Before coming to the IMA as a volunteer conservation intern, I worked in a cozy, climate-controlled painting conservation studio in Buffalo, NY.  I thought my work here would be similar, however I quickly found this not to be true and that my primary task of assessing and conserving the four artworks on loan to IUPUI would require hours in the hot, blinding sun.

At the beginning of the summer I set out to photo document each one:  Spaces with Iron, Mega Gem, Portrait of History, and East Gate/West Gate.  From this day of documentation I created detailed condition reports. From there, IMA Conservator Richard McCoy, and fellow conservation intern, Nicole Peters (of recent IMA Blog fame) and I returned to campus to wash all four and then wax the two bronze artworks.  By that time summer was in full swing and the 90 degree day with clear skies made for some pretty interesting (and sweaty) work.

Never having waxed a bronze in my life, I read up on the subject to prepare.  Patrick V. Kipper’s The Care of Bronze Sculpture breaks down each step in process of waxing a bronze artwork, as does the IMA blog from last year, Caring for Bronze in the Community.  It seemed easy enough.  Some light blow torching, applying wax, smoothing the wax out evenly, applying the blow torch again, et voilà!  You can imagine it was not so simple.  At ten in the morning the sun was already scorching hot.  Cleaning Will Horwitt’s Spaces with Iron proved difficult when the water was evaporating faster than we could rinse the suds away.

Rinsing off "Spaces with Iron" before waxing can begin.

After scrubbing off grime and bird guano from the artwork, we added heat to the already hot day with the help of a large propane torch.  Monitored by Richard, Nicole and I created an efficient team, with one of us heating the metal and the other waxing the surface.  At first I was a little unsteady with the large blow torch so I worked as the waxer, however my fellow intern Nicole did not share my jitters and helped out immensely.

Nicole Peters uses a blow torch to heat the bronze surface as Abbott Nixon applies a protective layer of wax.

Once finished with Spaces with Iron there was a great sense of satisfaction … for about one minute, then we remembered we were about to do this all over again with the Zhou Brother’s Portrait of History. Unlike the smooth surface of Spaces with Iron, Portrait of History has a mottled texture which proved difficult not only to clean but to wax as well.

Abbott Nixon cleaning the difficult surface of "Portrait of History" By the Zhou Brothers.

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Filed under: Art, Conservation

Hanneorla has to be among the most prolific amateur art photographers of the 21^st century.  With more than 40,000 Flickr images that have been sorted into 517 distinct sets—each from a different location around the world, and mostly of art, architecture, and museums – Hanneorla’s photostream is one of the most important sources for art images in the 21st century, and why so many were excited about the potentials of  “Web 2.0.”

I first became aware of Hanneorla around 2007 when I was looking for Flickr users that were photographing artworks on the grounds of the IMA.  The set made for the IMA has 61 images in it and most of the contemporary outdoor artworks are documented. Although the sheer number of photos is impressive, what also interested me is the way the photos were taken: many of the works are shown from multiple sides, demonstrating that Hanneorla is skilled at looking carefully at art.

It was also around this time when Clay Shirky was getting a lot of attention for talking about how the Internet was ideally suited for us to spend our cognitive surplus doing something productive, rather than just watching television in the evening (Shirky estimates today this cognitive surplus is around a trillion hours a year for the adult population in the developed world).  Trying to harness but a sliver of a thumbnail of this surplus, we created the Wikipedia-and-Flickr-based project Wikiproject Public Art. While this continues to slowly grow, I’m always on the lookout for museum-based projects that tap into the cognitive surplus in a meaningful way.

So, to get to know the most productive art photographer in world better, I invited Hanneorla here for a discussion.

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Filed under: Around the Web, Art, Photography, Travel

Rosemary Arnold is an IUPUI Museums Studies student who participated in Richard McCoy’s Collections Care and Management course last fall.

On Thursday of last week, my classmates and I from IUPUI’s Fall 2010 Collections Care and Management course, along with our instructor Richard, were honored by both the Indiana Senate and House of Representatives for the work we did in documenting the Indiana State House Public Art Collection.  Senator Jim Merritt and Representative Tom Saunders sponsored Concurrent Resolutions to recognize our work.

Representative Saunders presents the House Concurrent Resolution to instructor Richard McCoy and students of the IUPUI Museums Studies Program. Photo courtesy of Tad Fruits.

Senator Merritt presents the Senate Concurrent Resolution to instructor Richard McCoy and students of the IUPUI Museums Studies Program. Photo courtesy of Tad Fruits.

While we were in the House of Representatives to receive our Resolution, Representative Saunders said something that struck me.  He said, “I’ve walked past some of these statues for fourteen years, and I never knew the full story about why they were here.”

I think a lot of us have had a similar experience, and that idea got me thinking. How is it possible to walk by something every day and never really see it? Why are we content to know that something does exist, but not why it exists? Is there any way to stop ourselves from becoming so comfortable with our surroundings that we hardly notice them anymore?

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Filed under: Around the Web, Conservation, Local

Here’s a guest post by Lori Byrd Phillips, who is probably the busiest graduate student in the IUPUI Museum Studies Program. In addition to her coursework, she’s my teaching assistant for the Collections Care and Management course, developing the IMA’s E-Volunteer Program, interning as the in-house Wikipedian at The Children’s Museum, and a project leader for Wikipedia Saves Public Art.

The truly dedicated IMA blog reader will know that Richard has been interested in putting information about art in Wikipedia for some time, and will also remember that the IMA has been interested in doing the same: from participating in the project Wikipedia Loves Art, to Max having lunch with local Wikipedians, to a number of folks from the IMA participating in the Wikimedia-sponsored event at Museums and the Web this year.

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Filed under: Conservation, Current Events, Local

Here’s a blog post from my summer intern, and former IUPUI student, Elizabeth Basile, who will complete her master’s degree in Museum Studies at IUPUI this December.

In the summer of 2010, I was fortunate to intern in the Variable Art Conservation Department with Richard McCoy. In 12 short weeks I examined ten years of planning and implementation documents for 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. When I wasn’t wading through concepts and plans, I got to stomp around in a very unusual, very soggy, construction site filled with a fantastic tunnel and a basketball court that was transforming into seemingly unending arcs of red and blue.

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Filed under: Art, Art and Nature Park, Conservation