My Cart

Back from Illinois

Good day everyone,
Monitor’s conservators are back from an AIC (American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works) conference held in Chicago last week!
Laurie and I each presented a poster during the conference. Laurie’s topic was “Guns and Ships, Using Dry Ice Blasting in the Conservation of Cast Iron”, where she developed her recent work with two revolutionary cannons from Yorktown. And the other poster title was “The USS Monitor Gun Carriages: Treatment Steps and Innovations for the Conservation of Complex Composite Artifacts”, in which the main steps needed for the conservation of the gun carriages were described. We had a lot of good feedback for both projects, and were able to make useful new contacts.
Besides poster presentations, the conference provided many specialists talks on very specialized topics… Whether it was painting conservation, paper conservation, preventive conservation or architecture, you name it, there was a whole panel of presentations about it! It was awesome.
We all had a blast and are ready to tackle our summer work schedule, energized after this invigorating conference! And here is a rare shot of Monitor’s conservators in clean, presentable, clothes.

From left to right: Lesley, me, Will, Laurie and Kate at the Art Institute of Chicago standing in front of a lovely Byzantine camel mosaic.

Also, do not forget to visit us for only $1 all summer long!! We added a lot of programs in the gallery for the entire $1 museum’s admission time frame (from Memorial Day until Labor Day). Mike will be showing his artifact housing techniques once a week in the gallery, Hannah will share her latest 3D modeling fancy work, I will be discussing the wool coat treatment next to the brand new coat case, and John Quarstein will be giving many lectures. The whole team will be spending some public time on the platform facing the Wet Lab several set times a week! And that is just for the USS Monitor Center side of the museum’s greatness. There is so much more to see and experience throughout the whole institution, please take advantage of this awesome experience!!

Come on by, we’re all waiting for you!

Have a great week and see you soon!

Scroll to Top