Conservator shows how to preserve precious objects

Light or dark?

Sealed storage case or displayed for the world to see?

Museums wrestle with these opposite concepts on a daily basis as they share their collections with the public, while at the same time striving to conserve them forever.

"All light is damaging and the damage is cumulative," conservator Victoria Montana Ryan this week told dozens of employees and volunteers from several Nevada museums.

Ryan spent two days and an evening this week at the Nevada State Museum's bird gallery sharing the essentials of basic collection care from the conservator's viewpoint.

Light, dust, insects, bare hands or the wrong gloves, humidity and heat all take their toll on museum artifacts. The trick is battling these enemies without breaking the budget.

"Some of the things recommended by the conservator are not practical," said Doug Sutherland, exhibits director at the Nevada State Museum. "A lot of it is a balancing act. I'm an exhibit man. Perfect protection for an object is to place it in an acid-free container, in a locked, metal, fireproof cabinet in a darkened room with perfect temperature and humidity control."

Out of sight doesn't make for much of an exhibit, Sutherland noted.

It's all about choices and options, and maintaining an environment as stable as the budget allows, said Ryan, a paintings conservator at the Art Conservation Center at the University of Denver.

"Stability of material and choice of materials," Ryan said. "There are always options. You always strive to make a better choice of options."

Ryan reminded museum curators, maintenance and security people, and docents that perfect conservatorship involves endless details and variations.

Ryan's lectures offered a rare opportunity for museum staffers to gain training in curating. Along with just about everybody at the Nevada State Museum, the lectures also attracted people from the Carson Valley Historical Society, the Nevada Museum of Art, the National Automobile Museum, the Historic Fourth Ward School and the Churchill County Museum.

"It's one of the few places we're going to get training like this," said Yvonne Prettyman, a volunteer at Fourth Ward School in Virginia City.

Sutherland was glad to see everyone from the state museum's maintenance staff at the workshops. Perhaps, he thought, they got some insight to why curators tend to grumble when they see mops in action.

"One of the most important things is we have our maintenance staff at these lectures," Sutherland said. "They have never had formal training. Now they're gaining a first-hand look at why we mumble all the time."

State museum volunteers Anne Storey and Carol Hendricks sat together at the lectures.

"Since we handle these things and we haven't done 48 years of museum curatorshipness, this teaches us things we need to know," Storey said."Now I'm going to be a little more aware if I see a bug. I will say BUG! BUG!"

Ryan devoted quite some time to insects. Bigger ones obviously look like bugs but some moths are small enough to look like white specks that could be mistaken as lint on a costume.

"This is my favorite pest -- the carpet beetle," Ryan said, showing a slide of the creature. "These guys like to eat everything. Some curators say 'I don't want a pest trap in an exhibit. How embarrassing.' Well, if you have a pest problem, that's more embarrassing."

Ryan even shared collectibles from her own home. Not some precious heirlooms but rather a pair of her Pez dispensers and her husband's 1950s Santa Claus.

"I collect Pez containers," she admitted, wearing white cotton gloves as she lifted a pair for the audience to see. "If I would give you my collection, how would you store these?"

The correct answer is fill a box with Ethafoam and cut the shape of the dispenser in the foam. Store away from light.

Her husband follows no rules with his Santa, which is a demonstration item when he talks with museum docents. Santa is deformed but Ryan still worried about causing further damage when she took Santa on the flight to Nevada.

"He used to be a squeaker but he doesn't squeak anymore," she said. "My husband doesn't keep it well. He let's it deteriorate."

The plastic era is nosing its way into museums, Ryan said.

"If you don't have plastics, they're coming," she said. "Plastics are extremely hard to take care of because they are made with so many materials. The problem is they don't deteriorate the same way."

She doesn't even know what makes up the plastic in her prized Pez containers, let alone the Darth Vader made in China and the Yosemite Sam from Yugoslavia.

"But we know in general how to take care of plastics," she said. "These materials are highly susceptible to light, high temperatures and moisture."

Belt buckles and jewelry are a no-no when handling precious collectibles. A handler wearing a long-sleeved shirt should tie the sleeves down to prevent cuffs from catching.

Gloves?

"Sometimes bare hands are actually better," Ryan said while talked about high glazed porcelain, with which the chance for slippage is greater with gloves.

Summer Kay, education and visitor services manager at the National Automobile Museum, perked up when Ryan explained that acid free item may not be acid free. Ryan advised museum people to test everything they order to make sure it indeed is acid free.

"We need a conservator's advice as much as anybody," Kay said. "In respect to our library, when she said to test that something is acid free, that is very interesting and important. I think that is interesting for all museums."

Curators said they appreciated the refresher course delivered by Victoria Montana Ryan. They regarded some of her ideas as new developments and some as yet another opinion.

"Every conservator I've heard has a different slant," said Cecile Brown, curator of museums for the Carson Valley Historical Society. "With each one, a little detail gets mentioned that someone else didn't mention that's important to you."

How to clean silver

Method described by conservator Victoria Montana Ryan at a public workshop last week.

Mix precipitate of calcium carbonate with a small amount of slightly warmed distilled water to a paste consistency. Apply paste with Q-tip to a small area like one inch by one inch. Rinse immediately with another Q-tip dipped in distilled water. Dry with with soft cloth.

"I'm not looking forward to cleaning a huge tea service inch by inch," said Yvonne Prettyman, a volunteer at the Fourth Ward School Museum in Virginia City.