e-conservation the online Magazine 16, oct 2010.pdf

REVIEWS
using Oddy testing, Beilstein tests, Azide tests,
as well as FTIR and ATR the potential to tarnish
or transfer residue onto silver objects was measured.
The results did not end up with a clear cut
"best choice" glove, but demonstrated instead
that in different ways each of the gloves had a
negative effect. The WAAC business meeting was
the final point of business prior to lunch.
After lunch Kyle Jansson reviewed the current
state of the cultural heritage field in a lecture
entitled 'Finding Cures for the Common Heritage
Flu'. He presented the findings of recent consultations,
unfortunately I think he identified more illnesses
than he did cures! Up next Jan Cavanaugh
discussed 'Art Conservation at the Jordon Schnitzer
Mueum of Art', describing how addressing environmental
concerns during an expansion of the museum
was required for grants funding to address
the long term conservation efforts. After the break
the final round of lectures for the day began, with
Anya McDavis-Conway talking about 'The New Mexico
History Museum: Before and After Opening'. I
could totally relate to this, currently being involved
in opening a museum myself. It was interesting
to see the storage solutions that had been chosen,
including aluminium pallets to keep objects off of
the floor, and purpose built custom saddle mounts.
Yosi Pozeilov’s 'iPad, a New Tool for Condition Reporting
at LACMA', was a fun final lecture for the
day that outlined how the iPad could be utilized as
a tool for conservation. Its major bonus is that it
is truly handheld and simulates the methods that
we use already.
Yoonjo Lee opened the second day with 'Parafilm
M Fills for a Mexican Lacquered Gourd vessel', this
introduced me to an approach that I'd never even
considered - although it was first published by
Marianne Webb in 1998, brilliantly innovative and
strikingly simple, just the sort of treatments I most
admire. This was followed by another fantastic
The popular 'Crow with LED Eyes' from the silent auction
looks out across the conference hall.
Photo by Daniel Cull, Some rights reserved.
paper from LACMA, this one entitled 'Nip, Tuck,
and Fill: Producing Digitally Printed Textile Infills
for a Group of Pre-Coumbian Textiles at LACMA',
presented by Lynn Bathke, with a section by Yosi
Pozeilov. During the break, examples of the printed
fabric and photographs were available, I was
totally excited by this application of photoshop
to conservation. The printed fabrics were produced
in collaboration with CadFabulous, an LA based
company using a Mimaki TX4 dye-sublimation
printer, and I can honestly say they looked excellent.
After the break, we were treated to two lectures
concerning salt desalination; the first, 'Desalination
of Archaeological Ceramics: Measuring Progress
and Success' was presented by Chris White, in
which he presented his work around a normalized
rate equation for calculating the relative saltiness
of objects and the progress of desalination. He
outlined how current experimental results are
used to define an end point of the treatment, at
which an object is declared stable, but that we
still don't have enough results to know what
stable means. In the second paper, 'Detecting
and Identifying Testing Salts in Desalination',
Nancy Odegaard discussed the use of EM Quant
test strips as a method for semi-quantitative determination
of chlorides, nitrates, and sulfate
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