AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) would like to announce the 2024 recipients of our awards. Since 1974, AIC has awarded members and allied professionals for outstanding and distinguished contributions to the field of conservation.

David Magoon-University Products Conservation Advocacy Award for conservation professionals who have advanced the field of conservation and furthered the cause of conservation through substantial efforts in outreach and advocacy.
Martha Singer, Chief Conservator, Material Whisperer

Allied Professionals Special Recognition award for the work and contributions from professionals in other fields to the advancement of the conservation profession
Robin Hodgson, Owner, RH Conservation Engineering

Emerging Leader Award for outstanding service to the organization by a member in the early stage of their career
Abed Haddad, Assistant Conservation Scientist, Museum of Modern Art

Robert L. Feller Lifetime Achievement Award for exceptional contributions to the conservation profession throughout one's career
Abigail B. Quandt, Head of Book and Paper Conservation, The Walters Art Museum
Donna K. Strahan, Head, Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, National Museum of Asian Art

Forbes Medal for distinguished contributions to the field of conservation and celebrates those whose work on a national or international platform has significantly advanced the preservation of cultural heritage.
Debra Hess Norris

Rutherford John Gettens Award for outstanding service to the organization
Kerith Koss Schrager, Head of Conservation, National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Molly C. Gleeson, Head Conservator, Penn Museum

Honorary Membership for outstanding contributions to the conservation profession
Tony Sigel, conservator of objects and sculpture in private practice

Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award for excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals
Michael C. Henry, Principal, Michael C. Henry, LLC / Watson & Henry Associates
Ann Shaftel, Director, Treasure Caretaker Training

Publication Award for excellence in an article or book on conservation
Properties of Plastics: A Guide for Conservators by Thea van Oosten
Scientific Studies of Pigments in Chinese Paintings by Dr. Blythe McCarthy and Dr. Jennifer Giaccai

President Award for exceptional work in helping collections caretakers in Maui, Hawaii, respond to damage from the devastating August 2023 wildfires
Liane Naauao, Paper Conservator, University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
Malia Van Heukelem, Archivist, Librarian and Collections Manager, University of Hawaii at Manoa Library

Foundation Service Award for outstanding service to the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation
Max Marmor, recently retired President, Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Antoine "Ton" Wilmering, recently retired Senior Program Officer, Getty Foundation

Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections honors institutions in North America that have shown an exemplary and sustained commitment to conservation and collections care through interpretation, research, scholarship, education, and/or public outreach.
The Walters Art Gallery

CAA/AIC Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation (awarded by CAA this spring)
Han Neevel
Birgit Reissland 

Please join us in congratulating these recipients for 2024! We will live stream the presentation for all members. Come hear about your colleagues and their contributions to the field. We know you will find it inspiring!

General Order # 3 is an original document of the United States government that bears witness to the events of June 19, 1865. This day is commemorated as Juneteenth and since 2021 is celebrated as a federal holiday. The Order was issued by U.S. Army General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas. It fulfilled the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was signed by President Lincoln two and a half years earlier.

This presentation describes the journey of discovery of the original Order in the stacks of the US National Archives that served as context for decisions on the conservation and exhibition of the historic government ledger. The story of this conservation treatment is a lesson in treating a bound volume containing a document of monumental significance as a whole object in order to retain meaningful historicity and to ensure the physical stability of the displayed pages.

For the thousands of people including US Citizens and international visitors who see the Juneteenth order exhibited along with the Emancipation Proclamation, the conservation treatment outcome informs the viewer on the role of archives to preserve the written record in original formats when possible and practical. The presentation describes the debate on whether to disbind or retain the ledger format, the treatment itself, and some observations on the details of the complex treatment, including an unexpected detail in the midst of the project.

The UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage is addressing our changing and uncertain future from multiple angles, including an increased engagement with historically underrepresented communities. Our recently created Director of Community Engagement and Inclusive Practice position was specifically designed to employ a conservator who could help the Program contribute to the preservation of African American cultural heritage. In time, we hope to expand our model to serve other underserved communities. This presentation will cover the structure of this position as a model for engaging with underrepresented communities and further instigating DEIA progress. We include examples of our current work with community partners, and present challenges faced in our efforts.

The Community Engagement and Inclusive Practice initiative has a number of distinct goals. In addition to forming external preservation-focused collaborations with African American organizations, we also seek to codify inclusive thinking into the educational experience within our Program through developing collaborative projects for coursework, creating internship opportunities related to African American culture and history, providing diverse learning opportunities for students, and revising Program policies. Time for outreach and activism is also built into the role.

The American conservation field is woefully lacking in diversity. Although conservators handle a wide variety of cultural items, they typically work within a colonial framework in which African American material culture is overlooked. Here we present targeted investment in community engagement as a pathway towards increased inclusion of African American people and their cultural heritage. Too often DEIA work is an add-on to cultural heritage practices, and conservators of color regularly take on this extra work without additional compensation. We believe that DEIA advances are doomed to fail or will have very little long-term effect if there are not paid staff dedicated to this work.

Although the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program has a history of championing DEIA and community outreach projects, it became clear that a specific position was needed through which the Director could devote the majority of her time to creating collaborative projects with underrepresented communities. We also gave this position a local focus so that the Conservation Program could practice the ethos of being a good neighbor and reach out to those in our direct vicinity. This meant first extending a hand towards a wider circle of individuals within the UCLA community, followed by culturally specific arts institutions in Southern California and local conservators. We believe that it is the responsibility of conservators to respond to population diversity and to raise expectations by initiating conversations with historically underrepresented communities. With an open mind, conservators can respond to community needs while simultaneously working to revise our internal organizational cultures. In this way, embracing change will ultimately make our field more resilient to change and better positioned to contribute to preservation efforts that engage communities with their cultural heritage in addition to preserving it for the future.

The Trans Memory Archive (AMT for its acronym in Spanish) is a collaborative and independent project founded in 2012 by trans activist María Belén Correa as a result of her friendship with Claudia Pía Baudracco. During her lifetime, Claudia Pía has devoted herself to keeping photos and letters of herself and her friends with the intention of keeping a record of her life and the life of the transvestite/trans collective. For many years, the trans collective was marked by persecution and state abandonment, the denial of their identity in educational and health institutions and the continuous association with delinquency. Months before the approval of the Gender Law in Argentina, Claudia passed away and left as a legacy to María Belén the collection of photographs she had treasured. These photographs, survivors of exile, dictatorship and police repression, are the triggers of the Trans Memory Archive.

In its beginnings, the AMT was a virtual space organized through a private group within the Facebook platform. For more than two years, more than 1,400 members of the Argentine trans community shared their photographs, testimonies and memories from different regions of the world. In 2014, Cecilia Estalles, visual artist and current general coordinator, joined the project. Together with María Belén, they began to search for and collect the photographic and written material of the survivors with the intention of digitizing it and disseminating the project.

In September 2021, thanks to the International Trans Fund support, the team was able to rent a space specifically for its archiving tasks. At that time, I was called to train the conservation area to renew the storage systems for photographs.

The tasks within the AMT are carried out by a team made up of trans survivors over 50 years of age. With them we initiated a collaborative work of mutual and continuous learning. As a result, we generate models of paper envelopes for photographs, sewed by sewing machine, without adhesives. We also designed folded models of folders and boxes to contain the units and photo albums. We designed work strategies that would allow us to repeat our processes and to teach new members the tasks we had been performing.

The purpose of this work is to share an experience where the protagonists are the ones in charge of preserving the photographs and documents that recover their memory. They have gradually learned conservation and archival tasks. This allowed them to improve their procedures and expand their work in relation to the management of written, photographic and audiovisual material.

We believe that it is relevant for the field of conservation to incorporate voices that for years have been silenced and to highlight their work and collective struggle. One of the main strengths of the Archive is the commitment of its members and the conviction that the preservation of memory allows us to build a future with greater equality, dialogue and collective construction.

Amy Barry Cemetery Program Manager Utah State Historic Preservation Office 3760 S Highland Dr Millcreek, UT 84106 amybarry@utah.gov 801-245-7247

Creating a Preservation Program: The Challenges of Engaging the Public

In the absence of any organized, skilled effort to further preservation people seek information in accessible places. The public generally have no method in which to gauge its value or acceptability. Cemetery conservation has been a growing field of interest for people that has resulted in many incorrect and damaging practices in the effort to conserve. Consequently, well-intentioned people have attempted repairs on historic stones that have caused more harm than good. Often when conservators speak of cultural heritage they are focused on work held in a museum or other venue with a custodial presence. This view completely ignores the heritage, artwork, and history found in cemeteries.

Research and laboratory testing for stone conservation, specifically for headstones has been driven by work done on east coast and southern states. It has yielded knowledge on the best practices going forward and the products that will not cause harm to the stones. Yet, this knowledge is not readily accessible or passed down to the public level in a way that the can discern what is correct. This knowledge gap in headstone conservation was the catalyst to create a preservation effort within the Utah Cemetery Program. The program specifically works to educate and connect the public with this knowledge and hands-on practice.

In my proposed presentation, I will talk about the creation of the preservation program for cemeteries and how it interacts with the general public, interested organizations, cemetery personnel and other practitioners. I will discuss the challenges of communicating the art and science of conservation with the public as we work to preserve the cultural heritage of our ancestors.

In August 2022, full scale charcoal preparatory drawings and over one hundred ink/sumi drawings were found inside Chiura Obata’s four-panel folding screen. A prominent Japanese American artist of the twentieth century with a unique focus on the American West, Chiura Obata (1885-1975) was born in Japan, trained in traditional Japanese painting, and immigrated to the United States in 1903 at the age of 18. He remained relatively obscure until recent decades. Obata created sketches of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake, and watercolors and prints that celebrate the quiet beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains along with other western landscapes. He became a faculty member of the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 1932. His body of work came during the early twentieth century at a time of high anti-Japanese immigrant sentiment, and the artist himself was forced into an internment camp in Topaz, Utah, during World War II.

In 2022, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) was gifted 35 of Obata’s works from the artist’s family. One of the works was “Horses”, a four-panel folding screen that illustrates a synthesis of Japanese and American art techniques and the artist’s mastery of sumi painting. This screen was not part of a 2018 retrospective on the artist at the UMFA due to condition issues.

Through a generous grant from the Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project in 2022, “Horses” was sent to The Nishio Conservation Studio in Washington D.C. for conservation treatment that included full remounting of the painting. During the dismantling, a multitude of surprises were discovered including full scale preparatory charcoal drawings of “Horses” and over one hundred sumi-ink study drawings hidden inside the screen – a finding worthy of a second conservation grant from Bank of America in 2023.

This four-panel folding screen was perhaps constructed by the artist himself with materials available to him at the time. The under-core lattice wood was made from American cedar, not sugi Japanese cedar. Japanese paper was difficult to source so the artist used his own practice sketches to build up the internal layers of the screen. These rare drawings reveal Obata’s academic training, teaching methods and artistry with his contemporary ArtDeco influences.

This presentation will provide an overview of Obata’s work in the early 1930s, leading up to the production of “Horses” and his techniques featuring the unique fusion of Japan and California. The conservation treatment of the screen, along with the surprises found will be discussed. The four-panel screen, full scale preparatory drawings, selected works found within the screen, and a documentary video detailing this compelling story will be on view in Chiura Obata: “Layer by Layer, An Inside Look At Horses” – a special installation at the UMFA dedicated to the conservation work of this incredible discovery during the AIC Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, 2024.

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.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has become increasingly focused on issues of object access and sustainability, while its Conservation department continues to preserve and maintain the 2.8 million objects in its collections to the highest level possible. This has conventionally presented a conflict and tension between departments within museums. This conflict has felt particularly acute during turbulent times, when the unexpected is the most frequent occurrence and the stakes seem high. For example, the V&A no longer assumes couriers will accompany loans out and tours, which has encouraged debate about how we in Conservation will continue to meet our preservation aims while also being pragmatic.

This presentation is about the implementation of a novel approach to risk management within the Conservation department at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, specifically in the context of exhibitions and loans out decision making. This approach now allows the museum to default to ‘yes’ more often with a confidence that collections care and object protection remain our top priority, while also encouraging sustainability and more innovative conservation practice.

Using specific examples and use cases, the presentation will outline how concerns that are rooted in conventional 20th-century conservation practices can be alleviated, as well as the benefits and outcomes of using 21st-century strategic risk approaches that make best use of technologies and expertise to help an institution more easily achieve its wider goals of access, inclusion, and education. A risk-based approach does not allow us to control the outcomes of a project or event, but it does allow us to adequately plan for the unexpected.

Filming on location provides a fantastic backdrop for our favourite film and TV programmes and a much-needed injection of funds for conservation projects at our treasured heritage sites. It also introduces risks of damage both to the built heritage and historic interiors and collections. Filming conservators specialise in managing the risks of damage when production companies use heritage venues as locations. Conservator input is critical during feasibility and planning stages as well as when supervising filming activities on site and evaluating lessons learned to share best practices and inform future projects.

Change is a permanent feature of the film industry in the UK. The growth in demand from streaming services means the industry is expanding rapidly, developments in technology have transformed the filmmaking process, introducing new equipment with new risks and progress in social safeguards prompted by ‘me too’ and union action have made positive strides in reforming the working environment. In response filming conservators have developed skills and resilience to cope with the increased and changing demand.

The purpose of planning is to avoid surprises on the day. The National Trust Filming & Locations Office handles four major film projects per month on average across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and much effort is spent on capturing intentions, consulting the relevant expert disciplines, checking risk assessments and method statements, and ensuring that the right information is specified in the filming agreement. However, making TV dramas and feature films is a creative process and inevitably there will be some changes of plan when the cast and crew are filming.

Past surprises have included last-minute requests for fire, food fights and fake blood, each presenting a myriad of additional, unforeseen risks to the built heritage, historic interiors and collections. The need for conservators on the ground who can manage these risks in a high-pressured environment has instigated the emergence of the filming conservator as a specialism in the UK. The filming conservator shares the knowledge and skills of a preventive conservator but thrives on working in a fast paced, everchanging environment, facilitating communication between the production company and the location and developing innovative solutions to reduce risk and facilitate filming in sensitive and challenging heritage sites. Filming conservators, such as Spencer & Fry, supervise the production prep, shoot and strike are expert in coping with surprises and managing the risks on the ground.

As an emerging specialism, the work of a filming conservator is an underrepresented topic in the conservation world. Whilst in the UK the specialism is becoming more recognised, it is unknown if this is the case worldwide. Filming projects in heritage locations can be intensive and overwhelming without the right support. A specialist filming conservator, with preventive conservation knowledge and experience of working with productions in a fast-paced environment can provide the right support to manage the risks to collections, reduce the pressure on site staff and react to any last-minute surprises to facilitate a successful shoot.