United States Embassy, Lima - 2009 Museum Internship Program

For the seventh consecutive year, the U.S. Embassy in Lima is undertaking a series of programs to support cultural preservation under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Cultural Patrimony between Peru and the United States. In support of the MOU, the Embassy promotes an internship program for American graduate students of museum studies and conservation programs to be held from July through August 2009.

The objective of this program is to enable well-qualified graduate students the opportunity to do field research in Lima, Arequipa and Lambayeque. It will also support museums that house rich art collections, but are greatly in need of skilled professionals.

These internships will provide an excellent opportunity for Peruvian and American colleagues to exchange ideas on new techniques related to conservation, marketing, and exhibition planning, with long-term possibilities for collaboration.

Select museums have presented projects and provided detailed outlines of the work to be performed. Professional museum staff will closely supervise each intern and costs will be shared among all parties. The Embassy will be the link between the universities and the Peruvian museums and will provide required materials. Each museum will provide in-kind support and lodging. Also, the university or the intern will be responsible for international transportation and health insurance. The Embassy provides a small stipend to cover living expenses such as meals and incidentals.

All applicants must be U.S. citizens, must have at least intermediate oral Spanish skills (unless otherwise indicated in the project description), must be willing to complete the full course of the internship, and must be enrolled or have recently completed a graduate program in museum studies or related fields.

Interested candidates should submit a cover letter with the following information:
• Name of applicant,
• Name of specific internship program,
• Name of current graduate program,
• Honest assessment of Spanish ability which may be corroborated in a phone interview

Please also attach current curriculum vitae, a one-page essay explaining the student’s interest in the internship, and a letter of recommendation by a professor.

Send the above information to the attention of Vanessa Wagner de Reyna, email
wagnerv@state.gov, fax: 011- (511) 434-1299, before March 30, 2009. Students will be notified if they have been accepted by mid April. The Embassy will then provide additional information regarding travel, visas, and other requirements to the selected interns. Please note that this information is also available on line at: http://peru.usembassy.gov/internship.html

Should you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us at the above email or by phone at 011- (511) 618-2080. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Paul G. Degler
Cultural Affairs Officer

Room Share for Upcoming AIC Annual Meeting

To help defray some of the costs of the upcoming AIC Annual Meeting in May, it was recently suggested in our ECPN conference call that ECPN members may want to share hotel rooms. I will be collecting names and information of people who would like to participate in the room share. This year accommodations will be at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza (the meeting site), with room rates at $185.00 for a single/double and $210.00 for a triple/quad (maximum 2 people per double room and 4 people per room in a triple/quad).

In order to participate in the room share, you need to be registered for the AIC Annual Meeting (this is in order to receive the AIC Rate). The AIC Rate is valid until April 27, 2009, or until the contracted room block has sold out. The Hyatt's cancellation policy states that on April 1, 2009, the hotel will charge a one-night stay deposit, so all cancellations will need to be received by April 1, 2009 to allow for another AIC Meeting participant to enjoy the room at the AIC Rate. Therefore, if you would like to participate in the room share, please send me your information by February 13, 2009.

I will make every attempt to match people with another ECPN member and according to the specifications that you send. If you are unable to be matched due to the lack of another person with your room specifications, or due to an odd number of people willing to participate, I will let you know as soon as possible, and no later than February 27, 2009.

Please note that by participating in the room share, you understand I am matching potential roommates only. Once a match is found, I will send you and your potential roommate(s) your respective information. If this is not a suitable match to all parties, let me know as soon as possible and before the February 13th deadline.

Once you agree to your match, it will be yours and your roommate's responsibility to make your room reservations and pay for your room. Any reservations that you make will be in accordance with the Hyatt's policies. If you or your roommate(s) decide not to attend the meeting before the February 13th deadline, I will make every attempt to match you with another person. However, this cannot be guaranteed, so it is important that all parties be committed to attending the Annual Meeting!

If you would like to participate, please send the following information to Nicky DeFreece Emery via e-mail.

Your name
Your e-mail address
Your telephone number
Gender (sorry, I will only match same gender)
Preference of double (1 roommate + you) or quad room (3 roommates + you)
Special room needs (ADA accessible room, etc.)
Specific dates you will need a room
If you are currently registered for the AIC Annual Meeting
Best way to contact you during the Annual Meeting

Please send your information to BOTH of the following e-mail addresses: shnicky2@yahoo.com AND shnicky2@gmail.com

Thanks, and see you in LA!

Nicky DeFreece Emery

Happy Holidays from ECPN!

With the holidays looming and productivity gently declining, I thought that I would take a break from our usual subjects to provide some conservation related diversions.

Because People Have a Need to Glue Things to Other Things

For me, holidays are usually preceded by a stream of questions from friends and family on how to repair their beloved ornaments/keepsakes/doo-dads.  Some objects are worth some quality conservation work, but for many I send my family to www.thistothat.com.  Definitely not archival and certainly not to our highest conservation standards, but when it comes to fixing everyday objects it can be very handy.  And for the same low level of “How do I clean my….?” take a peak at www.HowtoCleanStuff.net .  Some cringe-worthy suggestions (the discussion on cleaning oil paintings is downright hard to read) but there are also some good basic household cleaning tips.

Pocket Conservator

 better yet; in response to all those conservation related questions why not just give your loved one their very own paper conservator?  You can find a make your own conservator at http://www.luzrasante.com/la-conservacion-un-juego-de-ninos (pattern courtesy of the Institut Valencià de Conservació i Restauració de Béns Culturals). 

And what better tools to give your pint-sized paper conservator than Jeff Peachey’s set of miniature bookbinding tools?

(http://jeffpeachey.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/mini-tools.jpg )

They are actually just the right size for your new tiny worker.

A Must Read Conservation Journal

As an Emerging Conservator I try to stay updated on new research and publications but somehow missed this one until it was brought to my attention a few weeks ago. What The Onion does for news, Recent Setbacks in Conservation does for professional conservation research.

http://www.setbacks.org/index.html

For the Visual Thinkers

As many conservators are also visual thinkers, check out the web comic Indexed at http://thisisindexed.com/.  While not directly related to art conservation, Venn diagrams and bar charts were never so funny. 

Beware of the Yellow (Milliput®) Snow

 finally, I leave you with a warning on the use of aged materials.  Last year Laura Brill made this lovely little 2.5” snowman of extra Milliput®.  It was lovingly crafted complete with buttons, top hat, pipe and bamboo skewer arms.  Sadly the Milliput® used was very old and even after a year of curing Frosty is still soft and tacky as well as having turned this ugly shade of yellow.  Further research is required but preliminary study suggests this aged Milliput® would be a poor material for use with artifacts.

From the wintery wonderland of Shelburne Vermont I wish very happy holidays to you and yours!

-Rachel Penniman

Rachel Penniman is currently an Advanced Conservation Intern at the Shelburne Museum, but will be taking a new position in January as objects conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Ning Social Network

In addition to this blog and the listserve (aic-emerging@lists.stanford.edu), we are testing out a new social networking tool called Ning.

We have already started at network for the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network, which you can go through the link below:

http://aic-ecpn.ning.com

A few of you are already members. As for the rest of you, please check it out, and let me know how you like it at rwinfield@aic-faic.org

-Ryan Winfield

Conference Call Notes - 12.18.08

Here are the things we discussed during the conference call today:

1) Leadership Structure - we have begun a discussion about a leadership structure the group should take. It should take on similar structure as other AIC committees and task forces: chair, co-chair, secretary, communications liaison. A formal call for nominations will go out in January with an election in February, which will give us enough time to bring in leadership before the 2009 Annual Meeting in May.

2). Winter Happy Hour - We will have our first happy hour in NYC on the evening January 25. This will be in conjunction with some other conservation-related events happening in NYC that weekend. Brooke Young is organizing this event for us. More information on this later. Until then, you can contact her at brookewy1@gmail.com.

3) 2009 Annual Meeting - Roommate Referral Program: We will assist people in finding roommates to help defray the cost of housing during the week of annual meeting. Nicky DeFreece Emery is heading up this effort. For more information, contact her at shnicky2@yahoo.com

4) 2009 Annual Meeting - Angel's Project : Members of the ECPN are going to be heading up this project this year. Amber Kerr-Allison suggested we might work with the Rescue Public Murals program at Heritage Preservation to locate a project site. Molly Gleeson is working with Paul Messier, an AIC Board Member, on this.

5) 2009 Annual Meeting - Poster : There will be a poster at the 2009 Annual Meeting. A conference call will happen in January on this. Laura Brill and Nick Emery are heading this up.

We look forward to hearing from all of you at the next conference call on Thursday, January 15th @ 1:00 PM.

There is an interesting pamphlet from the UK called It's A Material World: Caring for the Public Realm.  It is an interesting read, and free to download. It also discusses conservation training. 

http://demos.co.uk/publications/materialworld

 It's A Material World

Caring For The Public Realm

Authors: John Holden and Samuel Jones

"What parts of our culture do we value and want to protect? This pamphlet explores the future of heritage conservation, and why to survive it must involve everyone.

The choice of what things to conserve and how to conserve them simultaneously reflects and creates social value. This pamphlet demonstrates the social value of caring for the material world, and highlights the importance of conservation as being integral not only to the culture and heritage sector but also to social well-being.

How things are kept and cared for demonstrates their significance not just as objects, buildings or landscapes, but in terms of how much value we place on them. Conservation sustains and refreshes the values of the past – giving us an understanding of where we have come from – and reflects values for the present and the future.

In addition to providing recommendations for conservators, this pamphlet calls for action from policymakers, cultural professionals and the public as well. All of these groups have an interest in conservation and caring for the material world, and they all have a part to play in connecting conservation to some of the major challenges we face as a society, both in the UK and internationally. Caring for the material world is an essential part of the maintenance of our public realm. It is rooted in the profession of conservation. We need both to protect that profession, and put the values of conservation at the heart of policy thinking."

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 8
Foreword 9
Prologue 13
Executive summary 15
1 Caring for the material world 21
2 Conservation and its values 27
3 The UK conservation sector 31
4 Conservation under threat 41
5 The current contribution of conservation 51
6 A crisis for conservation education? 59
7 Conservation and the wider world 69
8 Projecting a spectrum of conservation 77
9 Building capital from interest 83
10 Conclusions and recommendations 95
Appendices
1 Methodology 103
2 Organisations consulted 105
Notes 107
References 117

Mentoring Program Update

Angie Elliott and Anne Simon wanted to update all of you on the progress of the Mentoring Program. We have outlined several goals and discussed ideas with other members of the ECPN and the AIC staff.

• One of our aims is to be inclusive, recognizing that no two paths are identical when developing a career in conservation.
• We want this program to foster professional relationships between practicing conservators and those who want to enter into the field.
• Conservators will be able to share their knowledge with up and coming professionals and create an ongoing dialogue between individuals at different stages in their careers.

At this point we have drafted forms that will be filled out by interested participants of the program. The forms will act as a preliminary guideline to match the needs of the mentee with the experience of the mentor. Sometime this spring, the AIC website will have a place to download those forms. More information about the program, including goals and operation, will also be included on the website. The program will be launched at the AIC Annual Meeting in Los Angeles this May.

As we are still in the early stages, we would greatly appreciate feedback. If you would like to become more involved with the organization of this or other ECPN initiatives, please contact Ryan Winfield at the AIC office or Angie Elliott (angiemelliott@yahoo.com) and Anne Simon (asimon@email.arizona.edu) directly.

Who we are…

• Anne Simon is in her 3rd year of graduate school at the University of Arizona in the Department of Chemistry with an interest in Conservation Science.
  
• Angie Elliott is currently a Kress Fellow at The Walters Art Museum but will begin a new job in January as the Assistant Objects Conservator at the Baltimore Museum of Art.