The AIC “Giver”

Uluaq = Yup’ik woman’s semi-lunar knife (Uluak= two of these knives, Uluat=three or more knives). Dr Walkie Charles, my professor for Yup’ik language 101 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, shared with me that this knife is shaped like a tongue, and we should be careful what we say because words can cut. When you see me wearing these earrings, I chose them because I was trying hard to speak carefully.

There were about ten of us around the table at the hotel bar at the 2022 AIC (American Institute for Conservation) conference on the last night. Table of empty glasses, plates with crumbs. One woman grabs the combined tab, as she’d arranged with our server hours ago. And so it begins: the flurry of offering and insisting on helping with the tab…volley, parry, dodge. A young woman keeps putting in her card:

“But I don’t have cash” she protests.

“Buy me a drink next time I see you!” responds the woman with the plastic folder holding the bill.

“But I ordered food too!”

Another woman, a well-established veteran, springs up after her card is rebuffed, “No! I’m going to get cash for you!” she insists, and rushes off to fetch the money.

Those with cash are busily making change for each other.

I catch a glimpse, wow…the number $438 jumps out from the bill. As the kerfuffle dies down and the tab is finally paid, I make an offhand comment to this woman (who I have never met), :”Wow, you’re the giver, aren’t you?”

Back up a second. This phrase/concept has a lot of meaning to me. I’ve been pondering this idea for years. I first heard it at a backyard BBQ in Fairbanks, Alaska. I had just started a PhD in anthropology, and I was troubled by the idea that animals would “give themselves” to worthy hunters who lived according to cultural values…values known to the animals. I was increasingly viewing the world in terms of reciprocal relationships, or even “pay it forward” relationships, but what was the reciprocity in the hunting relationship? What’s in it for the animal? I asked this casually of University of Alaska Fairbanks professor Mike Koskey at this BBQ…and he barely paused before responding, “Well, they’re the givers, aren’t they?” and took a sip of his drink. That was his whole answer to me, and left me thinking: what does it mean to be a “giver”? That was ten years ago, and I am still pondering it. The more I thought about it, the more the idea became a motivating value in my life.

Years later, doing fieldwork in Scammon Bay, I met Harley Sundown: nukalpiaq (hunter), school vice principal , and coach. I was working on research about processing gut (intestine), wondering not only why it was no longer a material people used, but why some people still made it even if they didn’t use it. Sundown posited, “What kind of a person are you?” …a person who keeps active? Someone who processes their catch right way? Someone who doesn’t waste? You show what kind of person you are by your actions. I started to connect the dots…givers show by their actions what kind of people they are. And if you are in a position to be a giver, it means you have something of value to give. And that you want to give it for the benefit of others.

All of us at that AIC conference hotel table last night, as conservators and professionals, want to be “givers”. We want to be generous and do idealistic good in the world…to be agents of positive change through our work. But what does it mean to be a “giver”? In my pondering about this, my mind often jumps to a short little book with a big impact: “The Gift” written by Marcel Mauss more than 100 years ago. The idea of the gift is simple…in a network of relationships there are obligations to give, obligations to receive, and obligations to reciprocate gifts. Both the magnitude of the gift and the time elapsed between these 3 obligations are crucial and carefully judged by others. Even subconsciously. The gift is always circulating through the network of relationships, animated by a spirit/force of the gift called the “hau” and there is an imbalance in who owes who a gift that keeps the relationship alive. The debt keeps the connection. This description is oversimplified…Marcel Mauss oversimplified too, which is why most of the book is example after example from indigenous cultures and ancient societies of this concept in practice. (“hau” is actually a Maori word). If I understand right, if the “obligation” is fulfilled, the relationship could end. It risks turning an open-ended gifting relationship into a terminal capitalistic transaction.

These ideas about “being a giver” and “what kind of a person are you?” actively guide me in my conservation practice and in my personal life. Do I want power? Do I want to feel good about myself? Are we motivated by urges we can be proud of? What about the afterlife? Where do people find meaning? Justice? Healing?

So I was seeing this hotel table of conservators, who I view as all desiring to be generous “givers”, unable to tolerate the idea they would not have fully paid their tab and they would be in debt to this woman holding the bar bill in the little plastic folder. She was even saying aloud, “You can catch it the NEXT TIME” or “you can buy me a drink the next time you see me”. She wasn’t just generous in trying to pick up the tab in broad strokes without counting nickels, but also generous in leading this ritual of coordinating the payments and protestations of the whole group. So as she turned in her credit card, I was looking to acknowledge her effort, and I blurted out, “Wow, you’re the giver, aren’t you?”

Here’s what I am pondering now…I did not know this woman, but until recently she was the point person for a major granting organization. BIG funding source for the conservation field. She didn’t know the context of my offhand comment, but it seemed to stimulate/trigger a whole variety of thoughts for her. Now today, sitting in the airport the next morning, I am pondering what it means for big money funders and granting agencies to be givers and what motivates them. When the gift is literally money, and we want it to circulate and help sustain a network of relationships, what does that mean?

2009: AIC, Elitism, and Blogs: Where is the Love?

You’d think you couldn’t lose something on the internet, but the blog post I did in 2009 for the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s blog no longer exists since they revamped their website. So here’s a draft, essentially the same thing but no pictures:

I go to the AIC annual meetings for one major reason: MORALE.  I get excited, I get inspired, and my batteries get recharged.  I go to a city I have never been to, agonize over attending talks tangentially related to my work or seeing museum exhibits I would otherwise never see.  I spend time in a nice hotel chatting with people I really like and get to call it work time and collect per diem.  I get to feel that I am part of a community.  I like seeing the whole range of personalities…the really well dressed paintings folks on one end and the grungier ethno folks on the other.  I like seeing the geeky nervousness of the grad students and try to reach out to them, remembering what it was like to be in their shoes and then feeling stupid when I realize they have more confidence than I did.  I like seeing old mentors and giving them a hug and feeling the thrill that maybe, just maybe they think of me as a colleague now and approve of my work.  Going to the talks is analagous to going to the movie theater when I could just rent on DVD.  Humans like to roam in packs, and I love hearing a buzz go through a room when a provocative comment is made, or the titters of disapproval, or the nodding of heads with a good point, and I am excited when people are brave enough to ask questions after the talk and the sport of seeing how the speaker performs under pressure.  Performance!  Have you seen Arlen Hingebotham give a talk?  Or Paul Messier?  Or the NMAI folks giving a tongue-in-cheek Martha Stewart spoof chocked full of great tips?

2.0 definitely has its place.  It can function in ways that AIC can’t or won’t.  AIC has a hard time responding in a timely manner on current events and 2.0 folks can be the front lines for those opportunites for PR for our profession.  I’m blogging for more personal reasons.  Not long ago I saw a woman at the mall parking lot trying to wedge a child’s trampoline into her small car.  I said, “Hey, it fits in my minivan…where do you live?  I’ll drive it home for ya.”  Sometimes you have the BE that nice stranger in order to have the community be the kind of place where you’re proud to live.  I want to put content on my blog of the kind that I’d like to find.  What if David Grattan had all his publications and notes and musings right there on the web?  Or Nancy Odegaard?  Or Tony Sigel?  The web is now a place for (hopefully) useful stuff I generate but don’t plan to jump those those god-awful publishing hoops to share.  I have published and I plan to continue to do so, but only a small percentage of what I am doing is unique or mature enough to bother.

I do see museums as the kind of place that is by nature slow and deliberative.  Not designed to jump headlong into new things but rather hang back, observe, and help history sort itself out.  AIC would have a hard time keeping up with Daniel Cull in terms of relevance anyway.  Who runs AIC?  How large is the staff and what can they reasonably get accomplished??  Manueverability is an unfair expectation of AIC.  Should stick to the things it can do well…providing a platform instead of content.  Free up the AIC website as a clearninghouse.  Find a conservator.  PA Fellow, Annual meeting.    Nice to park useful stuff within an institutional structure to insure its survival.

Poster foreign language  data aia

Weakness: who is attracted to this medium?  Museum-L  some of the most vociferous posters have some of the least reliable information.

Culture of exclusivity and elitism.  Who is being kept out?  Outside the tent pissing in or inside the tent pissing out??  What can MY blog do?   Broader collaboration networks.

Tour: check out my blog

Marine mammal necropsy: check this project

Granting agency: here is this prototype

intern, this is what working with me would be like

People often come to museums to visit a specific artifact or collection they have a connection with.

People whose input you might really value are often not hanging out on their computers trolling the internet for places to contribute their expertise.

Closed email listserves…Museum-L.

I also really liked McCoy’s article.  I’ve printed it out and left it on the breakroom table for my co-workers to read.  (Funny, they are more likely to read it that way than if I send them a link…something about food and reading.)  The Alaska State Museum where I work is in the process of determining how to merge the state museum, library, and archive into a future purpose-built structure.  Discussions about areas of overlap & collaboration and ways to serve our constituents invariably come back to distance delivery and the opportunities of Web 2.0.  From my five years experience as a curator at a small museum, I realized that many people visit museums to visit a specific artifact or collection they have a personal connection with.  Not only is their information about that object potentially valuable to the institution, but in a healthy human animal there is a need to feel like a contributing member of society.  Something about being inspired or connecting with big ideas stirs a desire in many people to be creative…to leave their mark…to be generous.   However, that tendency can sometimes go awry.  Museum-L for example.  I have subscribed to that listserve for about 8 years now.  Some of the most vociferous posters there have some of the least reliable information, but a huge desire to post.  Some folks post there asking for information before doing even the most basic google search.  But it is a window into the struggles of small-to-medium sized museums nationwide.  I have cringed many times reading horrible conservation advice from non-conservators.  But that forum is also where I met and formed my opinion about David Harvey, who can consistently be relied upon to gently correct misconceptions about conservation and steer receptive museum staff in the right direction, wrapping up with a chipper “Cheers! Dave.”  I used to play a little game of “what would Dave say?”  and usually I would agree with his assessment.  Eventually I was able to meet him in person, but my opinion of him was fully formed virtually.  I do believe Dave is a bit of an exception.  There is a certain personality type who gravitates towards this medium, and I think we’ll see a plateau in the potential usefulness of 2.0 because there are folks whose input we’d really value, but they are busy doing other work and not online looking for places to contribute their expertise.  And there will be legions of people who would love to share their opinion, but they don’t have the expertise to make it valuable.

Does AIC tick you off?

I can see why you hate AIC, but…

Rant on AIC, Elitism, and Blogs: Where is the Love?

Straight from Wikipedia: “Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite—a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern.”

First things first: we need AIC and I respect the role it plays in our professionalism.  You could say I was suckled at the AIC teat.  Back in 1993, I was trying to find someone who would tell me what the heck “conservation” was.  I made a long distance phone call to Jay Krueger, who my uncle told me was a friend of a friend and one of this mysterious breed called “conservators.”  It was quite a short conversation, and the upshot was “ask AIC.”  I sent away for their brochures (by mail!) and poured over the requirements of the programs.  It was the first of many times I turned to AIC to tell me what I needed to do.  In graduate school at NYU, the conservation professors referred frequently to the standards and ethics outlined by AIC and required us to follow them in our coursework.  I became a member in 1997.  As an emerging professional, I found myself moving to Alaska, the home of exactly three conservators: one was a contemporary from the Winterthur/Delaware program (Monica Shah) and the other was the man I had just married (Scott Carroll from the buffalo program, soon to be Carrlee.)  I also accepted a job as a curator of collections and exhibits, and began a part-time business doing private conservation work.  Suddenly I had a ton of questions about ethics and the standards of practice I would have to live up to in starting a business.  Again, I turned to AIC and studied its core documents carefully.  I became more interested in listserves in order to stay informed about the conservation world, and frequently thumbed through the AIC directory to see if someone who had posted was affiliated with AIC and therefore steeped in the same professional standards I was familiar with.  Occasionally, someone with an excellent reputation and interesting postings was not listed in AIC at all, and I would wonder why.  In 2006, I jumped through the hoops to become an AIC Professional Associate, which seemed like the closest thing to being vetted by a national professional conservation organization.  I have used AIC and its core documents as a touchstone every step of my career.

After I’d been in the field awhile, I began to hear more about why some people didn’t like AIC.  It was elitist, some claimed.  Critical and harsh to outsiders.  It was behind the times.  It didn’t do enough advocacy in the wider public arena to benefit its members.  It had a history of excluding natural history, archaeology, and ethnographic conservation.  It had a history of setting up confrontational or adversarial relationships with various groups of people: people who were not program trained, restorers, foreigners, archaeologists, maritime conservators, etc.  And there were a fair number of people who had been involved with AIC their entire careers but declared they were fed up, and membership in AIC had no benefits for them.   At first, I assumed they had just had run-ins with some of the more abrasive and powerful personalities that often dominate organizations like AIC.  I daresay conservators can be a cantankerous and self-righteous lot.  I still think that’s part of the issue.  But I also think there is much to be learned (and perhaps a better path for the future) by studying the history of the organization.  There could be a thesis written on that, no doubt.  Reading the “Murray Pease Report” and other early documents however, makes it clear that AIC in the 1960’s was largely an organization of conservators specializing in paintings and sculpture.  Individual artifacts of high monetary value that justified money being spent on their conservation.  Those who identified as “conservators” were interested in developing standards to differentiate themselves from “restorers.”  Conservators were scientifically and morally saving art from those who were using dubious recipe books and old wives’ tales to turn a fast buck at the peril of our heritage.  Was this the beginning of an “us versus them” mentality?  Throughout AIC’s history, the institutional culture has time and again organized itself around fighting “them.”  Loosely defined, AIC’s critics have come to see themselves in “them” … anyone who disagrees with the AIC.

WHY DO FOLKS TURN AWAY FROM AIC?

1) They are turned off by a culture of elitism

2) They are round pegs and AIC is a square hole

3) They are not program trained

4) They have unreasonable expectations

5) They are maritime archaeologists (!)

6) They had a run-in with someone irritating who seemed like a mouthpiece for AIC

7) They don’t need the benefits membership offers

Following the recent debate/defeat of certification, it seems that the organization has now entered a period of introspection and re-evaluation.   AIC is unlikely to break free of its aura of elitism.  It is also doomed to be a venue for those who insist on shooting off their mouths in an undiplomatic fashion.  But it does serve a very important role in conservation in the United States: it is our national professional organization.  Let’s not underestimate that.  But perhaps elitism has been at the root of conservation remaining separate from the museum world: separate programs, training curriculums, and conferences.  Chenall’s Nomenclature anyone?  Marie Malaro?  AAM’s General Facilities Report? Conservation students are not taught what other museum staff do.  Often, the conservator on staff is seen as the obstructionist. The one who says “no.”  The one who goes by the book and makes everything difficult.  The one who does not get invited to the table.  Elitism is perhaps the cause of AIC’s biggest failure: no one knows what conservation is.  When I give a lab tour, I always have to define conservation.  My good friends still mistake me for a curator.  Plenty of people think we protect trees.  After nearly 50 years (NYU’s Conservation Center was founded in 1960) we still are scarcely known to the public.

As for myself, I feel like I am breaking rank with AIC in some ways.  This month, I have joined the AIA and the SAA.  As a conservator of ethnographic and archaeological materials, I was not even aware until last week that the SAA has a group about perishables.  While I enjoy the AIC annual conference, I think I’ll be aiming to go less often in order to direct resources at attending conferences in allied professions.  This has been a talking point in AIC for some time, but there seem to be only a handful who walk the walk.  And I am posting information liberally on the internet…info that might have been considered taboo in the past.  When I was in graduate school, treatments done as part of the core courses were saved in a file cabinet in the library.  But it was locked.  Students had to request the key, and it was discouraged.  I never found out why, and I was too timid to ask.  In some ways, I feel the conservation profession is locked in that way, particularly when it comes to availability of treatment information, lest it “fall into the wrong hands.”  After more than a decade in the profession, I have come to believe that in many cases, lack of treatment information does not generally force those objects into the competent hands of conservators.  Nor does it mean that the object won’t be treated.  People will just give it their best shot.  Inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in?

I have had several stimulating telephone conversations with Jim Jobling at the CRL Texas A&M maritime conservation lab.  Certainly there are many ways that his lab is not “AIC compliant.”  And you know what?  He doesn’t care.  He does his work the best he can according to the parallel universe of standards that have developed in maritime conservation world.  Google the names of people who treat shipwreck material or wetsite archaeology and most of those names are not coming from the AIC world.  In fact, many of those names have been affiliated with the Texas A&M program.  Or the program in South Carolina.  If AIC cannot or will not be more inclusive then it is up to us.  And perhaps our more nimble regional organizations like WAAC and midwest…??MRCG

Elitism is not solely the realm of conservators.  There is brand of elitism found among folks who have passion for spending a lot of time with computers.  People who are conversant in Blogs, Wikis, Twitter, Ning, Delicious, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace…those people are the future. They are connected.  They have the answers.  Or do they?  While the potential of many of these platforms is appealing, the actual content is often rather meagre.  Visually stimulating and rather amusing, they remind me of the recent trend toward museums as entertainment.  The blockbuster!  The wall of graphics!  The touch-me interactive!  I say, show me the REAL STUFF.  Give me content.  What is it made of?  Who made it?  Why?

People who KNOW THINGS tend to share generously, while people who are not sure of their knowledge tend to be defensive and secretive.

AIC 2011 in Philadelphia: Archaeology!

Cool checklist of supplies to take in the field, find it on the ADG website!

This was a good conference for those of us involved in archaeological conservation.  The Objects Specialty Group and Archaeological Discussion Group gave a two-hour group luncheon, sponsored by Kremer Pigmente, with a panel discussion: “Ethical Issues in Archaeological Field Conservation.”  Whose idea was this??  Brilliant!  Nancy Odegaard, Rae Beaubien, , and Eric Nordgren each got up and gave their take on several questions that each had been given beforehand.  Angelyn Bass Rivera discussed site management for the Laetoli Hominid Trackway in Northern Tanzania, Maya wall paintings in San Bartolo Guatemala, and the Frijoles Canyon Cavates in Bandolier National Monument, New Mexico.  Tourism to see these sites is a powerful factor that conservation is trying to balance with methods like masonry support of tunnels in Guatemala that double as barriers to close access but still allow photographs, or solar powered environmental monitors.  Rae Beaubien talked about interfacing with archaeologists…how they can be empowered to do certain activities like block lifting, but it is helpful to have an understanding beforehand about the parameters of “fragile.”  She also discussed how we might better position ourselves as part of the research team in grants they write, and how we can help them meet the stewardship goals in the AIA code.  There was also discussion about being vigilant about not enhancing the market value of the material that is being excavated.  Rae has been asked by the Department of Homeland Security to help “authenticate” things that may be trafficked illicitly, but of course the term “authenticate” is tricky ethically for those of us in the museum world.  Resources museum have in conservation expertise, however, is helpful for law enforcement.  There are problems these days with illicit archaeological material coming into the US through Canada, and problems are compounded by the fact the US has not signed some of the conventions that would require objects to be sent back to source countries.   Eric Nordgren highlighted some of the issues faced in conservation of maritime material.  Cast iron, for example, is notorious for being permanently weakened by the corrosion process known as “graphitization” and may require considerable care and support after treatment.  Sometimes it cannot support its own weight anymore.  Treatment of maritime artifacts is often part of a shipwreck recovery, and the project can be really big…20 years is not uncommon…and it is crucial that someone is devoted to seeing it through to the end.  There is a lot of well-intentioned public interest in the field, and this needs to be leveraged ethically to help preserve the resources.  It is not ethical to recover material that cannot be cared for, including post treatment storage and display.  I asked later about the divide between conservators trained in AIC ethics and those trained in the Texas A&M and Eastern Carolina University programs.  Erik (and others I spoke to at the conference) felt that the culture is changing with the new generation, and the old divide is gradually disappearing.  Nancy Odegaard discussed some of the delicate aspects of human remains.  She was never seeking to do this kind of work, but has been pulled into it by circumstance.  Early in her education, conservators used to be asked to do reconstruction for measurements and other such intervention.  Now conservators are contacted more often for issues involving condition, documentation, expertise about preventing contamination, or preservation of associated material.  Did you know that Hollinger Metal Edge  now sells a partitioned archival human remains box?  Catalog number HBR-1 sells for $27.50 each. 

In another case, the Kennewick Man, she was asked to monitor any change in condition with study of the remains.  With 300-400 pieces, the solution was to design a custom box with individual cavities for the pieces and to monitor the debris and soiling between study sessions.  Part of the discussions in the Q&A was about interfacing with State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs).  On a state-by-state basis, there has been some success in building those connections.  Virginia and Maryland, for example, and things are really going in a good direction here in Alaska thanks to Judy Bittner and Dave McMahan.  Apparently on the national level, the agency that coordinates SHPOs has not been terribly responsive to overtures from the AIC.  Looks like for the time being, going state-by-state will get the most momentum. 

Thanks, Kremer Pigmente, for sponsoring the OSG/ADG Joint Luncheon!

After lunch, Donna Strahan gave a talk, “Beyond the Field Lab: Emergency Conservation in the Granicus River Valley of Northwestern Turkey.”  Donna works in the conservation lab at the Bronze Age site of Troy (a German excavation) and they are often called upon to help with emergency treatment of looted tombs in the wider geographic area.  In order to still cover the bases at Troy, they’ve begun rotating teams of conservators to help with these incidents as they arise.  In one case, a drippy stain on the exterior of an alabaster vessel turned out to be swipe marks from ribbons dipped in murex purple pigment from mollusks as part of a funerary ceremony.  Details of a sarcophagus, including a chiseled off damnatio memoriae distinct from the looter’s tool marks (from Wikipedia: Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning “condemnation of memory” in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State.  The result is to erase someone from history.”)  There seems to be thread running through some of these archaeological talks that conservators are valued as much for their interpretive and research skills as their bench skills.

Next was “Recovering Painted Organic Objects from Ancient Mesoamerica: Strategic Considerations in the Field and Lab.” by Rae Beaubien.  She’s dealt with many deposits that are confused through collapse, decay, and seismic disturbance.  Examining the fragments as well as ethnohistoric information and the persistence of traditional techniques in contemporary art gives an idea of the materials used and their properties.  For example, sometimes an organic substrate is painted on both sides (a bowl, perhaps) or there can be impressions of the lost organic material remaining in the stucco ground.  “Articulated lifting” is one technique that joins groups of fragments before lifting.  Selective use of methylcellulose/ Japanese tissue versus B-72 allows flexibility in the reversing of one adhesive and not the other in the lab.  Mylar sheets can help separate layers in the deposit as well as prevent seeping of adhesive where it is not desired.  Block lifting can buy time and keep fragments in the original position, but decisions need to made as to which adhesives are used how, and whether it should be dealt with top-down or bottom-up.

I was very eager to hear Emily Williams’ talk, “Deep Storage, Reburial as a Conservation Tool.”  There was some discussion of this at the 2010 WOAM conference regarding underwater material, and it seems that work in Marstrand, Sweden might be part of the vanguard, actually.  This reminded me of the curation crisis discussed at the 2011 Alaska Anthropological Association meeting…36 CFR 79 establishes standards for archaeological repositories, but there is not enough space for everything that gets excavated.  At Colonial Williamsburg, there are 60 million artifacts, and another million or so is excavated each year.  Only half the historic area has been excavated so far.  Emily’s  section was recently given some 50 pallets of excavated architectural material that plugged up 45% of their new storage growth space.  They opted for reburial of non-diagnostic pieces in the cellar of a current excavation on the Colonial Williamsburg property.  They divided the crates by site (used the old pine boxes but would have preferred to use HDPE crates), divided the material into brick/ stone less than 4”/ stone greater than 4”, bagged the material and labeled it with Tyvek tags and both Sharpie and pencil, filled around the crates with engineering sand and then backfilled the cellar.  The needs of this poorly documented architectural collection was out of balance with the needs of the collections as a whole.  I liked the quote about their approach, “holisitic rather than particularistic.”  In order to do this kind of reburial, access to undeveloped and protected land is necessary.

Suzanne Davis and Claudia Chemello gave some great data on the business end of things in “Get Your Fieldwork for Nothing and Your Sherds for Free: Compensation for Archaeological Field Conservation.”  The results of a survey!  66% of this data involves folks doing fieldwork outside the US, mostly the ancient Mediterranean and near East.  Salary data was optional in order to get more responses, and there were 116 usable responses that were analyzed from conservators who had done fieldwork in the past 10 years.  Less than half gave salary info.  Among the more interesting tidbits: 78% had a graduate degree, but 44% had been working in conservation for 5 years or less.  68% were on site for 1-2 months at a time.  All respondents had done terrestrial sites, only 13% had experience with underwater sites.  Most of the work done involved artifact processing, documentation, training, and consultation.  Almost a quarter, however, wrote no final report.  82% who gave salary data were paid a salary separate from travel and lodging.  That salary amount, however, varied a lot…from $58 per week to $8000 per week!  On average the typical figure was about $1000 per week.  69% reported they worked at reduced rates or volunteered.   Satisfaction rate was only about 41%.  Data does not reveal how many field conservators there are out there, and at this point AIC does not collect that information, either.  It is interesting that since the majority of conservators who do fieldwork have been in the profession less than 5 years, they cannot be listed on AIC’s Find-A-Conservator service.

Susanne Grieve, a pivotal person in the world between conservators and archaeologists, presented “Archaeologists and Avocational Conservators: Compromising Principles or Increasing Awareness?”  For me, this talk was HOTLY anticipated.  I’ve been treading these delicate waters in Alaska myself.  As I write this, there are bits of wood and historic sailcloth in PEG in collaborative treatments between non-conservators and the Alaska State Museum.  Suzanne described an avocational underwater club in Namibia along the Skeleton Coast who are passionate about preserving the heritage from the diamond mining era at very remote sites.  They were using outdated techniques and commercial products.  Suzanne provided guidance on the ethics of conservation and attempted to channel the huge pride they have in preserving their heritage into constructive activities, but described her concerns in trying to prevent harm from coming to the artifacts without encouraging aggressive interventive treatments in a place where access to conservation literature and supplies is scarce.

Noon on Thursday was the Archaeological Discussion Group business session, well attended by at least 25 people.  The group, founded at the 1998 Arlington Virginia AIC meeting, is trying to refine its mission statement and goals.  Someone told me Jeff Maish also led an AIC archaeological discussion group of some kind back in the late 1980’s?  That was before my time in the profession.  Wonder what happed that time around?  A lot of the focus right now is on outreach.  The Archaeological Discussion Group  now has a page on the AIC website.   Have you seen the FAQ they wrote about conservation for the SHA website?  It’s really good!  There is a Facebook page, too, but it’s a little bit sleepy.  There has been sporadic intense work on a “position paper” about unprovenanced material.  Vanessa Muros told us about Day of Archaeology July 29, an opportunity for anyone involved in archaeology to post to a weblog .  On another front, the ADG is working on having “booth swaps” between archaeological organizations and AIC.  Kent Severson worked hard to get an AIA booth swap.  More insights on the care of newly excavated material: archaeologists at Old World sites have limited time to do research on artifacts before they go into storage in national repositories and are harder to access.  This influences the decision to have conservators on site in order to process and assemble artifacts for study in a limited timeframe.  Also, many countries will not issue a permit without a conservator on board.  In the US, a conservator is more likely to be on board if they can contribute to the research goals and any planned publications.  Another angle is the repository contracts, which stipulate how artifacts have to be delivered in order to be accepted.  Check out the silica gel conditioning gadget Rachael Perkins Arenstein brought to the meeting! SmallCorp.com has a cool little unit for conditioning silica gel. Rachael Perkins Arenstein did a demo at the Archaeological Discussion Group.  The one she shows in the following photos can condition about 3kg of silica gel to a specific RH in about 36 hours.  There is also a bigger trunk-sized version.  I guess the bucket-sized unit costs a few hundred dollars, but as Rachael said, “that may well be the price of sanity.”

Cool checklist of supplies to take in the field, find it on the ADG website!

Thanks, Kremer Pigmente, for sponsoring the OSG/ADG Joint Luncheon!

Here it is all plugged in, with a little datalogger inside its lid and a visible readout.

There is a fan inside to circulate the air, and a bucket-within-a-bucket design….

Under the inner bucket are plexi with holes and a mesh screen for the airflow.

You put your silica gel in the inner bucket and use the free calculator on the smallcorp website to determine how to get the RH you want

If I understand right, to raise the RH you add whatever mL of water with a syringe into a little hole to put water between the big and little buckets for circulation, or if you need RH lower, you add bone dry silica gel to the outer bucket. Cool, right?

AIC 2011 in Philadelphia: General Sessions

From karaoke night the eve before at "Yakitori Boy." I have photos and video of conservators doing karaoke. You know who you are...

The theme of the meeting this year was Ethos, Logos, Pathos: Ethical Principles and Critical Thinking in Conservation.  Barbara Applebaum kicked off the talks with “Conservation in the Twenty-First Century: Will a Twentieth Century Code of Ethics Suffice?”  I agreed with her that yes, it will.  I think the Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice are among the best things ever to come out of AIC.  Lori Trusheim’s paper in the Objects Session a few days later illustrated that…she used those core AIC documents extensively in navigating treatment decisions in private practice.  I myself relied on those documents heavily when I was (briefly) in private practice, and I refer to them several times a year when educating the public and my constituents.  AIC’s written code is the most explicit of all the conservation organizations (did you know that back in the day IIC refused to ratify the original document?) and ours is the only one with commentaries.  I think of the commentaries as rather like the “rationale” section of a treatment report.  Barbara also suggested that after a decade or so of AIC being focused on internal affairs like certification, we ought to shift our view toward the outside world.  We ought to celebrate the 50 years of training programs and accomplishments.  We ought to be more people-centric, too.   Interestingly, when she said we should push for courses about examination in art history training programs and complained that art history has a problem of being taught from photographs alone there was spontaneous and vocal support from the crowd…

The AIC continues a happy trend of including non-conservators as general session speakers in philosophy professors James Janowski’s “Restoring the Spirit and the Spirit of Restoration: Dresden’s Frauenkirche as Model for Bamiyan’s Buddhas.”  Huge stone statues of Buddha, including on 50m high, were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.  The UN declared it a World Heritage Site in 2003.  There are now just empty niches where the 6^th century sculptures stood.  The fragments of the interior sandstone are mostly available for reconstruction, but the outer layers of clay that made the surface and clothing were largely pulverized.  However, images and information about the statues exist, making reconstruction to an astounding 1.6cm accuracy possible.  Each sculpture would cost at least $30 million to reconstruct, but Professor Janowski compared that to the cost of a Formula One racing car, and apparently there is international support for rebuilding as well as an overwhelming majority of Afghans who want to see restoration.  There is a dilemma about the power of the site as it is with the empty niches, and also the question of whether or not there is enough stability in the region to prevent destruction from happening again.  The iconic Dresden Protestant church the Frauenkirche was used as an analogy.  Destroyed in WWII, it was a ruin and memorial to some 30,000 who died.  After the Berlin Wall came down, there was momentum to have it restored.  In 1993 they began to sort the pieces, in 2003 it was rebuilt (45% of the original stones were exactly placed) and in 2005 the church was reconsecrated. 

Textile conservator Deborah Bede’s talk, “Legacies from the Past: Previous Repairs”  included some fascinating historical repairs on flags, including the “Fowler-Ritchie Method” where Mrs. Fowler and her daughter Mrs. Ritchie would place a linen backing behind a textile such as a flag, then a silk net over the top and stitch them together with rows of buttonhole stitches over the entire flag, in essence creating a secondary net.  The examples Deborah showed looked quite acceptable.  There were also less successful historical treatments, such as Thomas Welter’s method of adhering the textile between layers of brown silk crepeline with ethyl acetate, stitching on a machine with nylon monofilament, washing out the adhesive, and then ironing.  Hmmm…not so good.  Contamination from the treatment would also make dye analysis tricky.  Here are some of the aspects Deborah considers before making treatment decisions on textiles: original maker’s repairs, repairs during the item’s useful life, historic repairs, desired interpretive state, cost, potential damage in removing old repairs, the aesthetic look, retreatability, potential for future analysis, time, and priority in the collection as a whole.

Gabrielle Beentjes of the National Archives of the Netherlands gave a presentation, “Digitizing Archives: Does it Keep or Destroy the Originals?”  We all know that digitizing archival collections can aid greatly with access and help preserve the original with less handling.  In this way digitization is a preservation activity.  Often, archival materials may be unbound to meet the needs of digitization technology.  However, there may be some situations that ought to give us pause.  Gabrielle has a flow chart for decision-making, as the value of the appearance of archival documents is not well researched.  Original binding, original stitching, and the original archival order and information about ways that people archived in the past may be destroyed by digitization requirements.  She used the archives of the Dutch East India Company as an example.  Another caution: will the digital records be accessible in 50 years?

At any conference, there are talks you miss and wish you could’ve attended.  Here are the top ones I’d like to track down later on the AIC blog :

“The Off-Grid Museum” by Dr Poul Klenz Larsen from the National Museum of Denmark and Tim Padfield, who has written great stuff  http://www.conservationphysics.org/ on museum climates.

“Evaluation of Cleaners for Removal of Crude Oil from Historic Structures”  by Payal Vora at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The January 12, 2010 Earthquake in Haiti: Building a Conservation Foundation from the Ground Up.” By Stephanie Hornbeck, Chief Conservator of the Smithsonian Institution Haiti Cultural Recovery Project.

“Comparative Study of Commercially Available Rust Converters” by Jason Church, Anna Muto and Mary F. Striegel of the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.

“A Comparison of the Use of Sodium Metabisulfate and Sodium Dithionite for Removing Rust Stains from Paper” by Seth Irwin, who did this research during his many months traveling around Alaska doing paper conservation and preservation training.

AIC 2011 in Philadelphia: Objects, Textiles, and Wood

Majestic-looking shot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Vinod Daniel kicked off the non-archaeological OSG sessions with “Tangible vs Intangible Collections: The Journey of Two Objects”, co-authored by Dion Peita.  The Australian Museum dates back to 1827, containing some 60,000 Pacific collections among its 110,000 artifacts, one million archaeological objects and 13 million Natural History items.  He described artifacts that are allowed to be used in ceremonies and the kinds of programs that connect cultures to their heritage.  They have a Visiting Elders program, where access is open to touching and feeling the artifacts as well.  Artifacts were described as, “Handprints of the ancestors that continue to live, just as ancestors continue to live through their descendants.”  The museum is keen to connect with Diaspora kids whose ancestors are from the Pacific Islands, as these kids suffer cultural disconnection and are disproportionately in trouble more than other social groups.  Could increased access to artifacts in the storage areas help with that?  They are aiming for virtual access online for all that material, and have images and video on a monitor in a suitcase that is sent around to schools.  Vinod Daniel was candid about the investments required to really connect to these crucial constituencies.  The top of the list was developing people-to-people relationships with repeated in person visits, which requires time, genuine interest, and institutional frameworks in place such as memorandums of understanding with administrators and politicians as well as budget commitments.  On the collections care end of things, museum folks need to be willing to give a very high degree of access, including physical handling, use in ceremonies, and being willing to let go of complete control over the individual artifact.

Alaska’s own Chuna McIntyre presented a paper, “The Impact of Access: Partnerships in Preservation” describing his work with co-authors Kelly McHugh, Ainslie Harrison and Landis Smith to do right by Yup’ik artifacts included in the Arctic Studies Center exhibition in Anchorage.  Chuna is Central Yup’ik from the village of Eyk and teaches language at Stanford.  Ainslie introduced the project, which involves the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center, and how consultations with experts like Chuna aimed to preserve knowledge, restore artifacts, and develop partnerships in decision-making.  Chuna described an experience in high school, looking at museum artifacts:  “I was always on this side of the glass.  I could never get beyond the glass to get to our objects…”  Being able to see them from the back, from all sides, gives the object a chance to tell its full story.  He did some restorations for a Yup’ik mask exhibition years ago, and used computer graphics to virtually do restoration as well.  He called it helping the mask “get back its proper attire.”  In treating a dance fan in the Thaw Collection in Cooperstown, he described the old repairs as static… “Dance fans are designed to move in space with you when you are dancing.  They come back to life when you give them back proper plumage and attire.”  In visiting ancient sites like Angkor Watt and Machu Picchu, he noticed how those monuments were actively restored, and described the Yup’ik artifacts as “our monuments to our worldview as Yup’iks….we are all in this together, this endeavor of bringing back what we feel is important for us and for future generations.”  He described some of the treatment solutions that had been implemented as collaborative decisions.  In a separate conversation with Kelly McHugh, she intimated to me how as a conservator she’d found it confusing which elements of a mask or fan were important to restore, and which ones might be less necessary.  Chuna and Kelly had discussed this, and the analogy of a car had come up…you can still drive a car with chipped paint, but if there’s no carburetor you’re not going anywhere.  I loved this description!  I have no idea what a carburetor looks like or even what it does in a car.  Likewise, I don’t understand the parts of a Yup’ik mask…I don’t know what makes it “go.”  Chuna wrapped up with a thank you song in Yup’ik that he learned from his grandmother…the meaning of which he described, “when we grow and we acquire accoutrements of responsibility we are to be thoughtful for all of these.”      

“When You Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk: Collections Access at the UBC Museum of Anthropology During the Renewal Project” was presented by Shabnam Honorbakhsh and co- authored by Heidi Swierenga and Maurau Toutloff.    The University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver has some 38,000 objects, most of which were placed on visible storage in the 1970’s with the intent of 100% visual access.  In the spring of 2004, there was a renewal project, and the museum did considerable behind-the-scenes work as well as continued to consider collection access as an ever-evolving philosophy.  The hands-on work included survey, barcode assignment, digitization, testing for pesticides, mount making, packing, moving and finally installation.  It sounded like consultation with Native researchers was suggesting that 4 views was the average number of images needed to really see an artifact.  The collection can be searched online at MOACAT  Also check out how their collections section on their website starts off with some cool downloadable reference documents.  I’m definitely right-clicking on some of those!  There is also an exciting joint collaborative project to facilitate collaborative study of Northwest Coast artifacts called the Reciprocal Research Network.  Chilkat weaver William White (Tsimshian) was quoted: “One of the things that is very important to me is accessibility for my people to come into the museum and be treated with respect and honor.”  There was also an example of a bronze statue of Vishnu in the collection who was resanctified for worship by the Vancouver Hindu community.  The video of the ritual renewal involved water, honey, oil, milk, fruit and other substances being applied to the statue.  Afterwards, it was cleaned, dried, and treated in a desiccation chamber.  Marian Kaminitz of the National Museum of the American Indian mentioned after the talk that museums have a societal opportunity to enhance advancement of indigenous societies from a colonialist time to a regeneration time.  It seemed to me like there was a more intense focus on the human, social, and interpersonal aspects of our profession and responsibilities at this meeting.

OK, no crying over spilled milk. Can I cry over the scarcity of scrapple in Alaska? I HEART scrapple!

I jumped out after the break to catch some wooden artifacts talks, including Susanne Grieve’s “Preserving Wooden Materials in Isolated Environments: Considerations and Challenges.”  Did you know Suzanne is certified to dive down to 165 feet?  I do so enjoy the little intros to our colleagues before the presentations!  Suzanne used her experience in both Antarctica (Shackleton’s hut) and the coastal desert of Namib-Nauklift Park in Namibia to describe damage to exposed wood.  Indigenous wildlife cause damage, especially through droppings and nesting, and there is an added challenge in some of those animals being protected species (like penguins).  Smaller-scale biological damage comes in the form of bacteria, mold and fungi.  She showed a great image of the secondary cell wall being separated from the primary cell wall of the wood by colonies of biological growth in between.  Then there are the abiotic  factors.  (Let’s use this term more in conservation!  I love it!  From Wikipedia: “…abiotic influences may be classified as light or more generally radiation, temperature, water, the chemical surrounding composed of the terrestrial atmospheric gases as well as soil.  The macroscopic climate often influences each of the above. Not to mention pressure and even sound waves if working with marine, or deep underground, biome.”)  Salt from the sea, especially chlorides, is a major factor.  It causes a phenomenon known as “defibration” where the wood fibers visibly pull apart.  Precipitation would usually dilute them, but in places like the desert coast, they build up.  Snow can also be full of salt ions.  Abrasion is also called by windblown particles like salt crystals, sand, and ice crystals.  Softer earlywood cells in the grain pattern are preferentially worn away, leaving the higher surface of the latewood cells.  Suzanne described her work with the Windhoek Underwater Club on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, a self-funded group of avocational historians doing preservation work on remote sites from the German colonial period.  They have been applying linseed oil to certain artifacts abandoned at an old diamond mining site, which has caused darkening of the wood and acceleration of corrosion to metal elements.  The maintenance applications of linseed oil began rather recently, so the impact has not yet been observed.  Linseed oil application elsewhere has had mixed results and is not among the treatments conservators normally select.  But under circumstances such as these (remote, environmentally harsh, in-situ, limited access to conservation-grade materials, little funding) wood preservation is especially challenging.

Christina Bisulca presented “Consolidation of Alum-Treated Wood with Alkoxykilanes” co-authored by Nancy Odegaard, Susan Braovac, and Hartmut Kutzke.  I think I learned more from this talk than any other at the conference.  I had heard about the alum-treated Oseberg Burial Ship materials at the Viking Museum in Oslo during the WOAM conference in 2010 .  They were excavated and treated a century ago (!) with a hot saturated solution of alum.  The ship itself was heartwood oak and not treated with alum, but ornately carved sleds and other artifacts got the treatment and are incredibly fragile today after additional treatments with pins, putties, linseed oil, resins etc.  Sulfuric acid is generated in the alum treatment bath, so the pH of the wood is now around 1 and mostly just lignin remains.  Washing and impregnating with PEG works, but is risky to do with these really delicate objects.  TEOS (tetraethoxysilane) was investigated for this problem because it is low viscosity, non aqueous, chemically inert, acid stable, and polymerizes in situ (two-step hydrolysis condensation that releases ethanol).  It’s been used as a lumber treatment since the 1980’s, often functionalized to give it certain qualities.  Remmer’s product is a one part system with an internal catalyst.  Brand names Funcosil 300 and Funcosil 510.  TEOS does not go into pore spaces, only on the cell wall…evenly distributed and not gap filling over about 15 microns.  So the wood remains porous and there is the possibility of future application of other consolidants.  If I understand correctly, this is a big advantage of TEOS over silicone oil, which does not permit a retreatment with anything besides more silicone oil?  TEOS treatment forms a silica network, and multiple applications deposit more silica.  At about 7X, the surface gets rather darkened, perhaps from solvent effects bringing soiling to the surface?  Neat TEOS has less of the darkening issue.  You could consolidate the wood with TEOS as a kind of pre-consolidant and then wash in water to reduce the alum in the wood.  Even after 7 applications, you can still pull out alum.  The challenges to the TEOS method seem to be that the wood has to be really really dry, because water content can cause the TEOS to polymerize on the surface.  Also, silica is rather brittle.  The conservation world has been slow to embrace TEOS outside of architectural applications, but I do think there may be certain circumstances where it may be a good solution to tricky problems.        

Jeweler and metalsmith Joan Pracher presented “Beautiful Brass, A Fresh Look at Historic Furniture Hardware.”  Do you remember when conservator Paul Messier started collecting up examples of old photo printing out papers?  That collection ended up being a treasure trove and Paul’s work on it greatly expanded understanding of things like dating paper and the importance of the “baryta layer” and gave him lots of great samples to study.  Having a reference collection is just really cool!  So it is with the collection of brass furniture hardware that Joan has been collecting since about 2004.  She also has a collection of the metalworking tools used to make such hardware, and she understands where all the tool marks come from. Drops, plates, bales, casters…such an amazing collection.  Knowing the tool marks, typical shapes, and maker’s marks contributes significantly toward attribution and dating.  Not to mention these little utilitarian furniture parts are like little artworks in themselves, and display considerable craftsmanship.  Maybe you should start a little reference collection of some esoteric little aspect of something that captivates you?  What if we all had little specialized reference collections??

I jumped back to the Objects Specialty Group in the afternoon, catching Christel Pesme’s talk on “The Care and Display of Homogen Infiltration für Kontzertflügel (Joseph Beuys, 1966) Between 1976 and 1992 at the Centre Georges Pompidou.”  This reminded me that contemporary art and indigenous art share this important aspect of consultation to determine artist intent and cultural purpose that ought to be documented in the files to guide the conservation treatments for years to come.  In this case, the artwork was a performance piece and the artifacts involved a piano wrapped in felt with red crosses loosely attached and additional pieces like wax earplugs.  The treatment history included a range of consultations and lack thereof with the artist during his life.  The treatments were also influenced by the ideological/ political issues inherent in the museum’s mission. 

Lori Trusheim presented, “Balancing Ethics and Restoration in the Conservation Treatment of an 18^th Century Sewing Box with Tortoiseshell Veneer.”  This treatment had a lot of backing-and-forthing between the kind of less-interventive stabilization objects conservators are most comfortable with and the needs of the owner with a sentimental artifact in a home setting.  The aspects of tortoiseshell manufacture were also riveting.  Understanding material and technology is key to a treatment like this, and Lori really did her homework.  For example, forming of tortoiseshell was often done by rendering the shell pliable in boiling salted water and applying direct heat in press molds.  Heat breaks the disulphide bonds in the keratin structure, but cooling allows them to reform and makes the material rigid again.  White ground between the tortoiseshell and wooden box was water soluble.  Mother-of-pearl inlays were mechanically fit into precut voids, taking advantage of the thermoplastic quality of the heated tortoiseshell.  Missing elements led to investigation of replacement materials to mimic tortoiseshell, which is part of the 1970 Endangered Species Act.  Epoxy, bulked acrylic, wax?  Furniture conservator Donald Williams is working with “tordon shell” which is a crosslinked imitation collagen, and Lori began to think of the box as a miniature piece of furniture.  With the less-interventive method, the owner lived with it for a while but wanted more.  The final solution hasn’t been hammered out yet, but the factors Lori is pondering for a more aggressive treatment  include: opacity or loss of translucency, heating during removal, possible presence of salts, original shell health of the tortoise, brittleness, and darkening.  Lori is taking some inspiration from a Korean Proverb: “A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out…”

Tony Sigel, one of my all-time favorite conservation personalities…ooh, here is an opportunity to introduce a new phrase!  “Professional Crush.”  This term was mentioned to me in reference to J.P. Brown of the Field Museum…and I declare both Tony and J.P. as “Professional Crush-worthy.”  Tony is on some of the listserves I subscribe to, and anytime his name appears I read the post, no matter how far off Alaskan interests the subject might appear.  OK enough gushing….Tony presented “Deconstructing Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Modello for the Fountain of the Moor. Really.”  Tony’s hands-on skills and creativity are killer, and it is always a treat to hear him take us step-by-step through his decision-making, discoveries, and solutions.  Tony is a Bernini sculpture expert, and was working on a terracotta model (for a fountain sculpture) for an exhibition he’s co-curating.  There are some 50 or so known Bernini terracotta models.  This one had soiling, alteration, repairs, even soluble nylon!  He had a great slide listing his main treatment concepts: progressive cleaning in graduated steps to avoid a piebald look, providing protection in the form of masking certain areas and providing bracing where needed during treatment, re-use of dowels/ fills/joins when appropriate, restoration of restorations where he was correcting previous work, mimicry of original tools and processes to give an authentic look, limiting the number of treatment materials to the fewest number of the most stable/ reversible/well-studied/best understood materials to reduce future interactions (according to the “Book of Koob.”)   He showed a little video of laser cleaning where you could really hear the moth-wing like flapping sound of the laser at work during the cleaning phase.  He had a technique for holding a can of DustOff upside down to get the frozen propellant to come out and stiffen a plasticine fill so he could remove it without distortion.  Mesh nylon screening was used to mimic the look of brushmarks in wet clay when the Plasticine proved too stiff.  Is there any doubt that Tony Sigel is the MacGyver of the conservation world?  Really!

My awesome co-author. Hi Hon!

Lauren Horelick and I wrapped up the OSG talks on Friday with the presentation of “The Alaska Fur ID Project: A Virtual Resource for Material Identification”  Its reviewed on the AIC blog (thanks, Ainslie!) http://www.conservators-converse.org/ but you can just go dive in at http://alaskafurid.wordpress.com

I had ducked out of the OSG session earlier to hear Kathryn Jakes discuss the “Uses of the Fiber Reference Image Library.”  FRIL as it is known is quite complementary to the reference material Lauren and I are trying to present in the Alaska Fur ID Project.  FRIL is run out of Ohio State University.  The concept began back in 2003 intending to have some 20 international participants but evolved over time with funding issues and other factors.  NCPTT was the biggest supporter.  The site has mainly plant and synthetic fibers used in textiles, and seems strongly tied to costume and fashion collections.  They are connecting this to another project, Fashion2Fiber which will include fabric structures.  There is a distinct focus as well on how to do outreach and engagement with the website.  Some of the aspects highlighted during the talk included photomicrographs of brightfield and darkfield, sign of elongation, Herzog tests, images of historic cottons, and images of degradation features such as oxalic acid crystals in bast fibers.  Images are watermarked but image can be viewed and downloaded without the watermark if permission is given.  There have been requests to add in a section on feather ID, info on stitching threads, and information about materials that may have been used by restorers or conservators.

From the Philadephia Museum of Art gift shop...

 

AIC in 2009: Issues and Grist

Issues Session and Grist Thursday May 21, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Task Force Report

This 2-year initiative was born at last year’s issues meeting, and the final report will be given next year, at which point we’ll need to decide if the work is complete or it should be made a permanent committee.  Patricia Silence reported on the results of a Survey Monkey that went out in November 2008.  It had 24 questions.  Out of 3500 members, 548 people began the survey and 475 completed it.  75% of those were staff at institutions.  The largest group of responders were objects and book/paper people, primarily in the US and many from the midatlantic and northeast regions.  Many interesting statistics were reported, and the survey is probably worth looking at, although I could not find it on the AIC website.  The trend seemed to be that conservators are pretty willing to go green but their institutions lag behind in willingness or ability to implement green solutions.  Of publications, most folks liked the idea of electronic distribution of everything but the JAIC.  Book and paper folks, of course, had a higher tendency to want more stuff on paper.  There was also a lot of interest in proper disposal of hazardous materials when those materials still need to be used, although replacing them with greener substances was a priority for folks as well.  A website was given, http://green@conservation-us.org but I have not been able to find it yet.

 

Emerging Conservation Professionals Network

Rachel Pennimann reporting

This new group focuses on those who are new: pre-program, apprentices, students, and recent graduates.  AIC website was given as http://conservation-us.org/emerging  Among their activities, they are looking at a training program advisory group, posting internships and fellowships, and developing a formal mentor program to pair up emerging professionals with PA’s or Fellows.  

 

Discussion about Communications

1) Dissemination (print versus electronic)

2) Internal communications

3) Professional development opportunities.

 

I stood up and asked if the website is in a position to be hosting electronic-only publications, such as my work on the Alaskan mammal fur ID project.  Seems like AIC is moving in that direction.  I later got an email from AIC staff member Brett Rodgers, who deals with publications, and he suggests we might start by exploring Flickr.  Both he and Rachel Perkins Arensen separately suggested after the issues session that I work up the data on an animal or two and we take them for some test drives. Wikipedia is another thought. 

 

Rachael Perkins Arensen is our new e-editor.  She was the focus of a lot of tough questions and demands during the meeting and handled it with openness and grace that I don’t think I could have mustered.  I asked her if that means she is now AIC staff…like does she have benefits?  No.  Let me tell you a little bit about Rachael…she’s already got a private practice, a growing family, and the IPM Working Group.  And in addition, she is taking this e-editor position  on contract with the AIC.  A whole lot of work and not much money.  Rachael is obviously not doing this for the money.  I think she wants to see this 2.0 world work for us, and she believes in making it happen even if the path is not completely clear.  In short, BE NICE TO RACHAEL.  If they put the budget on the members section of the website, as I think they should, you ought to be able to see what she’s getting paid and then you would agree with me.  I just typed, “what THEY are paying her.”  Shouldn’t it be “what WE are paying her” instead?  I mean, if the info about AIC was up there more transparently I suspect we’d feel more ownership.

 

Wikis are coming soon to AIC…maybe even by the time you read this.  They will begin with specialty groups who already have catalogs.  The paper catalog comes out every 10 years, maybe with a wiki it still would, but with the wiki being constantly tweaked and the 10-year version being the “official” one that has been vetted.  The membership would like to see the directory online.  It is a really valuable part of what AIC provides.  What if some of it were online-only to allow the published version to be slimmer and cheaper to print and distribute?  What about charging extra if you want it in print?  For a while, there will probably be an opt-in/ opt out system for electronic distribution vs print.  The membership present at the issues discussion seemed OK with the amount of emails AIC sends out.  Some people (tee hee) seem to have put AIC on their spam list, however.  If things do go electronic-only, it is nice to get an email reminding us when it appears, although some people say they are less likely to read electronic publications.   Figures were given for how much printing the AIC News and JAIC costs, but I’m not sure it is appropriate to post those figures in a blog.  I’m still trying to figure out the boundaries of what I ought to put in the blog, and let me tell you I’ve spent a lot of time pondering that.  We’ll discuss those issues in a different posting.  A week after this session, there was considerable discussion on various internet dist lists about the idea of the newsletter or the directory going green.  It seemed to touch a nerve.  I suspect the most logical solution will involve a reduced number of directories being printed for those who want them and some sort of opt-out checkbox on the membership renewal.  I think there are three copies of the 2009 directory in my lab and at least one at home…perhaps that is being married to a conservator and also working at a place that is an institutional member?  Hmmm.     

 

I asked at the Issues Session if the AIC budget was on the internet and the answer came off sounding a little bit muddled.  The answer was that various leaders in AIC have access to that, there is an audit summary available to all members, and something in the annual report.  Wincingly, the budget was described as very confusing and hard to read, suggesting that the members would not be able to figure it out anyway.  I was told to go to the business meeting the next day to hear about the budget.  I was unable to attend, but maybe that’s for the best because the transition between treasurers and other factors meant that the budget was not available there, either.  Incoming president Meg Loew Craft told me afterward that she would personally make sure I got any of my questions answered regarding the budget.  She has always struck me as a very sharp and competent person, and I do believe she would answer questions for ANY member who asked.  I’m not the kind of person who would go over the budget with a fine-toothed comb, but there are folks in the membership who might, or is related to an accountant who might, and I feel better thinking there are those checks and balances in place.  And even more important, that idea of TRANSPARENCY.  Richard McCoy spoke at the Issues Session about pulling back the curtain, and deciding for himself if he could understand the budget.  We’ve seen what happens on Wall Street with financial organizations that get too creative with too little oversight.  We all know examples where things have gone wrong or been overlooked.  Transparency protects the integrity of the organization.  Since the organization exists at the pleasure of its members, it is only right that those members know how the resources of the AIC are allocated, and what those resources are.  If the documents are too confusing for the layperson, perhaps a little bit of additional interpretation can be done.  Also along the lines of transparency, there was interest in having the names of committee members and other leaders on the website, as well as head shots of staff and board members.   

 

More Suggestions from the Issues Session Attendees

• What can AIC do to lead the way in showing how to navigate electronic vs print delivery of newsletters, directories and other online content and then provide support for the regional organizations to do so as well?
• There is interest in AIC having some kind of PR handout for in person situations like conservation labs that have windows.  People like to walk away with written information when they see complex things in person (think of our own interest in those handouts in the poster section, for example!)  
• I love it that someone in the Issues meeting asked me, “What’s a Luddite?”  I think most of the membership is willing to jump into the 2.0 world, they are just holding back a little bit in case it is just a flash in the pan.  Or to see what cream rises to the top.  People are reluctant to learn a new thing if it is wasted, but if it is useful people are curious.  In a room full of people, only about 5% raised their hands when asked if they Twitter.  
• Suggestion that AIC could perhaps get a subscription to JSTOR as a membership benefit?  AIC would need to do a survey to see who would use it and how many collections within JSTOR we would need so a cost analysis could be done.
• People who have to fly or travel a lot like the idea of conservation podcasts.  
• Request for more levels of detail in our referral system to narrow down specialties
• Request for more mentoring as an organization.  Association for Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) has an ongoing effort to match people up before the meeting, taking the relationship through the meeting, and hopefully beyond.
• Could we maybe offer the conference workshops online in streaming video at a reduced rate?
• In the OSG meeting I heard that specialty groups send out CDs full of pdfs not because they are technologically clueless, but because there are copyright issues surrounding the content that is different for posting on the internet than it is for distribution on a CD.
• Request to allow associate members to be in directory, but the rationale against was that the written commitment by PAs and Fellows is the only mechanism we have to control or discipline the profession.  
• The CIPP offered a reduced membership rate of $5 to all members of the EPCN.  Now that was really cool!

AIC 2009 in LA: OSG Talks May 20th

“Blow It Off: Moving Beyond Compressed Air with Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Snow”

L.H. (Hugh) Shockey

One of the great things about coming to AIC is putting a name to a face and somehow I didn’t expect this guy to have a beard and ponytail and look like he could have just been working on his hot rod.  When one of his slides identified his initial “L” as standing for Lucian I was tremendously amused, as just last week I watched a movie marathon with the three “Underworld” movies about vampires at war with werewolves, and guess who is the charismatic king of the werewolves?  Lucian.  OK OK on to meaningful content.  

He’s working at the Lunder Center at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, and exploring the potential benefits of CO2 snow, which is producing particles on the micrometer scale, not the millimeter size.  Kind of like dry ice blasting, but on a much smaller, finer scale.  Setting up the equipment is in the $3000 range, and requires at minimum a snow generation nozzle and a source of compressed CO2 gas or liquid.  The geometry of the nozzle is pretty specific and requires a specialty vendor.  He was referring to a “Venturi” nozzle, but I don’t know what that means.  His equipment is more elaborate with more ways to make the delivery more controlled and efficient.  How does it work?  Primarily, Hugh describes it as a “momentum transfer surface cleaning technique” sort of like billiard balls knocking dirt off the surface.   Other forces at work might include secondary effects of liquid CO2 briefly touching the surface, breaking weak van der waals forces, and so-called “freeze fracture” although you’re never getting below the freezing point of water so Hugh takes issue with that term.  The lowest temp he ever got to was 46.6 degrees F.  Hugh described a 3 micron layer of turbulent air over the particulate soiling material of an artifact that seems (if I understand correctly) to interfere with just blasting off the particles with air, and that including these tiny tiny “snow” particles allows something with a bit of mass to penetrate through that turbulent layer and knock off the soiling.  You’ll need to work systematically from the inside out or one side to another in order to push that loosened material away and not just redeposit it.  

When is this useful? Not completely clear yet, it seems like Hugh is exploring that.  He says the objects needs to be a hard surface that can momentarily take a drop in surface temperature and a little bit of depression.  Your soiling has to be particulate in nature or a low molecular weight hydrocarbon, like perhaps fingerprint oil.  Hugh says this technique is not so good for friable surfaces, rough surfaces, bound materials like paint, or oily grime.  There’s a learning curve, and you need to control condensation.  He showed us before and after images of a bound steel spring and a paper pinbox he had cleaned, as well as a great video of a Robert Morris plastic sculpture (molded cellulose acetate butyrate) with an unidentified but disfiguring surface haze.  Yvonne Shashoua helped him with identification of the plastic (she wrote that great conservation of plastics book, didn’t she?)  

In the Q&A section, Hugh mentioned that the disfiguring haze might have been migrating plasticizer and there is a theory that if you remove too much plasticizer from a surface it actually can encourage more migration of plasticizers in the object?  Did I understand that right?  Gosh, plastics are scary, especially these arty ones with the pristine surfaces.  In one area, there was a kind of reverse haze pattern kind of like honeycomb from where bubble wrap had been in contact with the surface, which weirdly seemed to suggest the bubbles of the bubble wrap had absorbed the exudate??  Apparently, if you touch the stream it would be cold and dimple your finger but not injure you.  His system is gas-fed, not liquid-fed and it sounded like he way saying the liquid-fed systems produce larger sharper crystals of snow.  Question about what you might be inhaling during treatment, and Hugh uses clean room pads on the far side of the object to capture particulates.  The technology is used for cleaning silicone wafers and lenses for high-end optics.  Also, Hugh says that the compressed gas is a byproduct of some other industrial manufacturing process, so it is kind of a green thing, too.

“Examination of an Egyptian Corn Mummy”

Meg Loew Craft, Walters Art Museum

The artifact belongs to a private collector and was loaned for an exhibit in 2004 related the Kunstkammer or “Chamber of Wonders” which seemed rather like the Victorian notion of curiosity corners or cabinets.  (I think it might be the same thing?) It came from a 1996 estate sale where the deceased had been to Egypt in the 1960’s and apparently acquired it.  Fewer than 100 exist today, although there was apparently some looting in the late 1940’s that led some 400 corn mummies to come onto the market, most of which are no longer in known collections. Museum collections in Houston and Berlin also have corn mummies.  Meg reports only 5 necropolis sites have produced them.  This one is thought to be Late Period, 685-520BC and the term “corn” does not literally mean corn, but more like some “little hard thing”, usually grain of some sort.  They range in date from 2nd half of the 8th century BC to Greco-Roman times, maybe 35-50cm tall, and associated with Osiris and therefore rebirth and fertility of crops.  Meg’s materials analysis in this one indicate sycamore fig wood, carbon black pigment, Egyptian Blue pigment, yellow ochre pigment, gold gilding, beeswax, soil, seeds, linen, and traces of some original coating that defied identification but Meg thinks might have been a combo of oils, resins, gums, and maybe bitumen.  Malachite was used to make the wax mask green in some areas.  The mask was mold made and has fiber inclusions for support.  Little canopic figures were found inside also, apparently made of soil with a thin coating of wax.  These were seen with CT scanning, which incidentally also allows you to see the tree ring pattern pretty clearly.  Dendrochronology might be possible, if only there were a reference database of this kind to compare it to.

“Disrobing: Research and Preventive Conservation of Painted Hide Robes at the Ethnological Museum, National Museums Berlin, Germany.”

By Anne Turner Gunnison, Helene Tello, Peter Bolz, and Nancy Fonicello

Nancy presented this talk because the original presenter was not able to be there, and it was great to have another opportunity to hear her speak (see the tips posting too for her feather cleaning info.)  Seven rare and early bison robes in the collection of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin were collected in the 1830’s by Prince Maximillian zu Wied on his travels along the Upper Missouri River.  The robes were getting re-housed, which allowed an opportunity for study.  One robe that was Piegan (Blackfoot) was investigated in-depth using HPLC and FTIR.  It has both painted pigment figural illustrations as well as dyed porcupine quill embroidery.  Red colorant showed high levels of mercury, suggesting perhaps vermillion, but in actuality the robe has mercury present as a pesticide in frighteningly high amounts. Bill Holm thought the brown material might be from the root or rhisome of the horsetail. I was most interested to hear this, as I have recently been told that some of the material commonly identified as maidenhair fern stem on Tlingit basketry in Alaska might actually be root of horsetail in some instances, but we all expect to see maidenhair fern stem so no one questions it.  Now here is another mention of horsetail root!  Nancy is a quillwork expert, and she tells us that not much is published on dye techniques.  She experimented with dying quills with fox moss or dock root for the yellow, and bloodroot for the orange-red.  If I understand correctly, she gathered and processed these materials herself for a visual comparison.  From her slide, the fox moss (with Nancy later told me is probably  the same as the wolf moss I am familiar with here in Alaska)  and bloodroot sure made comparable colors to those seen on the robe.  However, HPLC samples indicated those might not be the dyes used.  The idea of a plant called bedstraw was  suggested as something that makes a madder-like dye.  In the Q&A, someone asked if Nancy thought the analysis could have been flawed.  In her experience, fox moss is the only dye material that makes that color yellow.  HPLC vs Nancy, I’d place smart money on Nancy.  The other interesting thing was that not only was mercury present in ridiculously high amounts, but there were suspicious white crystals on the hair side and a shiny residue was left on the gloves when the object was handled.  Suspected DDT was also confirmed by analysis.  Quite the toxic robe.

“It Takes Guts”

By Kelly McHugh, Kim Cullen Cobb, Michele Austin-Dennhy, and Landis Smith.  

Landis presented the entire paper, as Kelly McHugh could not be there to present the second half.  The first  half of the presentation was by Landis Smith, about the methodology she  designed for the overall project.  The second half was read from script written with Kelly’s humor, as she was the intended presenter, but in a way it was a whole different kind of hilarious to hear Landis deliver Kelly’s jokes.

The Anchorage Conservation Project is making the Smithsonian’s holdings more accessible to folks in Alaska through a new wing on the Anchorage Museum working with the National Museum of Natural History’s Arctic Studies Center there.  Accessibility is really key, so objects can be requested for closer study and exhibits are designed with mounts to allow easy removal from cases.  About 400 artifacts will be loaned from the NMNH and another 200 from the National Museum of the American Indian and the loan periods are up to 12 years.    For each object, they are compiling a mountain of data and records for study as well.  Many of the artifacts were collected by Edward Nelson, who spoke Yup’ik and whose Yup’ik name translates to “man who collects good-for-nothing things.”  Lots of consultants, too…both Native (like skin-sewing experts Chuna McIntyre, Frances Usugan, and Estelle Oozevasenk) and non-Native (like NMNH curator of Arctic Collections Igor Krupnik and the vertebrate zoology folks at NMNH as well as skin artist Fran Reed.)

At this point in the talk, there was a SCREAM from the table behind me and some loud thumps, followed by total commotion among perhaps 6 people.  I thought an ambulance would need to be called and someone would have to jump forth to begin CPR, but it turned out to be simply an EXTREMELY large cockroach.  Steven Pickman heroically captured the creature in a glass and removed it from the room to great applause and cheers.  (This later gave me an excuse to chat with Steven, but that is a tangent I’ll get to in another posting.)  Perhaps the cockroach mistook the session for an IPM working group discussion and was spying??

Estelle was the source for extensive information about preparation of gut, and a workshop was done on gut preparation to better understand that material, since identification of the exact animal and the exact organ is difficult and there is only one major conservation reference for this material: Hickman’s “Innerskins/Outerskins.”  Linda Lin at the UCLA/Getty program has been investigating gut ID, and so has Amy Tjiong at the NYU program.  Both of them contacted me last year, struggling with this ID issue.  Of course, I, too, have material in my lab that I would like to identify.  Even at this talk and its Q&A period, there was tantalizing and sometimes conflicting information about the nature of gutskin.  For example, there is the so-called “summer gut” and “winter gut” issue.  Extended exposure of the inflated gut to cold causes a change in its appearance and properties: summer gut is translucent and water beads on its surface for several hours before penetrating, while the white “winter gut” is much more absorbent and has a silky opaque white appearance.  Helen Alten had heard that wetting winter gut can cause it to revert back into summer gut, although the Smithsonian folks didn’t find that to be the case.  Someone said Julia Fenn, who was not present, apparently suggested once that this “winter gut” is related to freeze drying, and was related to the surface tension of water and how it moves (or does not move) the collagen fibers and causes an air gap…I will need to look into that further.  I am most interested in where this is going and who is willing to take this further, as I would like to get involved.

AIC 2009 in LA: As If You Were Here

 Hyatt Century Plaza on the Avenue of the Stars in Los Angeles.  Rumor at the conference (From President Martin Burke, actually) is that this building, built in 1966 and recently renovated, is among America’s top eleven most endangered places.  Really??

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Here you are at the registration desk, two floors below the main lobby.  Strangely, cell phones still work down here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Can you appreciate how cavernously huge this ballroom is?  It even has a sunken terrace area in the center, rather like a 1970’s conversation pit but without the shag rug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, so this is something you won’t miss…all this fabulous food for a bargain price of $25 !!  Seriously, my lunch contained a small container of potato salad, a bag of chips, a roast beef and brie sandwich, a packet of mayo, a packet of mustard, an apple and a cookie.  Twenty Five smackaroos!  No beverage, just a pitcher of water on the table.  Wow.    

 

 

 

 

  The most spacious vendor hall I have ever seen, with plenty of room for everyone, and coffee breaks stationed at each end.   So cavernous that those folks bent on bottlenecking the whole thing by standing in chattery groups are utterly thwarted.

 

 

 

 

 

 In the antechamber just behind the vendors was the poster hall…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

And here you go, Richard McCoy…another good reason we need to keep the poster session.  Hands-on!  Can’t recapture that in a blog, I’m afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Typical room at the conference hotel.  Unfortunately, internet is not free(it costs about $10 a day, but you’re worth it) and there is no coffee maker in the room.  You can order a pot from room service for $9.00 or go to the Starbucks in the lobby.  The room does have a nice little balcony with chairs on it, though.  And the clock radio has a dock for the iPod I did not bring.  Lots of marble in the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s me, blogging away in the lobby…

AIC 2009 in LA: Vendors

PACIN = Packing, Art Handling & Crating Information Network

  A professional interest committee of the American Association of Museums.  They will be holding what seems to be the first ever PREPARATOR’S CONFERENCE Aug 14-15, 2009 at the Sterling and Francine Clark Museum of Art in Williamstown, Mass.

http://www.pacin.org

I chatted at this booth with Ashley McGrew, who handles, moves, and installs objects at the Getty, and he told me there’s scarcely a decent book on the subject either, and yet how important is this field in terms of consequences?  PACIN has a couple of publications, $15 each: “Technical Drawing Handbook of Packing and Crating Methods” and “Soft Packing Methods and Methodology for Packing and Transportation of Art and Artifacts”   There is a more expensive book coming out that will be a Museum Materials Sample Set with good-sized samples for getting your hands on them and feeling their properties.  Availability of that volume will coincide with the next AAM and coincide with a session on materials.  This book will the be first of several sets, with later ones including things like foam.  These will definitely be considerably more than $15.  Ashley really likes HDPE (high density polyethylene) as a packing material.  Clear Getty janitorial trashbags were apparently Oddy tested with good results, as manufacturers don’t tend to use plasticizers and slip agents in the manufacture of HDPE?  Nice schwag of carpenter’s pencils and stencil-rulers.

INHERENT VICE SQUAD

 Aprons, chenille weights with plastic pellets, leather weights with lead shot, ear buds, tape measures, water bottles, lab coats…I wonder if they will sell out their inventory of the handmade stuff…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  How about this?

Intercept Display Case Filtration System

Made by Xtend Packaging Inc and using corrosion intercept (polymer plastic impregnated with copper) technology it has a fan run by two D batteries to scrub the air and actively remove pollutants.  Filter has both corrosion intercept for inorganic pollutants as well as activated charcoal for inorganics.  Hollinger Metal Edge sells the units for $69.95 each and a pack of 3 filters for $23.55  They recommend changing the filter when you change the battery, about once every 3 months.  Really marketing this towards use in exhibit cases.

Currently, they have a product in research/development that will involve this RIBS media (reactive intercept barrier system) on top of a layer of activated charcoal attached to paper, which would allow scavenging of both organics and inorganics.  This paper could then be used to line storage boxes.  This has been in development for the past three years and they are hoping to bring it to market within the next year.  Such a box could offer 10 year protection.  They would also make sleeves, envelopes and other enclosures.  Soon they will also come out with garment bags.  

   Hmmmm….this could be handy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Set of acrylic mount-making tools available from University Products

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Loved this display of little packets of good stuff from Talas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Check out this cute little visor light that Talas sells!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Coveted by anyone crafty who sees one in my lab.  Especially wonderful for removal of tape from places it does not belong.  But other odd uses too, like opening those maddening little plastic triangle photo mounting corners.  I bought one today, my only purchase of the day, for $19.25 and I will gift it to our exhibit designer at the Alaska State Museum…this will save mine from being stolen and also win me some brownie points with the exhibits department…clever clever Ellen.

AIC 2009 in LA: Joyce HIll Stoner on Cons 1.0

It would be tremendous if this got put on the AIC website, perhaps even an expanded version, since poor Joyce had only 20 minutes to cover everything.  Not 5 minutes later, in the restroom, someone was already remarking on who was left out.  Indeed, there’s no winning there unless you only include dead people in your discussion.  Still, the talk was heavily paintings-centric (nothing wrong with that) but provides a solid bone structure for building the rest of the specialties in.  The talk was great in that the slides and spoken elements complemented nicely…time zipped by so fast!  Another 20 minutes would have been equally fascinating.  Some of the highlights:

Joyce Hill Stoner has been with the Winterthur program for 33 years, 15 as director.  She has also coordinated the FAIC oral history file.  It began at a conference in Mexico City on Sept 4, 1975.   Incidentally, there is a wish list of people to be interviewed and funding for the transcripts if you are interested.  (I wonder about getting some of those up on the internet.  There are more than 220 of them right now, and they are in the Winterthur Archives, apparently.)

Joyce began at the beginning… how Pliny the Elder complained of paintings being overcleaned and 1729 as the first recorded transfer.  Elizabeth Darrow has been doing research about the early ideas of preventive conservation and reversibility with Pietro Edwards in Venice.  Did you know that Rembrant’s painting about the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulip has had at least 23 documented treatments from 1700-1996?  That’s just the documented ones!

A lab was established in 1888 at the Staatliche Museum, another at the British Museum in 1920, and the Fogg in 1928 (Edward Waldo Forbes.)  The first technical journal, “Technical Studies” ran from 1932-1942.  Forbes hired both George Stout and Rutherford John Gettens, whose 1942 encyclopedia of paintings materials is still a monster of utility.  Stout coined the idea of conservation as a three-legged stool of history-studio art- science, and Gregory Landry added the idea of the seat of the stool as ethics and standards of practice.  Joyce has expanded this into an 8-legged settee but that slide whizzed by too fast for me to identify the legs here.  Plus, the conference abstracts say “George Stout’s three-legged stool has become a twelve-legged settee.”  Apparently she chopped four legs for the talk, but maybe those will come back in the paper (online?)

1896 first known X-ray of a painting

1940 Rawlings doing IR photos

1949 Maggetti doing XRD/XRF

IIC founded in 1950, the first triennial in London was about climate control.  Began doing abstracts in 1956 (?) and from 1966-1983 NYU took care of doing AATA, then the Getty took over.  Since 2003, it has been exclusively online.  Funny, though, in my searches I have found BCIN to be more complete.  I wonder what the relationship is between the two?

ICOM began in 1946, ICOM-CC in 1967 and those triennials began in 1969.

Joyce Plesters as the “mother of technical studies” and how huge her 1956 paper on cross sections was…

Oberlin was the first regional conservation center (the Intermuseum Conservation Association?) and was founded in 1952.  (Apparently, according to discussion afterward, the regional organization in Washington DC might be older?)  Oberlin was run by Richard Buck, and apparently he got John Spencer of the NEA interested in conservation…Spencer helped direct some $12 million towards conservation between 1971-1982, emphasizing the importance of letting the bureaucrats and administrators know what we do.

Howard Plenderleith, who doesn’t know his name…did you know he lived to the ripe old age of 99 and was STILL ALIVE when I was in grad school?  Wow!  I had no idea.  Goes to show how young the profession still is.  Or maybe how I’m not quite SO young anymore?  IIC American Group was founded in 1960 and became AIC in 1973.  The year I was born.

I missed the name of the clever pioneer who called AIC, FAIC and JAIC “ache, fake, and jake.”

Apparently, the Murray Pease Report was the first standard of practice internationally.  Impressive.  It later formed the core of our Ethics and Standards of Practice.  You should read it, it is really interesting and revealing…wish it were online.

National Institute for Conservation (NIC) later became Heritage Preservation, the professional organization that institutions join while us individuals join AIC?  Note to self, I should get all these organizations and acronyms straight and write a blog about them.

4 students began at NYU in 1960, the first training program in the US, but there were already 6 programs in Europe following the seminal Rome Conference of 1930.  Joyce reviews a brief history of the training programs, including now-defunct programs like CCI having a program in the mid-70’s, and the CAL furniture program from 1974-2000.  But did she miss the George Washington Program?  The folks who came out of there are gods to those of us in ethnographic and archaeological objects… Nancy Odegaard! Carolyn Rose! Toby Raphael!  I guess that might be a result of the lecture having a bit of a paintings focus, but I wonder if that omission stings a bit.  Still, a huge amount of really fascinating info there and I would love to see it built on as a summary of where we’ve been…say, if it were on the internet there could be some great collaboration and refining of dates and pioneers.  Joyce identified “sustainability” as the “where we are going” part of the talk.  And hey, remember she had only 20 minutes for all of this, and this bit was like 2 minutes!  But I can’t help but think “sustainability” sounds a little bit defensive, as if we are in danger of becoming obsolete.  It has the sentiment of “holding our ground.”  I think AIC is going in much more interesting directions that that, and I might have chosen a more optimistic concept.  But then again, Joyce has probably forgotten more about the profession in all her years that I have learned in all of mine.