SECOND-YEAR ACTIVITIES

The second year at WUDPAC focuses on your declared major. My time is split between my major treatments, my science project, my indepedent studies, public engagement, and meeting with other conservation professionals to learn new skills.

  • In December 2023 and January 2024, I spent a few days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with paintings conservator Alan Miller learning his approaches to structural panel painting conservation. We repaired a split double-sided panel painting by an unknown artist, a gift painting to the WUDPAC program.

  • My Spring 2024 independent study is a reconstruction of a 17th-century Dutch still-life. I will be reconstructing a 9"x12" section of a Pieter Claesz painting belonging to the National Gallery of Art under the supervision of painting conservator Dina Anchin. On February 5-6, 2024, I will be travelling to the NGA to study the painting under the microscope with Dina.

  • My Fall 2023 independent study is a practical study of varnishes and their use in conservation. I made an annotated bibliography. This semester, I will make mockups, one of which is on an 18th-century gift painting to the program exploring the optical properties of high molecular weight and low molecular weight varnishes by applying them to surfaces of different porosities and layering them.

  • I've enjoyed many opportunities for public engagement at Winterthur. We often host public tours of the labs. I get to work with the undergraduate art conservation students. Once a month, the paintings lab participates in Winterthur's Art Conservation Clinic, where the public brings their artworks and we offer them advice on how to care for their artworks. (Images: Sarah Beach and Joyce Hill Stoner)

  • I assisted Dr. Erich Uffelman, Professor of Chemistry at Washington and Lee University, when he came to teach WUDPAC students about IRR and multiband imaging. I assisted him in the imaging of this gift painting to the WUDPAC program. It was a great way to learn the capabilities of different sensors and differences in images produced.

  • Mina Porell spent two days at Winterthur in Fall 2023 teaching me and the art conservation undergraduate students about sampling workflow and how to embed, grind, and polish cross-sections.

  • Throughout the year, I am treating two paintings that have severe structural issues that require tear repair, humidification, and/or lining. Before coming to graduate school, I gained experience with surface cleaning, filling, inpainting, and varnishing and wanted to get experience with structural treatments.

  • Diana Hartman spent two days with me in October 2023, teaching me techniques for thread-by-thread tear mending.

  • Mary McGinn spent two days with me in September 2023 showing me her techniques for mixing gels and resins soaps and designing a cleaning system.

  • I took some seminars for other majors out of personal interest in the subjects and because they may be useful for modern/contemporary conservation.