Daly Conservation

Now, I’m almost thru with my second-year of grad school and I have been corresponding with a number of applicants who have been chosen for interviews.  The memories come back of the two years that I interviewed and all the hype, hope, and fear that you have at that point in your career.  It is an interesting time, you feel like the decision you have to make is huge and you desperately want the admissions committee to recognize all the work you’ve done for little or no pay over the past few years.  I was fortunate, my first year applying I was invited to interview at all 3 schools I applied to, here was my first interview experiences.

The practical things you should know: plan on spending around $600-$700 in flights, food, and housing if you are a triple-threat interviewee. I did not rent a car or pay for a hotel, but I did buy a suit, which made me feel more comfortable and professional for the interview, you may also buy a professional portfolio binder, clear sheet protectors, dividers, and an art portfolio case.   You will be offered housing with a student at Winterthur and Buffalo, NYU recommends a hotel.  Everyone tells you to ask for feedback from the schools if you are not accepted, to improve your next application.  My experience was that NYU and Winterthur gave me feedback, Buffalo never got back to me.

NYU - Institute of Fine Arts Conservation Center

This was my first interview, and I really wanted to go to NYU, I had been working in Houston where Wynne Phelan was the head of the conservation department at the MFAH. She was a graduate of one of the first classes from NYU and she was and is an inspiration and a bit of a personal hero to me.

The NYU interview was shorter than the other two in length, basically a 15-20 minute powerpoint presentation and then a quick look at the art you brought.  It was quick, but it was grilling, I remember being asked a myriad of questions “Why don’t you just expose the photographs to the maximum level of light and then put them in storage forever after that? Isn’t that the same as displaying photographs and then putting them away, then displaying them again?” I still don’t know what this question was getting at, but later someone said they were probably trying to see what I would say if a curator brought up some similar scheme.  I really liked the visit, the labs had a lot of light, and the summer projects sounded very interesting.  I think I wrote a brief condition report of a artifact and had a tour.  I remember standing in front of their case of Forbes pigments the with one of the other interviewees and whispering toward the case “I’m not getting into this school”, without looking up from the case she said “Neither am I”.  I don’t remember her name, but I really hope she stuck with conservation, she was great.

Buffalo State 

This was my second interview.   I had met and worked with Jill Whitten and Rob Proctor in Houston and I completely loved them, they are also huge fans of Buffalo and I believe they return every other year to teach about varnishes. I was unsure how I felt about Buffalo going into the interview.

The Buffalo interview is longer, around an hour, with a 20-minute presentation, but more questions and chats, and a lot of laughter, I remember thinking I should have added more jokes into the presentation. They also look at your artwork and ask you more detailed questions about documentation.  I remember being asked about a textile BT photograph I had taken on a slant board and “Do you know the exact angle of that slant board?” to which I answered “The same angle as the camera lens, I measured them both before I took the shot.”  The interview process also includes a basic color blindness test and tour of the labs.  The interview is more social, the students have dinner parties each night and if you stay with a student they can look over your portfolio and presentation.  I was pleasantly surprised by the school and the town of Buffalo, I really enjoyed it there.

Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservtion - WUDPAC 

I remember I had around 4 days between interviews and I had to impose on my friend Ariel O’Connor in Buffalo to let me stay with her until I flew to Delaware.   In Wilmington I stayed with another friend, Lisa Duncan who was in her first-year as a photography conservation fellow.  Lisa and I had worked in photography conservation together in Houston with Toshi Koseki a WUDPAC grad who is still very connected to the program.

The interview at WUDPAC is epic.  The day begins with a talk by Debbie Hess Norris about the importance of conserving our cultural heritage, followed by a science test.  Then there are a series of stations: a colorblindness test, drawing test, essay, tour of the labs, tour of the house and garden, and there’s a lot of food to keep you going throughout the day, if you can eat.  The interview itself is sandwiched in there somewhere, it is around 20 minutes of presentation, Joyce Hill Stoner will ask you about your favorite museum and/or “What would be an unethical treatment?” .  Your art portfolio is looked over briefly.  Then  you are given your choice of an artifact that you take to the front of the room and describe it physically, the current condition (it is always in fair/poor condition) then say how you would treat it. The students will have a dinner or party ever night and it is a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed Winterthur and Delaware, and I felt like having a more thorough interview was a better assessment of me as a candidate.

That year, I was not accepted into any of the programs.  I was crushed, and completely broke after flying from Texas to New York City, Buffalo, and Wilmington.  I moped around the lab for weeks until my supervisor Jane Gillies said to me at one point, “Look, no one is surprised that you didn’t get into grad school the first time you applied.  Everyone is impressed that you got three interviews.”

Photograph by Jack Delano Library of Congress

I’ve got my 1. registration (thanks Gutmann funding) 2. plane ticket 3. hotel.

I’ve also got 1. my roomate, Colombian textile conservator Catalina Hernandez - who will be presenting about her research on the use of surgical fabrics in textile conservation, a prequel of her research can be downloaded from the Washington Conservation Guild newsletter.

2. around $200 left in my book fund to buy the Getty Publications floor copies of their books.

I feel pretty prepared, and now to look over the schedule.

I am flying in on Tuesday mid-day.  There will be an Emerging Conservation Professional Network (ECPN) event that evening, time and place are TBD.  I will probably spend most of Tuesday wandering around the city or in my hotel room working on finalizing a report for WUDPAC.

I am probably attending most of the Objects Specialty Group sessions, and I am very interested in hearing the joint lunch with the Objects Specialty Group and the Electronic Media Group, covering case studies in contemporary art hosted by the International Network for the Conservation of Contemporary Art-North America (INCCA-NA).  Glenn Wharton is speaking at Winterthur on Wednesday, February 24th so I might get a preview of the case studies that will be discussed in May.

I am also definitely going to attend some of the lectures about environmental standards and sustainability, as that has been the focus of my preventive conservation studies.   There will be two presentations on Wednesday, May 12th in the afternoon general session: Steve Weintraub will be discussing how to quantify risk of damage with environmental standards, and Patty Silence will be discusing the challenges of sustainable conservation in the 21st Century.

On Thursday I can sleep in and see the poster session at 10AM, then go to the IIC Roundtable discussion about environmental standards.  This was one of my main reasons for attending this year, as I had to convince myself that I could take the time off and why the AIC meeting this year was going to be important to my future research.  I found many explanations as to why conservators have certain environmental standards and most of my research convinced me that standards are not based on scientific research but dependent on what  building systems can maintain.  The roundtable has a number of very important conservators, scientists, and directors and I am very interested to hear what they have to say.

Friday it will be the objects sessions in the morning, then a lecture in the afternoon from the Wooden Artifacts Group (WAG) - Changing Requirements for the Museum Environment.

Saturday I will be giving a hand with the ‘Angels Project’  (which I haven’t figured out how to sign-up for yet, if anyone knows please post in the comments section).  I fly back to Delaware on Saturday afternoon.

Damien Hirst’s most recent show at the Gagosian gallery, entitled End of an Era may be the chance he has been waiting for to make a change in his work.  But, in watching the stealth video it seems to me to be the same things, preserved animals, glitter, and gold.  I have seen Hirst a few times, I really loved Pharmacy, probably because it reminded me of Joseph Cornell’s Pharmacy and I like artist’s who can quietly reference the fact that art has been recycling ideas for the past 50 years.

Now Hirst has become pop, using diamonds, probably in reference to Andy Warhol, and gold, and of course more dead animals, but this time they have more bling. For some reason the youtube video began to go very fast for the last 5 minutes, and I thought it was a much better way to watch the show, fast, glittery, jumpy, and a little out of control.

I just watched (around 3 times) the trailer for the new documentary about the move of the Barnes Collection, The Art of the Steal.  It is a beautiful trailer, and it appears to be a very well-done movie about the art and the politics involved in the moving of the collection from Merion, PA to downtown Philadelphia.

I have been following the controversy of the move for a while, beginning with the architectural issues involved in moving the collection into a new building.  The architect Robert Venturi spoke out against the seperation of the the art from the buidling that was purpose-built to hold it.  He also points out that when the art is moved to Philadelphia the ticket sales will be taxed with the Philadelphia  “culture tax“.   It is clear there are many forces at work in the moving of this collection, worth $25 billion, and it is an interesting look at the commodification of culture.

The final version of my paper on HVAC shut downs has been written, edited, and turned-in to my advisor Dr. Joelle Wickens.  It will live in the files at Winterthur, and hopefully I will find a forum where I can talk about my findings with other interested conservators or building managers.  This project has made me more aware of groups like the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) who may be interested in energy saving practices from a art conservation point of view.  Following is my project summary:

This study investigates how the environmental parameters required by a collection can be met using sustainable practices.
To save both energy and money it is possible to turn off Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. If the systems are turned off when the buildings are unoccupied it is more likely the conditions in the buildings will remain stable. By turning off HVAC systems for short periods of time, the systems can be run in a more sustainable way as there will be less wear on  motors and fans.  The project researched the practice of these short shut-downs, and included a three-day HVAC shut down test at Winterthur.

Winterthur is a historic house that has 175 period rooms with various materials including: furniture, decorative arts, works of art on paper, books, paintings on wood and canvas, leather, basketry, glass, metals, and textiles. The building has thick masonry walls, insulation, and double pane windows.  The HVAC was installed in the 1960’s. The parameters at Winterthur in the winter are: 68°F-72°F, Relative Humidity (RH) 40% +/- 5%; in the summer the parameters are: 72-75°F, RH 50% +/- 5%. These parameters are a conservative standard for the materials in this collection.
A mild week in September was chosen for the shutdown, as the outside conditions would be similar to the collection parameters. During the 12-hour shutdown it was decided (by Bruno Pouliot) that if there were trends in the temperature and humidity moving quickly away from the parameters the systems would be turned back on.  Monitoring was done in a thorough and
systematic way, with readings taken by: building thermostats, thirteen dataloggers, and the building engineers took readings every two hours with a hand-held hygrothermograph.

The shutdown was for 12-hours, the entire system was turned off from 6:00 PM until 6:00 AM, three nights were tested.   The building temperature and RH remained within the parameters and the systems did not have to be turned on to regulate the environment.

There were fluctuations, the overall trend was that temperatures were elevated a few degrees, and the RH was elevated a few percentages.  The elevated temperature and RH is noticeable in the data charts, but when the data is examined in long time the changes during the shutdown are similar in degree to other general environmental fluctuations.

Interviews with conservators, archivists, and building managers gave insight into similar practices that will or have been taken at other institutions. These professionals described their experiences shutting down systems for days, weeks, or a season in a variety of climates spanning the United States.  They spoke positively about their experiences, the environment in their collections remained stable or improved and they saved energy and funds, in some cases thousands of dollars were saved. Data was also collected about system setbacks, and the buffering ability of buildings with no environmental control. The success of these conservators and of the Winterthur test case may indicate to other museums the possibility of using similar methods to save energy and funds while maintaining the environmental parameters required by their collection.
This research may continue as I move on to my third-year internship, and I will definitely continue to study sustainable facilities management as I find time and support for my research.