Looking for more information about conservation?

One of the best online resources for information on conservation & preservation of all kinds of materials is the National Park Service's Conserve-o-Gram series.

Collections Recovery

This past Saturday, approximately twenty people learned all about collections recovery after a disaster (large or small) from three trained conservators. In the course of an afternoon at the Rogers-Green House, the conservators covered preparation, immediate response, stabilization, and assessment of a variety of paintings & painted surfaces.

They also discussed materials for storage & shipping, care & handling, and gave pointers on how to select a conservator. The guest speakers, Brian Baade, Joanne Barry, and Mary McGinn, also looked at damaged works brought in by workshop attendees and offered their opinions on whether their artworks were repairable.

Here, conservator Mary McGinn shows workshop participants what happens when a painting gets wet and is taken off the stretcher: it curls up. If you leave a wet painting on the stretcher or in the frame, it'll stay flat:



Below, Brian Baade explains that a painting is made up of many layers of canvas, sizing, paint, and varnish, so microscopic examination of paint chips is necessary before treatment can begin. A conservator needs to know what he or she is dealing with before determining how to proceed.



Below, McGinn, Barry, and Baade explain that the painting in question is wrinkling because the frame is a little too tight for the painting.

Wednesday, September 27 gallery closure

On Wednesday the 27th, the lecture hall portion of the Lower Level Galleries will be closed to the public until about 4 pm. This encompasses approximately 1/3 of the Miniature Worlds exhibition. The rest of the galleries will remain open.

Collections Recovery Workshop - update

Following a late-summer break, the next series of Winterthur Workshops begin September 21, with a Collection Recovery Workshops for Institutions scheduled. The topic of the September workshop is Paintings and Painted Surfaces. There are a few openings remaining and anyone interested in attending should email epope@mdah.state.ms.us . The remainder of the schedule is October 12, Objects (Glass, metal, ceramic, leather, archaeological artifacts) and November 16, furniture and wooden objects. The Collection Recovery Workshops for Institutions are held on the campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport. The workshops begin at 9:00 a.m. and end around 4:00 p.m.

Collection Recovery Workshops open to the public are scheduled as follows:

Laurel, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Saturday, September 23, Paintings and Painted Surfaces;

Columbus, Columbus/Lowndes Public Library, Sunday October 15, Objects (Glass, Metal, Ceramic, Leather);

Natchez Historic Natchez Foundation, (Commerce and Main Streets), Saturday November 18, Furniture and Wooden Objects.

Public Workshops are from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. Registration is not necessary for the public workshops.

Art Talk thisThursday...

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will kick off its 2006-07 Art Talk Series on Thursday, September 21 at noon in the Lower Level Lecture Hall. The speaker will be Penny Kemp, Marketing Director for the Mississippi State University Riley Performing Arts Center in Meridian, Mississippi.

Kemp will discuss the 25 million dollar renovation project that includes a broadcast studio, 30,000 square foot conference facility, and the Grand Opera House of Mississippi, which has been fully restored to its 1890s grandeur.

Kemp is a native of Meridian with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s in business from Mississippi State University. She has worked with nationally-recognized marketing and branding firms throughout the southeast and has a strong interest in community development and downtown revitalization.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601-649-6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

A new grant program for artists...

A new charity, United States Artists, will give $50,000 grants to 50 artists. - New York Times

This is good news! Very few grant programs exist for individual artists, and even fewer provide no-strings-attached money to help them just get on with their artwork.