Volume 16, Number 1, Jan. 1994, pp.11-15

Regional News

San Diego

David Brock is currently working on UCLAS Atlas, comprised of 81 plates from the sketches by Karl Bodmer for Travels in the Interior of North America by Maximilian, Prince of Wied, 1843.

Frances Prichett, formerly at B.A.C.C., has opened a private practice for the conservation of works of art on paper and archival materials. Her new address is: 5235 35th Street, San Diego, CA, 92116; telephone (619) 283-0368.

Regional Reporter:

Frances Pritchett
5235 35th Street
San Diego, CA 92116
(619) 283-0368

Texas

Preservation and Conservation Studies for Libraries and Archives, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Texas at Austin, is pleased to announce its first class of conservators: Scott Walker Devine, Tracy Brooke Grimm, Yasmeen Rauf Khan, Erika Lindensmith, Russell Martin, Alan Puglia, Mark Rutledge and Nancy Ellen Stanfill. The Temple Foundation has granted $60,000 to support the Preservation and Conservation Studies Program as a match for student stipends from the National Endowment for the Humanities

The Conservation Department of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRHRC), University of Texas at Austin, hosted a seminar by Bernard Middleton on the rebacking of leather bound volumes.

Jim Stroud participated in the Research Librarians Group Preservation Planning Conference in Washington, D.C. and the Commission on Preservation and Access Science Initiative in Baltimore, MD. Jim also prepared an article on mass deacidification, in conjunction with Kris Kiesling, for Issues in Preservation and Access.

Maria Cavalcanti, a graduate of the Conservation Education Program at the School of Library Science at Columbia University, began a year-long internship the the Book Conservation Lab at HRHRC. Corinne Dune, from the Institut Francais Restoration dOeuvres dArt, Paris, will be working with Barbara Brown in the Photo Conservation Lab, HRHRC, for three months.

Sara McElroy, Marilyn Lenz and Karen Pavelka presented lectures on "Chemistry in Art Conservation" for the Association of Chemistry Teachers of Texas.

Jessica Johnson, Karen Pavelka and Steve Williams presented a session titled "Home Sweet Home: Choosing Safe Materials to House and Display Your Collections" for the Texas Association of Museums. Karen also lectured on collections conservation at the University of Texas, El Paso.

The Materials Conservation Laboratory, Texas Memorial Museum, in conjunction with International Academic Projects, London, hosted a course, Biodeterioration and Insect Pest Control in Museums at the University of Texas at Austin. R.E. Childe, National Museum of Wales, was the main instructor, but other participants including Vinod Daniel, Steve Williams and Sally Shelton contributed lectures on areas of their own expertise.

Sandra Blackard conducted conservation assessments for the Michelson Museum of Art, Padre Island National Seashore and Milam County Historical Museum.

Regional Reporter:

Jessie Johnson
Texas Memorial Museum, Materials Conservation Lab
University of Texas at Austin
10100 Burnet Road
Austin, TX 78758
(512) 471-6090

Hawai'i

The Pacific Regional Conservation Center has been given a new name to reflect its change in direction under the guidance of Laura Gorman, Chairperson/Senior Objects Conservator. The new name is Conservation Services. The address and phone number remain unchanged. Conservation Services will function as a department of the Bishop Museum with the regional services being curtailed but not discontinued. An entry level objects conservator is being sought to join the staff. Laura is organizing a follow-up clinic this month on the island of Kauai, continuing its recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Iniki which struck in October 1992.

The Past Recovered, an exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, features Japanese paintings and woodblock prints conserved at Conservation Services (formerly PRCC) by Susan Sayre Batton, paper conservator, formally at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Susan Thomas, paper technician.

In conjunction with the Honolulu Academy of Arts exhibition, Cain Killing Abel: A Study in Conservation Treatment, Laurence Pace, conservator in private practice, presented a talk focusing on the x-radiographic examination of the painting and the artist changes revealed. Dawne Steele Pullman, a painting conservator with New York Conservation Associates, Ltd., spent the month of September working with Larry. She assisted on a number of projects including the treatment of the first of three large mural paintings which originally hung in the no-longer-standing Honolulu Liberty Theatre. Larry is completing the conservation of a series of ten small oils on canvas by the artist Charles Furneaux in the Archives Collection of the Bishop Museum. The work is being carried out in the Conservation Services Painting Conservation Laboratory with the assistance of Melissa Arnold, Conservation Services conservation technician. The paintings document the 1881-82 eruption of the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii and were all painted on-site by the artist.

Gregory Thomas, conservator in private practice, has been working with Iolani Palace staff on a project to place two large paintings in plexiglass enclosures with microclimate control provided by ArtSorb® panels mounted on the reverse of the paintings.

Regional Reporter:

Laurence Pace
2109-A Liliha Street
Honolulu, HI 96817
(808) 595-7500

San Francisco Bay Area

Paula DeCristofaro, (SFMOMA), and Don Bartlett gave birth to a baby girl, Francesca Maria DeCristofaro, on August 1, 1993.

Tracy Power, objects conservator in private practice, is conducting a survey of the outdoor sculpture collection at Stanford University Art Museum.

Carl Grimm, has taken the position of Head Paintings Conservator of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Delaware/Winterthur Program in Art Conservation Research where he has been a Mellon Fellow since 1990. His new business address is: M. H. deYoung Memorial Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118; telephone (415) 750-3645.

Last November, Carrie Ann Calay, taught a day-long workshop on the care and handling of documents and objects to new employees of the Northern California Center for Afro-American History and Life. Carrie Ann will be conducting a follow-up session as well. She has acted as a consulting conservator there since her initial collection survey in the spring of 1991.

The Textile Lab of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco under the direction of Sarah Gates is completing its IMS grant to re- house the ethnographic textile collection. Stephanie Hornbeck, pre-program intern at FAMSF, is constructing trays from Corrulite®, a corrugated polyethylene. Dr. Mark Gilberg has recently completed an inspection of most of the FAMSF textile collection looking for insects and insect damage. He froze all infested and suspicious pieces and also treated some Native American leather and beaded costumes using Marvelseal bags and Ageless® oxygen scavenger. Additionally, the lab has been treating textiles based on the Old Testament to complement the upcoming Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. All conservators at the deYoung were very involved for several months with the seismic retro-fitting of the museum. This entailed the deinstallation and reinstallation of galleries as construction work progressed. The aim of the buttressing is to protect the building, its contents and the public, in an economical fashion, from the next Big One.

The paper conservation lab at FAMSF welcomes Laura Downey, a third year student from the Art Conservation Department, New York State College at Buffalo. In November she and a member of the curatorial department presented a talk on Whistlers lithographs. In July Debra Evans and Alison Luxner, former intern, conducted a one-day workshop in conservation hinging and matting for framers and museum preparators. In November Debra presented a half-day workshop on photograph preservation as part of the Archival Preservation Management Training Program offered by the Society of American Archivists.

After six and one-half years at the Oakland Museum, associate conservator Therese O'Gorman has taken a new position at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta. As conservator, her duties under the three-year Mellon Fellowship include the establishment of a new conservation lab and teaching preventative conservation to university students as an adjunct faculty member. She can be reached at: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 571 S. Kilgo St., Atlanta, GA 30322, telephone (404) 727-1051, fax (404) 727-4292. She is to be thanked for all her contributions to the Bay Area conservation community. We all wish her a great deal of success in her new position.

John Burke, head conservator, Oakland Museum, spent five weeks in China and Taiwan. In addition to partaking of good, plentiful food and personal family pleasures he visited conservation colleagues and surveyed recent conservation work.

Dale Kronkright has accepted the position of senior conservator for the Museum of New Mexico. Dale is expecting to work nine months during the year for the Museum on the new addition and permanent exhibition at the Museum of Indian Art and Culture and on internal organization and operations for the conservation lab under the direction of chief conservator Claire Munzenrider. The remaining three months Dale will continue his work in San Francisco and Hawaii, along with teaching short subjects for the Art Conservation Program at Buffalo and other conservation training programs and courses. In October, Dale and Therese O'Gorman conducted a general conservation survey for the Mexican Museum at Fort Mason, considering both the problems currently facing the preservation of the collections and the plans for the museums new facilities at Yerba Buena Center.

The Getty Conservation Institutes Course on Pest Management and Control for Museums, to be held April 11 - 15, 1993 at the GCI. Instructors for the course will include Jane Bassett, Vinod Daniel, Mark Gilberg, Gordon Hanlon, Shin Maekawa, Steven Pine, Michael Rust and Dale Kronkright. The course will provide profiles of the behavior and biology of insects commonly found in museum collections and look at historical measures used to combat insects and their effects on collection materials. The course will describe preventive measures in new construction and the use of environmental controls, traps, monitoring, policies, and operating procedures to minimize risks from insect pests. The course will then provide explanaions and practical exercises in treatment methods, including existing and emerging chemical treatments, elevated and lowered temperature treatments, radiation treatments and the use of modified atmospheres.

Regional Reporter:

Theresa Andrews
SFMOMA, Conservation Department
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 252-4050

Pacific Northwest

CAPNW has received a $35,000 grant from the NIC and the Smithsonian Institution to carry out the Washington State SOS! Program. Paula Wolf is the new project coordinator. The office address is: 519 North Bowdoin Place #6, Seattle, WA 98103.

As exhibition conservator for the international traveling exhibit, "Sacred Encounters," Jonathan Taggart has overseen its deinstallation at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and its reinstallation at the Vancouver Museum. He is currently involved in analysis and testing treatment options for the sgraffito decorations of the 125 foot high Astoria Column, scheduled for treatment in 1994 and 1995. He has been recently involved with projects at the Nelson Atkins Museum, The Museums at Stony Brook in New York and at the Portland Metropolitan Arts Commission in association with the SOS! program.

During the month of September Peter Malarkey treated a mural at the Old Federal Building in Anchorage as the final step in a four-year earthquake retrofit and cosmetic restoration project. Minnesotan Arthur Derrick was commissioned in 1937 by the WPA to interpret "The Industries of Alaska" for placement above the judges bench. The oil painting had a heavy grime layer and had received numerous damages, including a line of bracket punctures and mastic every eight inches across the 27 foot span from a dropped ceiling in the 1960s, since removed. Peter has returned to Seattle, his lower back following later.

On October 5, 1993 the second annual Museums Alaska Conservation Symposium was held in Fairbanks. Judy Hauck, registrar at the Alaska State Museum, presented "New Storage and Display Materials" and provided a sample packet for all participants. Gary Selinger, collections manager at the University of Alaska Museum, described the consolidation and lifting of dinosaur bones in an arctic environment at the Colville River site in his talk, Preservation of North Slope Dinosaur Fossils. Helen Alten, state conservator at the Alaska State Museum, discussed general museum surveys and how they are used in "What Next? Life After the General Survey".

"Wet, Cold, Wet, Dry: Archives Under Water" presented by Eileen Devinney, technician at the National Park Service and Janelle Matz, assistant curator of collections at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, was a case study of the recovery efforts of water-damaged archives at St. Hermans Seminary in Kodiak. Debra Fox, Kathleen Orlenko and Debra Evans were conservators in charge of the project. Because of excellent reviews from participants the Conservation Symposium will be a regular part of the annual meeting. Next years Museums Alaska meeting will be held in Kodiak in October. Anyone interested in presenting a paper at the Conservation Symposium should contact: Helen Alten, Alaska State Museum, 395 Whittier St., Juneau, AK 99801.

In September, conservators Tamsen Fuller, objects conservator, Corvallis, Oregon, and Carl Patterson, Denver Art Museum, cleaned and repaired 30-40 baskets at the Tongass Historical Museum in Ketchikan. Storage for the 169-piece basket collection was significantly improved through construction of special containers, trays, mounts and supports. During their three weeks in Ketchikan they taught four volunteers and two staff members how to make storage supports and clean baskets, provided a three- hour lunchtime public workshop and an evening lecture and had a front page photograph in the Ketchikan paper. The museum had excellent publicity for the project which included a radio story about basket conservation and a temporary exhibit in the hallway between the museum and the library which showed the progress of the project. During their free time Tamsen received private carving lessons from Lee Wallace and Edwin Dewitt and bought a set of tools to take back to Portland.

Helen Alten, received the Award for Excellence in the Museum Profession from Museums Alaska. The award recognizes the work she has done to promote conservation and up-grade preservation standards at all of the museums within the state.

For the next two years, Helen will be coordinating Alaska SOS!. Because a large focus of the project is to promote appreciation and build awareness of maintenance needs of outdoor sculpture, Alaska SOS! includes totem poles and house screens.

The Alaska State Museum is developing an electronic bulletin board which will be accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem. There are five current topic areas, one of which is conservation. More information will be published in Museums Alaska Network.

Regional Reporter:

Alice Bear
Conservator of Works of Art on Paper
P.O. Box 24262
Seattle, WA 98124
(206) 323-5219

Greater Los Angeles and Santa Barbara

Glenn Wharton would like to announce the birth of twin boys, Paul and Alexander, born Nov. 27, 1993. The boys will live with their mother, Steacy Alexander, and Glenns sister in Vancouver, B.C. Glenn plans to spend much of his time participating in their upbringing.

Marc Harnly has left the Balboa Art Cons. Center to join the Dept. of Photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum, as associate photographic conservator.

In August Jeff Maish treated several objects from Sipan, Peru which were damaged in transit. The objects are in L.A. for the Royal Tombs of Sipan Exhibit at the Fowler Museum, UCLA.

Lisbet Thorsen traveled to Berlin, Dresden and New York where she continued her investigation of ancient engraved gemstones in preparation for an upcoming publication.

Eduardo Sanchez attended the ICCROM 10th International Stone Conservation Course in Venice from September 13 - November 16.

In August Jerry Podany joined an inernational team from the Getty Conservation Institute to complete the first phase of in-situ conservation of the Laetoli footprint trackway in Tanzania, Africa. The trackway preserves the first evidence of bipedalism in human evolution, 3.6 million years ago.

J. Paul Getty Museum mountmaker Bob Seiger has completed a seismic mitigation survey for the Will Rogers Historical House and Collection in Pacific Palisades, CA. He was assisted by Ariana Makau, a summer intern.

The Antiquities Conservation staff is in the process of carrying out a collection survey for the California African American Art Museum.

In October the Antiquities Conservation Department hosted Losinka Koynova-Arnaudova, Senior Researcher, for one week. Ms. Koynova- Arnaudova gave a lecture discussing the conservation of the wall paintings of several Thracian Tombs.

In October, Martha Simpson, a third-year intern from the Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College, began her one- year internship in Antiquities Conservation at the Getty.

Robert Keefe, frame specialist in the paintings conservation department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is leaving the museum to pursue his interest in sculpture and independently build fine painting stretchers and frames. Ulrich Birkmaier, intern, has assumed a two-year post as Culpepper Fellow in Conservation at the National Gallery. The department welcomes Isabelle Tokumaro from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, who has joined the department staff as current intern. Working with the department on a special project is Insun Cho from Santa Monica College of Design, Art and Architecture.

Aitchison and Watters hosted Friends of the Graphic Arts, the support group of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at U.C.L.A., at their studio in December. Robert Aitchison and Mark Watters will be lecturing on conservation at a photography exhibition and seminar at the Sun Valley Center for Arts and Humanities in Sun Valley, Idaho in February, 1994. Robert was elected to the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, soon to share a renovated building in Hollywood with Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Robert opened on November 6, at Gallery Tre Grazie in the Napa Valley.

Lisa Forman has been conducting a survey of Japanese woodblock prints at the Los Angeles County Museum, under the direction of Victoria Blyth-Hill. The one-year project is being funded by an IMS grant. Lisa will reorganize the collection storage and write a final report outlining survey procedures and priorities for treatment and recommendations for future improvements.

Terry Schaeffer continues her association with the LACMA Paper Conservation laboratory in a research capacity. She is preparing manuscripts reporting the results of the recent lacma/gci aqueous light bleaching project, as well as an updated bibliography on this procedure.

Rosa Lowinger returned from teaching a 2-week course on the conservation of cast iron cannons. The course was held at an 18th c. spanish fort on the Caribbean coast of Honduras and consisted of training Honduran technicians in chloride removal and preservation of cannons, cannonballs and other cast iron artifacts. The course was sponsored by the United States Information Agency and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History. Plans are being made to do a second ourse next year at a different Honduran fort that would include technicians from all over Latin America. An international conference in the conservation of cultural property will be held in Havana, Cuba in April of this year. Rosa would like to encourage conservators to attend. It will provide an opportunity to travel in a country otherwise off limits to American visitors (due to Government policy). Anyone interested in more information may contact Rosa at (213) 935-7266.

Irena Calinescu has joined the Objects Conservation Section at LACMA as an NEA/Mellon Fellow until October 94. She has just recently completed her third year internship in the Antiquities Conservation Department at the J.Paul Getty Museum as part of her program at Buffalo. At LACMA she will be assisting Don Menveg and the staff with the preparation of American furniture for a large exhibition opening in Feb. 94. Also, many interesting and challenging projects with Indian, Middle Eastern, Pre-Columbian, American, and 20th Century artworks have been scheduled.

Emily Dunn continues for another year in LACMA Objects Conservation as an NEA/Mellon Fellow where her high level of diligent output will again help carry the section through another blizzard of activity. She has also been helping Pieter Meyers on his continuing ancient silver research project. Mina Gregory also will be working in LACMA Objects Conservation on a voluntary basis as a pre-program intern with Maureen Russell and Steve Colton. She is also taking chemistry course work in preparation for application to the programs.

Paper Conservator Joanne Page retired in December from LACMA after more than fourteen years of service. She will be doing private work on paper and books, specializing in antique childrens books, pop-ups and moveables. Joanne attended the Guild of Book Workers seminar in December.

Montserrat Lemense and Sara Reiter joined the conservation center at LACMA last September for their 3rd-year internships from the Winterthur Conservation Training Program. Montserrat will be working in paintings conservation under the supervision of Joseph Fronek and Sara will be working in textiles conservation under the supervision of Catherine McLean.

Stephanie Cooper is dividing her time as a pre-program intern between the textiles conservation lab at LACMA and the studio of Rosa Lowinger.

Rachel Norris spent last fall as a pre-program intern in the paintings conservation lab at LACMA. She is completing coursework in chemistry in preparation for her application to conservation training programs.

Aneta Zebala is pleased to announce the opening of a private practice in paintings conservation in Santa Monica. Her new address is: 2122 Ocean Park Blvd. Suite 9, Santa Monica, CA 90405. Her phone number is: (310) 396-2332. Aneta recently attended a conference in Brescia, Italy. The conference was entitled: Frescoes Restoration; Experience, Methods, and Criteria of Conservation. The conference was coordinated by three conservation programs: Confcooperative Unione Provinciale, Brescia, Italy; the Fine Arts Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark; and the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow, Poland.

Chris Stavroudis spent August and September in Australia. He was invited by WAAC member Benita Johnson to teach the paintings conservation curriculum at the NCCHSS (National Centre for Cultural Heritage Science Studies) at the University of Canberra. While down under, he also spoke at the Annual General Meeting of the ACT section of the AICCM (Australian Institue for the Conservation of Cultural Materials). The lecture was on Recent Constroversial Conservation Isues in the USA.

Regional Reporters:

Virginia Rasmussen
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 9003
(213) 857-6168

Sasha Stollman
Glenn Wharton & Associates
549 Hot Springs Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93108
(805) 565-7639