This interview is part of the Preventive Care Network's blog series, which features interviews with conservators and collection care professionals. The stories and insights shared in these interviews highlight the many aspects of collection care and its cross-disciplinary nature. If you have a project or story you'd like to share or know someone we should feature in this series, please contact us at collections@culturalheritage.org.
This edition of the blog is an interview that PCN Editor/Outreach Officer Wendi Field Murray conducted with Sarah Freshnock, Preventive Conservator at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Sarah has served as the Preventive Care Network's inaugural Project Support Specialist since 2023.
Please tell us about yourself! What is your professional background, and what are your primary interests in conservation right now?
My name is Sarah Freshnock and I am the preventive conservator at the Walters Art Museum. I have been at the Walters for a little over a year. Prior to this role I was a graduate intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Scientific Research where I was finishing my Master of Science in conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. Currently I am very interested in sustainable conservation, specifically in how we measure success across institutions. I have been working on implementing the Bizot Green Protocol and the process has brought up many interesting and important conversations about the impact of cultural heritage organizations on the planet.
How did you become involved with PCN, and how were you involved in the creation of this new position?
I was introduced to PCN when I was in graduate school. During the annual meeting in 2023, I spoke with Kelly Krish, who was the chair at the time, about opportunities to get involved. When I looked at the positions that were available, I wasn’t sure where I would fit best. After expressing that to Kelly we came up with the Project Support Specialist position, which would allow an individual to get involved with a little bit of everything.
What are your primary responsibilities as a Project Support Specialist? What are you most enjoying about the position so far? What have been the biggest learning curves?
When I started, I expressed interest in virtual events and the AIC Annual meeting. In my first year I helped Genvieve Kyle put on a virtual event about Preventive Conservation as a career. I then worked with program chair Lisa Goldberg as the AIC program co-chair for the AIC 2024 Annual meeting. I really enjoyed seeing the inner workings of the AIC annual meeting and getting involved at the meeting. It was a bonus that we had amazing speakers and joint sessions. Overall, there is a fair amount of bureaucracy that took a few meetings to learn. Also, the annual meeting was learning opportunity after learning opportunity!
We hear the term “emerging professional” quite a bit. Could you elaborate on your own view of what this means, and how you perceive the role of emerging professionals in the field of conservation?
For me the term emerging professional means someone who is in their beginning years of working in the field or in a certain area of the field. I think that it should be for anyone to adopt as they move through the stages of the conservation profession until they feel settled into a particular role. As someone in a full-time permanent position that identifies as an emerging conservator, I think the role of emerging professional is critical for pushing for change within the field and institutions. I find that my energy and passion for conservation and the museum work more broadly at the Walters has led to me to interesting interdepartmental teams that allow me to talk about preservation with everyone, not just the conservation department.
More generally, what do you see as the benefits of this kind of service work for emerging professionals?
The best thing that I have gotten out of this role has been the connections to other preventive conservators. As a small subset of the conservation field, it is so great to have the monthly PCN call and the relationships that were built organizing and carrying out the PCN offerings at the AIC annual meeting this year.
It can sometimes be intimidating or difficult for emerging professionals to begin service work in their professional organizations. Why do you think that is, and what ideas do you have for how networks and specialty groups might be able to mitigate some of those barriers?
I think that AIC and all the boards, subcommittees, groups, networks etc. are full of bureaucracy and can feel rather opaque. When I looked at positions that were open, they were often very specific roles that I had no idea how to do. I think inviting people to learn about the roles, attend a specialty group/network/committee meeting, and say that you will receive all the training you need, would provide the transparency necessary for people to dive in. I also think having similar roles to the one that I am in now allows people to try out different positions and see where they fit best!
If you enjoyed this post, check out PCN's other most recent blog, an interview with Lisa Young on Preventive Care for Aluminum Alloys at NASM.
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