Happy New Year and welcome to Issue 2 of the WAG Rag – an update on WAG goings-on, and a compilation of WAG-relevant events, internships, publications etc. If you come across an event, read a great publication, or have a project you would like us to highlight, please send them to Olav (bjorno@metmuseum.org) or me for inclusion in our next issue.
WAG Member Awards?
- The deadline for nominations for AIC awards – February 1 - is fast approaching! Show your gratitude to an amazing tutor or mentor by nominating them for the Keck Award! Nominate an established WAG conservator for the Feller Lifetime Achievement Award! Find the full list of awards here. Most awards require one letter of nomination plus two supporting letters. If you would like assistance in approaching other members for supporting letters, let me know… quickly, because we will need to scramble.
WAG events and Initiatives
- Congratulations to the Craft in Conservation Team, Greg Landrey, David Bayne, and Kathy Gillis, whose project will at last go ahead in Summer 2025! This WAG initiative was planned some time ago but postponed for two years due to the rejection of the FAIC’s application for NEH funding. The workshop will see furniture-making and furniture conservation students work alongside each other for four days at Winterthur.
- The call for applications for Making Space: Intro to Woodworking for Conservators - a two-week program aimed at arming emerging conservators with the skills and confidence to pursue a career in wooden artifacts conservation- will be posted very soon. Keep an eye out.
WAG Behind the Scenes
- WAG member Karen Bishop has kindly volunteered to work on tidying up the WAG landing pages on the AIC website, which is currently looking a little sad! Please send any ideas to Karen – karen.bishop@pam.org. At minimum, we hope to have links that work, and some nice photos.
Update on Yuri Yanchyshyn’s work in Ukraine
You may be aware of long-time WAG member Yuri Yanchyshyn’s efforts to support conservation colleagues in Ukraine. A recent project initiated by Yuri - digitally scanning a number of significant Ukrainian wooden churches close to the war zone – has been completed. Read the initial announcement from last summer here. We look forward to hearing more about this important work in the future!
Events Round-Up – US
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (in-person)
Ten early career scholars from across Europe, the USA and UK will deliver papers on furniture, decorative arts and historic interiors from the 17th century to the 21st century.
Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, VA (in-person & virtual). Registration open
Printed words and images: how did 18th century craftspeople turn them into actions and objects? How did craftspeople fill in the blanks left by what was unwritten or unillustrated? And how can the ink they left on paper inform our understanding of a past in which most craft knowledge was shared orally? Join tradespeople and scholars from Colonial Williamsburg and esteemed guest presenters as they explore woodworking by the book.
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Wilmington, DE (in-person)
Registration open
Take a close look at an 18th-century armoire in the Winterthur collection with speaker, Grace Ford-Dirks, 2023 graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and current research assistant at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The talk will explore what this armoire might have meant to those who made or used it and reflects on what it could mean for Winterthur.
Art Institute Chicago
Go and see the first museum retrospective focused on Dan Friedman’s extraordinary and underrecognized career before it closes on February 4. As well as his graphic designs, the exhibition includes genre-bending works of assemblage and furniture using found objects, vibrantly painted surfaces, and diverse cultural references
Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Atlanta, GA (in-person)
Registration open
Celebrate the decorative arts of Atlanta and Georgia’s Lower Southern Piedmont. The conference will offer an unparalleled opportunity to get behind-the-scenes looks of local sites, exhibits, rarely-viewed private collections and homes, while lectures will provide the latest in decorative arts and material culture research.
Register for this 5-day gilding conservation course led by Hubert Baija by March 31, 2024 for the “early bird” discount.
Events Round-up – International
The Wallace Collection, London (in-person & virtual). Online registration open
Curatorial Assistant Alexander Collins explores the development of multifunctional furniture in France during the 18th century, as well as the brilliant cabinetmakers who made it.
Amsterdam (in-person)
The symposium aims to explore conservation practices of religious and sacred objects and buildings, including the ethical considerations and the challenges met in relation to this practice.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario (in-person)
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) will host a two-day conference on the history and conservation of picture frames. The symposium will present current research that contextualizes frames, including research on frame makers, framing traditions, frames’ afterlives, frame collections, pairings of frames to paintings, artists’ frames, the commercial history of framing, and related topics. Keynote lectures will be delivered by Lynn Roberts, acclaimed frame historian and publisher of The Frame Blog, and Hubert Baija, recently-retired longtime conservator of frames at the Rijksmuseum.
Application deadline January 28, 2024. There are scholarships available for the 16-day residential course.
Internships and Fellowships
National Trust Historic Site the Shadows-on-the-Teche, New Iberia, LA
Application deadline February 16, 2024
The Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, RI
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis. Interviews begin March 15, 2024
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Application deadline February 9, 2024
Publication
Finally, do have a read of Ines Bravo’s article “Tailoring Cleaning Systems for the Removal of Bronze Paint and Soiling From a J.M.W. Turner Gilded Frame” in the latest issue of JAIC.
Best wishes,
Cathy
Cathy Silverman
WAG Chair
Associate Conservator of Furniture and Objects
Yale University Art Gallery
catherine.silverman@yale.edu