AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

One of the things that frustrated me the most when I began my graduate training at University College London was learning there is no single “right” answer when it comes to conservation. My professors always seemed to say, “it depends” there are many ways to achieve the same goal and many wrong answers. I struggled to wrap my mind around this concept. I was so used to things being either wrong or right that this sent my perfectionist brain into an existential spiral. This is something that I see often in my undergraduate art conservation students at the University of Delaware. They want to be told what something is, when it was made, and what the best way is to treat it. It is surprising how often I have to tell students to start with Google and Jstor and look at museums with similar types of collections when they are working on conservation reports. I understand though; uncertainty is very uncomfortable and my current students spent most of their high school and part of college years on Zoom. I really appreciate my professors’ approach. It gave us the opportunity to be wrong and problem solve. I try to pass this on to my undergraduate students. I believe embracing the shades of gray leads to research avenues, creative solutions, and student self-confidence in their decision making abilities. Even the language we use in conservation treatment proposals and condition reports incorporates this nebulousness: “probably,” “possibly,” “this evidence suggests.” Our on-site analytical techniques are limited to a multiband light source, imaging techniques, and microscopy. Special projects can be further analyzed with the help of Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library’s Scientific Research and Analysis Laboratory, but most student projects are limited to these visual techniques. Rather than being a hindrance, this allows students to develop critical thinking skills. We strive to teach them how to find this information, rather than challenging them to recall this very specific detail by memory. Even with my training, as a student I struggled to admit that I did not know something and was too intimidated to ask my supervisors, which led to me making a series of unnecessary mistakes in one of my internships. I see this tendency in my own students. I believe it is a product of the perfectionism promulgated by conservation programs, intentional or otherwise–the feeling that you can only enter the field by being a perfect, omniscient, full-formed conservator. I try my best to alleviate their fears. on the first day of each class I teach, I assure my undergrads that I am here to teach them, not test them. I can see a visible relaxation after I say these words. I still do not provide them with concrete answers, now I find myself saying “it depends,” but I am happy to guide their research towards a more useful path.