. Those who would like to contribute may leave a comment here or contact Carrie Roberts at carrizabel@gmail.com by January 31, 2012.
While there are some emerging conservators who will apply for Professional Associate (PA) status as soon as they are eligible, it seems that many others might be less aware, less interested or less confident about applying to become PA’s. PA membership was more or less off my radar until several months ago, when my good friend and former pre-program internship supervisor wrote me an email asking if I had thought about applying, offering to write a recommendation, and informing me of the next application deadline. She had actually encouraged me to start thinking about this before I was eligible, and the fact that she was taking the initiative to bring this to my attention again made me sit up and think about it much more seriously.
Once I determined that I could apply, I looked closely at the application and guidelines and started asking myself why I, or why any conservator, would want to be an AIC Professional Associate, other than the privilege of getting to attach a little ribbon to your nametag at the annual meeting. What does it mean to be a Professional Associate?
I had heard that there are a lot of people who are eligible who do not apply, but after looking over the application requirements and the benefits, I couldn’t think of any reasons NOT to apply, so I thought I’d poll a few conservators who are PA’s to ask them why they applied, what the application experience was like, and what PA status means to them. Their responses made me even more convinced that I should apply, and prompted me to come up with a list of reasons that might inspire others. Here they are:
Top 5 reasons to apply to be a PA
1. Inclusion in the “Find a Conservator” tool on the AIC website
This benefit may be particularly attractive for those in private practice or interested in private work. Several of the conservators I spoke with mentioned that they had gotten leads on private work through this listing.
2. Voting privileges within AIC
The ability to vote was seen as especially important by many members during the certification discussion. When future issues come up for a vote by the membership, being a PA ensures that your voice will be heard and your opinion will count. I’ve heard some people argue that just being an associate member of AIC should be enough, but this isn’t going to change, so if you want voting privileges, this is how you can gain them.
3. Make yourself stand out when applying for jobs, contracts and grants
From the colleagues I spoke with, I know for a fact that PA status will be valued on job and grant applications and that some government issued RFQ’s (requests for quotes) require that applicants are Professional Associates.
4. Eligibility to apply for Individual Professional Development Scholarships
I recently found myself in a position where I wanted to attend a meeting but I really couldn’t come up with the money to go. I realized if I was a PA, I would be able to apply for this funding, which can help defray costs for professional development activities, including attending workshops, courses and conferences.
5. Recognition among your peers and colleagues
This is a big one that I really took for granted. But among all of the conservators I’ve spoken with, their respect and appreciation of PA status is very evident. One person said that “if you want other people to advocate for you, provide them the ammunition-peer approval in a profession is big ammunition”. When I realized that people I really respect and admire think that being a PA is a valuable part of being a professional conservator, I found myself aspiring to this as well.
So now that I’ve written all of this, the pressure is on me to actually apply, since I’m now eligible to do so. I’m encouraged by the fact that everyone I spoke with said that applying was straightforward and easy, and that it was possibly more work for the people writing the recommendation letters than the applicants. So make sure to ask the people who you want to sponsor you as far ahead of time as you can and make it as easy on them as you can.
Finally, for those of you who are PA’s or Fellows, I encourage you to reach out to conservators who have not yet applied for this status to do so, and offer to support their application. And for those of you who are eligible but uncertain-don’t wait for people to suggest this to you-start a dialogue with your past and current colleagues, professors and supervisors, and ask them if they recommend that you apply and if they’d be willing to support you. You will undoubtedly be rewarded with encouragement and a boost of confidence.
A special thanks to Ellen Carrlee, Anne Kingery-Schwartz, Vanessa Muros and Emily Williams for their assistance and encouragement!
I have often been met by blank stares when I tell someone outside the art community that I am training to become an art conservator. They may have never heard of the American Institute for Conservation, but for me it’s been a fantastic boon.
Being a member of AIC shows an ongoing commitment to the field, the institution and its values. Membership helps support all of the advocacy and education work AIC does for the conservation of art and historic artifacts. Increasing public awareness of the work we do and its importance is a cause I hold dear and am happy to contribute to, even if I can only do so in small ways. In fact, as you probably know already, the 2012 annual meeting is all about outreach.
When I first joined AIC I had my doubts, and many other emerging professionals do too. I had been told by more established professionals that I should join AIC right away. But was membership something I could benefit from, even when I wasn’t 100% sure I would stay in the profession? Was it really worth the fee? Was I going to get anything out of joining?
The membership fee for students is $65. At first this sounded like quite a lot to me because at that time I was a pre-program intern: getting paid little or nothing, commuting long hours, taking pre-requisite classes in the evenings, and babysitting to try to afford all this. But once I realized what being a member actually meant (and that it is only about $5 a month) I decided it was well worth it.
Having access to the latest issues of AIC News and JAIC is a great way to keep up with current research, publications, internships and other career development opportunities. I really enjoy pouring over the printed issues when I get them in the mail. AIC News keeps me up to date with who and what is happening in the field. JAIC provides more depth of knowledge and food for thought. While older volumes of both publications are available online, I find that this resource is really best used when searching for specific information. Also, the annual directory helps me find members by institution, name or geographical area.
AIC is about connecting, communicating, and being committed to conservation.
A recent mailing, Conservation, from the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation contains a brief article about AIC’s online resources and the benefits of membership:
Sometimes the virtual world of the web is a collector’s best friend, especially when a simple click can help you save anything from a collection of old master drawings to a christening gown.
The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works website at www.conservation-us.org is a case in point. This veritable treasure chest of resources offers advice on how to choose a conservator and how to find one in your part of the country. It offers helpful tips for caring for all types of things, including architectural structures and detailing, manuscripts, prints, books, tools, jewelry, tableware, quilts, costumes, samplers, and flags.
The AIC also offers you the opportunity to establish connections with others who share your interest in preservation through publications, conferences, workshops, and daily networking opportunities. The Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation is a proud member.”
Working in a city where there is a museum nearly at every corner, we enjoyed reading Health & Safety for Museum Professionals because it illuminated a world of work and workers largely hidden from our view when we visit the many museums here in Washington, District of Columbia. Most of all, we enjoyed reading this book because it is well written, well organized, and informative without being a ponderous reference book. Health & Safety for Museum Professionals is a valuable addition to any safety and health professional’s shelf of resource books, but it would seem to us an indispensible one for every museum safety professional.”
Excerpt from book review by John Howard, MD, and Anita Schill, PhD, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC, appearing in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Volume 54, Number 1, January 2012
Last fall, I attended an exciting two-day symposium in New York City titled “Artists’ Records in the Archives.” Presented on October 11-12, 2011 by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, the symposium highlighted something I knew little about: the presence of works of art in many archival collections. Simply put, the dualism between art and its archival traces is no longer valid. The goal of this conference was to start a dialogue that can address the ways in which archival concepts and practices must be updated and refined in light of this change.
Much that was discussed was relevant for conservators. Choosing the appropriate category (library, archives, art, special collections) for a work has implications for its accessibility, preservation, resource allocation, and value for insurance purposes. As such, transparent methods and principles for this categorization must be developed. Archiving and preservation strategies for works created in multimedia and emerging media must also be explored. Archivists are interested in establishing best practices and guidelines for categorizing works, and establishing some objective criteria. They are agreed that archivists must work more closely with curators and conservators over time to periodically examine the institution’s holdings to ensure that works are properly categorized and cared for. The lesson for scholars engaged in research is that art collections, archives, and libraries do not have tidy boundaries.
Speakers included Ann Butler (Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard) who spoke about the blurring line between “art” and “archives,” and how some objects that were once considered documentation are now exhibited as art. She went on to discuss how this presented challenges for categorizing objects. Marvin Taylor (Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU) chose specific items from the Downtown collection (post-1975 New York) to illustrate the same problem – what is “art” and what is “document”? Examples included street art documentation, and artists’ notes and drawings on correspondence in the archives. Chrissie Iles (Whitney Museum of American Art) discussed how, as time passes, archival materials may migrate toward status as art objects. She pointed out that recent art movements make definitions of art objecthood elusive. In the absence of an object, such as in the case of performance art/time-based works, photo documentation stands in for the art event, so these kinds of documents are often collected and exhibited as art objects themselves.
Other topics covered by this symposium included how to preserve, process, manage, and make artists’ records accessible to researchers. Digitization of archives and preservation and accessibility of born-digital materials were also explored. There were many wonderful speakers on these topics, but in particular, Sally Brazil (The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library), Julia Feldman (MoMA), and Erin Murphy (Harvard Art Museums) all gave very exciting talks about their experiences with processing and managing artists’ records in their archives. Ms. Brazil spoke about the Frick family archive, Ms. Feldman about the Fluxus archive, and Ms. Murphy described the processing of the Alfonso Ossorio archive.
Erin Kinhart described the massive digitization project of 118 collections in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Charles Duncan highlighted several important collections of artists’ records that have already been digitized, including the Louise Nevelson papers, papers of the Photorealists (Audrey Flack, et al), the Jack Stewart graffiti archive, Jimmy Ernst’s papers (son of Max Ernst), letters pertaining to the Armory show, etc. Megan McShea spoke about artists’ audiovisual records, which are at particular risk for irreparable damage if not conserved, due to the inherent fragility of the media.
It was interesting to hear about the many different kinds of archives, from public to private, large to small, and everything in between. Andrew Martinez (Rhode Island School of Design) shared some examples from the RISD archive, an institutional and teaching archive that contains many original student art works, such as the student work of noted photographer Francesca Woodman. Her transcripts, application materials, artist statements, essays, and exhibition documentation can help scholars establish a timeline for her work and better understand her developing vision. By contrast, Allison Hemler (The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation) works at an archive devoted to one artist, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and generally speaking there are no discrete art objects in collections. Owners of installation work by Gonzalez-Torres receive a Certificate of Authenticity and a guidelines sheet. Every installation is unique, thereby resisting monumentalization of the art object.
The symposium concluded with a session on the subject of born-digital archive materials and art works, and a discussion of how to ensure access to artists’ records created today with emerging technologies. Social media and web archiving was discussed, and Dennis Moser (University of Wyoming) showed examples of the far fringe of digital arts – performance works done solely online, in virtual worlds – which perhaps illustrate best of all the particular challenges of preserving digital art.
This overview can but scratch the surface of what was discussed. For me, I gained a new appreciation for the field of archives and preservation, and I am excited by the new directions for collaboration between archivists and conservators.
This month there is an AIC-wide wiki “edit-a-thon” event, to raise awareness of the platform, encourage participation and to add to the content already on the AIC wiki. Volunteers are needed to help with creating new content, adding content that has already been written and summarizing specialty group listserv threads, for both the individual specialty group catalogs and also for additional topics, such as the History of Conservation, Preventive Care, and Exhibition Standards. Take a look at some of the valuable content already on the wiki by clicking here.
For all of us in the field, but especially for us emerging conservators, this is an excellent opportunity to contribute to a dynamic, new resource that is already providing a great benefit for our profession. Volunteering for this project is also a way to acquire new skills and knowledge, and to connect with your colleagues and peers!
If you are interested in working on the wiki, please contact AIC e-Editor Rachael Perkins Arenstein with your contact info and area of interest: rachael AT AMArtConservation dot com. Interested in helping but uncertain how you’d like to contribute or what you might be able to offer? We can help direct you to the appropriate specialty group or connect you with another conservator to work on content. For emerging conservators, this could be an opportunity for a mini mentoring exercise with an experienced conservator, who would offer knowledge and advice to help pull together content for an article. Again, please contact Rachael if you’d be interested in such an opportunity.
We hope to hear from you! And at the very least, if you aren’t familiar with the AIC wiki, or if you haven’t checked it out in awhile, take a look at the main page, and remember to check back often, as new content will be continually added.
The Emerging Conservation Professionals Network would like to thank Amber Kerr-Allison for her many years of service as a member of the ECPN committee and an example to a global contingency of emerging conservators. A graduate of the Winterthur / University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, Amber played an instrumental role in the formation and growth of ECPN.
As coordinator of Professional Education and Training, Amber has worked as a liaison to conservation graduate training program leaders, as well as leading representatives within the AIC and IIC professional organizations. She has promoted access to student research as selection committee chair for the first annual student poster session at the 2010 IIC Congress in Istanbul, and as ECPN project coordinator for the development of an online, international database for student research. Amber also helped organize the first portfolio review session to be held at an AIC annual meeting, which drew a large number of pre-program participants at the 39th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in 2011.
Amber’s work on the ECPN committee reflects the broader role she has played as an advocate for conservation. Amber’s professionalism and masterful speaking ability have made her an indispensable voice for emerging conservators. Her clear passion for conservation education and outreach have set a standard for emerging conservation professionals everywhere to advocate for the field, and to effectively communicate our goals as conservators to the public. As Paintings Conservator at the Lunder Conservation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Amber continues to make education and public outreach a priority in her conservation career.
We are grateful for Amber’s many contributions to ECPN, for her grace, diplomacy, and initiative, all of which have helped sustain and cultivate our organization. We recognize also her contributions to the conservation field in general, and wish her the very best in all her future endeavors.
With the relaunch of the Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies in November there is now another entry on the list of conservation e-journals that should be on a 
conservator’s radar. You can stay abreast of new issues via RSS feed or updates on your favorite social networking platform. I was particularly happy to see JCMS revitalized as it was the brainchild of Alan J. Hogg, a conservation classmate of mine at University College London. Alan eventually shifted from conservation, obtaining a PhD in Atmospheric Space Science and now works at the Sweetland Center for Writing at the University of Michigan where he teaches writing with a focus on presenting scientific research. Alan joins the new JCMS editorial board and is well positioned to assist our profession bridge sciences and humanities. Alan wrote a short editorial for the latest issue of JCMS entitled Writing About Conservation that I think may be useful to emerging conservators as well as experienced professionals. If you aren’t familiar with IMRaD: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Take a look at his post and see how it might help you with your next conference presentation or JAIC submission.