Daly Conservation

I was excited to be involved in the large treatment of a sculpture by Louise Nevelson at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  The treatment had to be performed in the galleries and this offered an opportunity for public outreach and visitor involvement.  The whole process has been very rewarding and exciting and I have enjoyed speaking to visitors about the sculpture, Louise Nevelson, the treatment, and about art conservation.The Nelson-Atkins Blog ran a post that outlines the upcoming treatment and the activities involved.  I am available on Thursdays and Fridays at 11am and 1pm to speak to visitors about the treatment and answer questions, and there is a family weekend on February 19th and 20th from 1-4 pm that involves a hands-on activity.

The treatment would not have been possible without docent volunteers who have stood guard while I work, answering questions from visitors and  explaining conservation.  Working with docents has been rewarding because they are so skilled at speaking to children and adults about art and they have a passion for art and the museum.

I collaborated with the marketing department to edit the press release, and I was interviewed for NBC Action News. My first television interview. Art Daily picked up the story and has a great story with a wonderful image of the Nevelson sculpture.

The blog kc jewel featured a post about meeting me and seeing the conservation that was very kind and I was really touched, and the author took some great photos of me look wistfully into the distance which I love. The fantastic blog Cabinet of Curiosities has a post about working while surrounded by visitors and how to address the issues that arise.

A few words of advice about this type of project for conservators. This is a great opportunity to hear feedback about a work of art, people really love this sculpture and it is inspiring to hear them talk about how important it is to them. It is not the easiest thing to deliver treatment for 5-hours (with a lunch break) for three days straight. Not every treatment lends itself to this type of continual action either, but luckily (or not) the Nevelson has already required around 38 hours of surface cleaning (8 hours of vacuuming, 30 hours of tapping a small sponge on the surface to remove dirt). I haven’t worked this much at a treatment since I was at Shelburne Museum in the summer of 2009. The surface cleaning is 2/3 completed, and I will probably be working some additional days to make it in time. It is also humbling speaking to children because you begin to realize the questions they ask are really quite good and insightful and make you question your treatment decisions, just a little, probably good practice for my graduation oral defense, from a most surprising place.

The headlamp, I know just when you thought conservation was the most nerdy profession yet, I had to go and wear a headlamp during a treatment, it is really necessary and quite useful!

I had a great weekend of visiting art in Lawrence and Kansas City.
On Friday night I went to the opening of a good friend, and conservation technician Anna Zimmerman. Her work was in a small gallery in the crossroads district. It was “First Friday” when there are numerous shows and openings, but the crowds were relatively small because of the recent snOMG that hit the mid-west. The show is called Hidden Interlopers and it is at Plenum Art Space. The artist’s statement includes: “Anna Zimmerman is intrigued by the contrast between sterile, safe environments and the natural world. Hidden battles between animals and humans, within cultural institutions, go on all the time, unbeknownst to the average visitor. Museums must go to enormous lengths to safely preserve their collections from these trespassers - which may involve algae growing on fountains, moths and ladybugs trapped inside cases, and ant colonies marching their way under the doors and through the cracks.”

The ink jet prints of spaces in the museum showed algae, water, insects, spiders webbing, and other materials out of place in the otherwise sterile environment of the museum.

On Sunday I went on a trip to Lawrence with Tessa. We first stopped at the gallery Wonder Fair. Wonder Fair is a gallery that was begun by 4 colleagues who make up the wonder fair “family”. It is a small space filled with delicate and finely executed works of art on paper, books, t-shirts, and small objects.  There is currently an exhibit of “New and Used” work by Jimmy Trotter.  Trotter’s work is described by Peregine Honig as upsetting and delightful.  I couldn’t think of a better way to describe them.   

We then visited the Spencer Museum on KU campus. It is a interesting collection with items spanning hundreds of years. During our tour we   encountered alabaster statues, art nouveau decorative arts, paintings, photographs, and a contemporary installation by Dan Perjovschi called Central Court. This piece was particularly captivating.  The artist drew with permenant black markets on the walls of the central court.  He drew cartoon-like images  accompanied by text and abstract shapes.  The themes were political and social commentary, and also very funny.   The central court has two polychromed sculptures that were not de-installed for this installation and it was interesting to see them in the context of a completely contemporary piece of art.  I enjoyed touring the museum’s permenant collection which is interesting and eclectic.

I’ve been reflecting a great deal about the unrest in Egypt.  It is most touching that ordinary Egyptian citizens are creating human chains around museums and preventing looting.  These Egyptians are equally concerned with the creation of a democratic future for their country as well as the protection of the culture of their past.  It made me think about whether I would risk my life to protect a museum or a piece of cultural heritage in my country.  Where is my cultural heritage stored, is it in the great museums? Or are those museums filled with objects of other cultures, from other countries and other times?

The closest I have come to dying for culture was when there was a triple-homicide across the street from my hotel at the AIC 2010 meeting in Milwaukee.

It hit me on the drive home that there is a piece of art I would die for.  Henry Moore’s Large Torso: Arch

If you’ve been following the Nelson-Atkins blog you’ve seen my posts about the re-location and treatment of this piece, it is taller than I am and  has presented many challenges.  At some point during the treatment I fell in love with the sculpture.  Maybe it was a feeling between love and happiness, but all I wanted was to be around the sculpture, all the time.  I dreamt of it, I missed it.

I am in a profession that is increasingly referring to science and analytical methods as a justification for funding their existence.  I will never use science to tell me what happened to me, and to that sculpture during my treatment. It makes me sad to think if there are others in this profession who have never felt this way about a work of art.

I’ve forgotten what fun is.

It happens, I guess you start immersing yourself in work and then you wake up one day and wonder what fun is and if you ever had it. In my life there is working and not working and I think it hit me a while ago that this may not be ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’.

So, in an attempt to have fun and to learn I have partnered with two photography/paper conservation students and we have decided to explore the local museums in the Kansas City area. They are lots of fun and it is really nice to have people you can talk about light levels and humidity with when you are visiting a museum or gallery.

So far we have gone to the Toy and Miniature Museum - which was one of those really bizarre collections that I wonder if you only find in America. It begins with collections of doll houses, which I thought would be dull but are really quite interesting, especially since the doll houses cover a range of styles and time periods. The miniatures are amazing examples of fine skills, including one miniature that is a Queen Ann Secretary, complete with dovetail joins, burled walnut veneer, ebony and holly inlay, and 19 secret compartments! I cannot imagine making a life-sized version of this secretary, and in miniature it is completely amazing.

Our second weekend trip was to the National World War I museum. This is the only museum in the United States about the first world war, and it has an expansive collection of weapons, posters, uniforms, and personal mementos from the war. Most of the artifacts are French, English, or American with very few German or Russian artifacts. The space is organized chronologically and you can walk through the years of the war. It is a very emotional and interesting museum. It is personally touching for me because my grandfather left Galveston, Texas and went to St. Louis for army training in 1918 and my family still has a few of the items he owned. After seeing Manfred von Richtofen (the Red Baron), we were hungry for some Red Baron pizza, so we picked some up on the way back and celebrated the Baron.

Our third weekend we went contemporary and saw the Nerman Museum at the Johnson County Community College campus. The Nerman has a permenant collection of contemporary art, as well as three temporary exhibition spaces. There were many installations and I was told that the artist’s performed all the installation work. I always wonder whether artist’s feel that installing art is a necessary part of making art. When I worked for a photographer she set up the photographs but felt that the processing of the photographs was more ‘crafty’ and not a part of her art process.  It is worth documenting these artistic decisions as it could influence future conservation treatments.

This weekend, weather permitting, we will go to Lawrence, Kansas to see some galleries and continue to explore. Any suggestions?