Collections Care Workshop Part IV Putting the Gilt in Gilded Age: Exploring the Techniques of Ormolu, Urushi and Gilding

During June 2016, aspiring conservators from around the country attended a 2 week intensive workshop at Staatsburgh.  "Housekeeping for Conservators", sponsored by The Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation along with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities taught in-depth methods of caring for many different types of collections. Participants gained insight into artifact conservation and the conditions that cause deterioration. After the workshop, several of the participants wrote blog entries about their experience and a specific aspect of the workshop.

NYS Bureau of Historic Sites Furniture Conservator, David Bayne, organized this workshop to occur at Staatsburgh collaborating on its organization with Independent Conservator Cathy MacKenzie and Kirsten Schoonmaker from the Shelburne Museum.  Several conservation experts also participated in the workshop's instruction including John Childs from the Peabody Essex Museum, Genevieve Bieniosek from the Biltmore, and Catherine Coueignoux London of Oak Street Conservation.

Part IV in this series of blogs is by Fallon Murphy. Fallon is from Redding, Connecticut and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in sculpture in 2016. Throughout college, she has worked for several conservators, ranging from paper to sculpture. She recently completed a project on the Capitol Dome Project in Washington D.C. Currently, she is working at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology as a Conservation Lab Assistant; at Studio TKM on Chinese wallpaper, and for the Cambridge Arts Council studying graffiti removal.

Workshop participant and blog author, Fallon Murphy