Last weekend I attended the annual 3-day meeting/workshop of SERCA, the Southeast Regional Conservation Association. SERCA has been around since the 90s and is based in Atlanta, hosting its annual meeting there every other year at Emory University. This year's meeting was in North Carolina, at Queens University of Charlotte. Each year the meeting focuses on a different topic presented by speakers from various conservation fields. The theme this year was "Consolidation Methods and Materials--A Practical Examination."
The first day (Friday) included presenters on textiles, paper, objects, and paintings. On Saturday, I heard an excellent presentation by objects conservator Renee Stein (of the Carlos Museum at Emory University) on the use of cyclododecane as a consolidant. Afterwards, hands-on activities were set up by the various presenters for us to try out different methods and materials--I particularly enjoyed learning couch stitching with Patricia Ewer. In the afternoon we traveled to downtown Charlotte and visited the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. We wrapped things up Sunday morning with a roundtable Q&A discussion session, and discussed topics for next year's meeting.
Below are some photographs from the hands-on demonstrations on Saturday:
Consolidating animal crackers and pottery pieces with Atlanta-based objects conservator Kate Singley
Couch stitching with curved needles with textile conservator Patricia Ewer
Applying cyclododecane using a medical nebulizer with Michael Lee, Director of Paper and Photograph Conservation at NEDCC (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
Looking forward to next year!
No comments:
Post a Comment