Mellon Fellowship at the Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum

Andrew W. Mellon

Conservation Fellowships (2)

Object – Painting – Paper

The Brooklyn Museum announces the opening of two Fellowships in conservation supported by a permanent endowment established by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to establish a permanent endowment to support fellowships in conservation. The two year fellowships , with the possibility of a third year, will be offered in either object, paper, or painting conservation beginning September 2011.

The Brooklyn Museum‘s collection and exhibition schedule offer varied and rewarding educational experiences in conservation. Fellows will be immediately involved in all aspects of the department, working with a diverse professional conservation staff, and interacting with colleagues throughout the institution to preserve and present art work.

Successful candidates should be graduates of a conservation training program or have equivalent experience. Applications should include a letter of interest, resume, and two letters of recommendation from conservation professionals, along with two detailed conservation condition reports, accompanying treatment proposals and treatment report with full documentation, all carried out completely by the applicant, all in hard copy. After initial review, selected applicants will be invited for an interview and portfolio review at the Museum.

The Museum should receive applications no later than December 1, 2010. Candidates will be selected for interviews in January- February 2011, and the final selection awarded in March 2011.

The starting salary is $33,000 / year with full Museum benefits, including annual leave and medical benefits, and a travel allowance of $2,500 to support professional development.

Applicants should be sent to: Conservation Fellowship//The Brooklyn Museum// 200 Eastern Parkway//Brooklyn, New York, 11238

All further inquires should be sent to the previous address or Conservation.Fellow@brooklynmuseum.org Brooklyn Museum is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants for positions are considered without regard to race, creed, color, country of origin, sex, age, citizenship, disability or sexual orientation. Candidates of color are strongly encouraged to apply. The Immigration and Control Act (1986) requires that all hires be in conformity with the law.

Kenneth S. Moser
Carol Lee Shen Chief Conservator
Vice Director for Collections
The Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238

Call for papers ANAGPIC 2011

Call for papers
2011 ANAGPIC Student Conference Special Session
Conservation/Conservation Science Lightning Round
Delaware Art Museum
Saturday, 16 April 2011

On behalf of the Association of North American Graduate Programs in
Art Conservation, the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in
Art Conservation invites submissions for a Conservation/Conservation
Science Lightning Round to be held during the 2011 ANAGPIC Student
Conference in Wilmington, DE.

The preservation and conservation of cultural heritage is inherently
interdisciplinary, and its scholars may be found in a variety of
disciplines ranging from art conservation and archaeology to
materials science and nanotechnology.  This session invites
submissions from current North American doctoral students and
post-graduate researchers that relate to technical art history or
the preservation of art, historic architecture, and cultural
heritage, broadly defined.  "Post-graduate researchers" includes
students who have graduated from a Master's program and are now on
advanced internships carrying out research.  The
Conservation/Conservation Science Lightning Round will consist of 12
speakers, each with five minutes to present an illustrated summary
of their research to current conservation graduate students,
followed by a Q&A session for all speakers.

Please submit proposals (abstract of no more than 250 words, contact
information, and institutional affiliation) or any inquiries to

   anagpic.lightning [at] gmail__com

Submissions must be received by 10pm EST on 5 January 2011.

Speakers will be notified in February 2011.

Chris Cole
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation Education
Department of Art Conservation
University of Delaware
Newark, DE  19716
443-223-5933

"Characterization of Silver Gelatin Photographs" Conference

On September 30-October 1, 2010, The Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works and The New York Public Library presented the “Characterization of Silver Gelatin Photographs” conference at The New York Public Library.

According to the AIC, this conference was intended to present the body of knowledge currently available on the subject of characterizing silver gelatin developed-out photographs. Attendees heard from a range of professionals, including conservators, curators, manufacturers, and artists. Highlights included a presentation on Paul Messier’s vast and growing collection of photographic papers, including their wonderful packaging, from the late 19th century to the present day, as well as a general history of papers. Artists Vera Lutter and Alison Rossiter discussed their contemporary chemical photography work, in terms of their process and their use of the silver gelatin process. Anne Cartier-Bresson spoke about characterization of silver gelatin prints using Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work to illustrate key points. Day 1 concluded with an overview of current research at the Image Permanence Institute (IPI), and a panel discussion on connoisseurship and the marketplace.

From industry, Howard Hopwood, Chairman of Harman Technology, producer of Ilford products, spoke about the tradition and future of silver halide technology. Kit Funderburk, formerly a senior technical manager at Kodak, discussed the manufacturing history of Kodak papers and, in a second talk on Day 2, indicated the ways in which paper characteristics could be used to help date papers and prints. A complete PDF of his book on the subject can be downloaded free, or view the separate chapters here, on the George Eastman House “Notes on Photographs” website.

On Day 2, there were a series of technical talks, with two sessions on using XRF (X-ray fluorescence spectrometry) to analyze photographs. One provided an overview of the history and status of the application of XRF, and the other dealt with the specific case of a set of stabilized prints. There were two sessions covering characterization projects at MoMA. One focused on how chemometrics can help categorize papers. In the other, Lee Ann Daffner discussed MoMA’s ongoing characterization of the Thomas Walther Collection of photographs. MoMA is working with Cultural Heritage Imaging to use RTI/PTM to study the collection. MoMA’s camera array and its associated software create a composite image from multiple images of a single photograph, enabling a full “virtual” examination of the photograph. Day 2 also included a talk on how the presence of optical brighteners can help date papers, as well as a session on silver gelatin DOP sample sets in development. The conference ended with a discussion of future directions and needed research projects.

All the sessions were recorded. If they’re made available online, we’ll publish the link in a future post.

September Minutes

ECPN Minutes - September 24, 2010 1 PM EST, conference call

On Call:
Ryan Winfield
Heather Brown
Rose Daly

1. New Committee Members, committee position descriptions
2. AIC Website, ECPN blog updates
3. Twitter, Facebook, Ning updates
4. Outreach: ECPN poster at the AIC 2011 meeting, podcasts, AIC outreach lecture, local outreach, flier, upcoming meetings to be attended by ECPN committee members.
5. Angels Project
6. Mentoring Project

1. New Committee Members
Welcome to Heather Brown and Amy Brost! Heather will take over the position of Outreach coordinator from Jason Church and Amy will take over the communications coordinator position from Katie Mullen. Thanks to Jason and Katie for all your hard work and dedication to ECPN. I encourage Heather and Amy to keep a general file of meeting minutes and their projects to pass along to future committee members.

2. AIC Website, ECPN blog updates
Since finding jobs and internships are so important to emerging members, the ECPN will look over the career center of the AIC website and suggest content that could be added, especially in the “Becoming a Conservator” section. During the call we discussed specifically having topics like: resumes and C.V.’s, Portfolios, “Top 10 things a pre-program intern should know” (this would be great to partner with the Education and Training committee), Documentation, the ECPN mentoring program, research ideas, and maybe a list of links to helpful websites, blogs, etc. Amy Brost has also sent out a list of links, to be added to the ECPN blog, but perhaps also the webpage. A survey of conservators was also suggested to ask what supervisors look for in a C.V., and their expectations for pre-program interns, graduate fellows, and post-graduate fellows.

Ryan is looking into a Google calendar for the webpage, and perhaps importing the blog to Facebook so updates on the blog are automatically posted on Facebook. Ryan is working with Membership to list pre-program supervisors on the AIC “Find a Conservator” search function.

3. Twitter – Rose has de-activated the account, Facebook – Rose and Ryan are Admins, Heather Brown was just made an Admin – Would Jason Church and Katie Mullen like to continue to be administrators? Ning was de-activated by Ryan.

4. Outreach: A poster at the AIC 2011 meeting will be proposed, deadline is October 1st – Heather and Rose will work on it. Podcasts of the outreach lecture are being planned, we are still brainstorming for a speaker to record, and a microphone would be needed, Rose mentioned purchasing one personally that she would be willing to allow other ECPN members to use. Heather is attending MAAM Oct 25, (http://www.midatlanticmuseums.org/) and hopefully she can bring some fliers about ECPN, Rose will be sending the flier to Amy and Heather for editing, Rose is attending MRCG November 12 (http://mrcg.wik.is/) and she can look for interested future ECPN members or collaborations with MRCG.

5. Angels Project: Heather will be contacting Ruth about the Angels project at the AIC 2011 meeting.

6. Mentoring Project: Heather and Ryan will be working together on the mentoring project, Heather may be posting a testimonial from a successful mentee on the ECPN blog, and possibly the AIC webpage as well.

Next call will be Oct. 21, 2010.

Good meeting, very fast, and there is a lot to follow-up about, look for e-mails from Rose soon.

AIC Angel's Project Milwaukee 2010

For those who missed the announcements and posts this year's Angel's Project was held at the Milwaukee Historical Society on May 15th. More than 20 volunteers came to the Historical Society headquarters at the former Second Ward Savings Bank building. This year's project was to document, evaluate, and rehouse the Historical Societies photography collection. After a full day's work over 400 tintypes, ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes were assessed and rehoused for archival storage.

On a personal note this was my first Angel's Project and I didn't really know what to expect. I was apprehensive about this years project because as an architectural conservator I've never worked with photographs and was wondering if I would actually be of any help at all. I could not have been more wrong, there were volunteers who were professionally trained photography conservators paired with pre-program students with no experience. Meg Geiss-Mooney was my partner I sat down next to her and learned exactly what I needed to do my job, as well as hearing her great textile conservation stories about polyester Star Trek uniforms and the conservation of Princess Leia's golden bikini (yes, that bikini!).

Overall, the Angel's project was a great experience and one that I hope to be a part of for many years to come. Not only was it an opportunity to learn a lot about proper archival housing for early photographs, I had fun and felt good about donating my time to a worthy cause.

In addition to the pictures posted on flickr, this year ECPN made a short movie about the Angel's Project. I hope you enjoy and if anyone wants a copy just let me know.

Library Conservation Assistant at Columbia University

Position at Columbia

Conservation Assistant
Conservation Department
Columbia University Libraries

Position ID # 059246
(Technical Assistant VI)
Salary Grade: $652.21/week

This is a full-time union position with comprehensive benefits and
20 days paid vacation.

Duties: This position is split between rare and special collections
(80%) and general collections (20%). Under the direction of the Head
Conservator and the Special Collections Conservator, the
Conservation Assistant will perform basic paper conservation
procedures such as surface cleaning, washing, re-sizing and mending,
on materials from the Libraries' rare and special collections.
Duties will also involve creating protective housings for single
items and for collections, as well as cutting mats and making
cradles for exhibits. Will assist with environmental monitoring,
supply inventory, disaster response and treatment documentation.
Will also perform conservation repairs on selected general
collections materials, including sewing pamphlets, reattaching
boards, encapsulating maps and documents, repairing torn pages and
making protective enclosures. Depending on skill and aptitude may
also perform more complex binding repairs. Other duties as assigned.

Applicants are encouraged to provide a portfolio or examples of
previous conservation work. In the absence of a portfolio, the
applicant will be asked to demonstrate competence with certain
skills and techniques.

Requirements: Minimum one year full-time experience in conservation
of rare or valuable books and paper artifacts, in a library/archives
setting or in a private conservation studio, including experience
with protective housings and exhibit preparation. Applicants should
have well-developed treatment skills, experience with complex
binding and repair procedures, and be aware of current conservation
philosophy and ethics. Must be highly organized and flexible; good
communications and interpersonal skills essential. Must be willing
to work on a wide range of materials, performing detailed and
occasionally repetitive tasks. Requires operation of specialized
equipment (e.g. ultrasonic welder, fume hood, guillotine cutter) and
use of various chemicals under controlled conditions. Applicants
should be able to work standing up for extended periods of time,
lift moderately heavy objects, and to work with dusty library
materials. Must be able to pass medical exam for use of half-face
respirator. BA/BS preferred. Basic word processing, spreadsheet and
database skills will be helpful.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Those
received before August 31, 2010 will receive priority consideration.

Interested applicants must apply via:
http://jobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=120043

Objects Conservation Position

North Carolina Division of Historic Sites
Objects Conservator
Durham, NC

Description of Work

Conservator provides examination, general treatment and documentation
of a wide range of organic/inorganic objects including: furniture,
glass, ceramics, books, paper, paintings, textiles and metal and
ethnographic objects belonging to the Div of NC State Historic Sites.
Performs object condition surveys, evaluates items for specialized
treatment, organizes treatment schedules, documents treatment via
photographs and written reports. Will maintain a comprehensive
computer-based tracking system for objects needing treatment. Also
assesses condition of new accessions and objects to be lent; develops
preventive conservation programs for sites and works with sites to
review disaster preparedness plans. Will monitor exhibit and storage
areas for temperature, humidity and light levels; prepare conservation
budgets as needed and purchase conservation equipment/supplies. Also
trains staff on proper care/handling of artifacts as requested and
assists with statewide emergency recovery.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

The ideal candidate will possess the following skills and abilities:
Demonstrated competence in the treatment of a wide range of object
types; computer literacy, including the ability to work with
collections database software, word processing and digital image
programs; excellent hand skills and attention to detail; highly
developed interpersonal skills; high standards of professionalism and
ethics; excellent research and writing skills; a working knowledge of
environmental monitoring techniques and integrated pest management
principles. The Conservator is part of the Div of Historic Sites
curatorial team that includes two curators and a registrar. The
position is supervised by the Chief Curator of the Div of Historic
Sites & Properties. The conservator will develop and maintain
professional relationships with other conservators and other
institutions such as the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and
the North Carolina Museums Conference (NCMC).

Please see http://osp.its.state.nc.us/positiondetail.asp?vacancykey=4802-60083404&printit=no for the full position description information.