During June 2019, aspiring conservators from around the country attended a 2 week intensive preventative conservation workshop at Staatsburgh. This was the fourth year that the workshop was held at Staatsburgh with sponsorship from The Foundation for the Advancement of Conservation along with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The workshop 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.
Independent Conservator Cathy MacKenzie organized this workshop to occur at Staatsburgh collaborating on its organization with the NYS Bureau of Historic Sites and Parks. Several conservators participated in the workshop's instruction including Furniture Conservator David Bayne, textile conservator Kirsten Schoonmaker from Syracuse University, objects conservator Valentine Talland formerly of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, paper conservator Lyudmyla Bua of the Center for Jewish History in New York, and furniture conservator Paige Schmidt from the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA.
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| Blog Author, Josephine Ren |
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| Blog Author, Beth Reid |
Beth
Reid is a museum technician at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, VA where she
cleans the 1812 Wickham House and the general collections. She also interns in
the conservation lab at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources treating
archeological objects. Beth holds a B.F.A. in Painting and Printmaking with
minors in Art History, History, Anthropology, and Italian Studies from Virginia
Commonwealth University and is completing an A.S. in Chemistry at J. Sargeant
Reynolds Community College. Josephine
Ren is from the Greater Los Angeles Area and received a B.A. in Art
Conservation with a minor in Art History from Scripps College. She has held
pre-program internships at the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the American Museum of Natural History, and in private practice. She also
studied conservation during a semester abroad at Studio Arts College
International, Florence, and has worked in collections at Pomona College Museum
of Art and Scripps’ art gallery. Currently she works under private practices,
and is interested in objects and painted surfaces.