Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing two new members of the Landmarks team, Sophie West and Kendall McKinney, pre-program Interns in the Collections Management department. This year-long internship is designed for students interested in pursuing graduate studies in conservation and includes a blend of preventive care fieldwork, object preservation and conservation training, along with other tasks. Both students were eager to discuss their experiences in conservation, role at Landmarks, and aspirations for the future.
Let’s start off with the basics– what are your names, years, and majors?
Kendall: My name is Kendall. I’m a sophomore chemistry major, and I’m minoring in art history and studio arts. I started off as an art history major but transferred into chemistry this year because I’m interested in conservation.
Sophie: I’m Sophie. I’m in between a junior and senior– a senior by hours and junior by time here. I’m a history major and am also pursuing a certificate in museum studies. I want to do conservation, but that’s less to do with an interest in art history. I came in knowing I wanted to do something with material history, and I fell into conservation, which is the perfect balance of research and a lot of tactile time.
How did you first learn about Landmarks and what led you to this position?
K: I learned about Landmarks from Gone to Fine Arts. Landmarks was tabling and I picked up a pamphlet, and at the very bottom of it, it said “We have the Landmarks Preservation Guild!” I had been searching for every possible opportunity to get involved with conservation on campus, and I thought it was really cool that Landmarks offered that. Even though it was just two hours a week, I really enjoyed it. I met a great group of people including Meaghan Perry, Landmarks’ conservator. When I got the opportunity to take on the pre-program internship, I thought it would be great to put even more time into caring for the collection.
S: I have a friend Adelaide who is single handedly responsible for recruiting five or six of the new volunteers this semester. She was in the Landmarks Preservation Guild (LPG) last semester, and we were co-workers at the Harry Ransom Center. She had mentioned it to me, so I signed up to be a volunteer over the summer. Then I saw this position, applied for it, and ended up getting it. Thirty minutes into my first day on the job, we were already training the volunteers, and I hadn’t even had the chance to volunteer myself!
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced so far in your preservation efforts at Landmarks?
K: With Circle with Towers by Sol LeWitt, the challenges are with the material itself. The artist's intent was for it to be a perfect, pristine, mathematically configured concrete block, but because it’s concrete it's not going to look like that forever. We’re not trying to constantly doctor it up. One of the rules of conservation is that you always want to be able to tell what you’ve changed. So, if you see cracks in the piece, you can tell where they’ve been filled in because it’s a lighter color. People do also put stuff in the middle of it sometimes. I had to pull a bike out of it once, which was fun!
S: Caring for Sarah Oppenheimer’s C-010106 is challenging because there's just a lot to do. It gets really dirty because it's a mirror and glass, and I have to wipe everything down and take photos from very specific angles. That can be hard. It's a mirror. It's humid. I'll be sweating buckets and am super flushed in my outside clothes from looking directly at my face for 15 minutes. Clock Knot also gets grass stuck all over it, and you have to really look for new scuffs.
Do you have a favorite piece to work with?
K: My favorite piece to do condition reports on and preserve is Seven Mountains by Ursula Von Rydingsvard. Because it’s covered in graphite, it can’t be dusted with the hake brush or a microfiber cloth as they would remove the material. You have to pick off the dust bunnies with tweezers, and it’s like a little I-Spy game to try to find them because the dust is the same color as the graphite. I find it fun!
How have you balanced the administrative and managerial responsibilities of this position with your hands-on work in the field?
K: We are overseeing the collection and monitoring it constantly. On top of doing preservation treatments, we’re also doing condition reporting. We also take on a lot of management duties with the administrative work we do. We send a lot of emails and watch over the LPG members. In the mornings, I like to do condition reporting and go out and see the works of art. Sophie and I split up the collection into A and B, so we each take half and go through our section once a month.
S: There’s a lot of contacting people to make sure I’m going through the right protocols to be able to actually do the fieldwork. As an example, Kendall and I are interested in getting a ladder into the James Turrell Skyspace, so we're going to have to ask Lindsay Hamm Havekost, assistant director of collections, about that and coordinate with the building manager. If they'll allow it, then we’ll have to figure out how we are going to get a ladder in there. There's just a lot of people involved. I also supervise the volunteers' work. That has been great for learning more about conservation because they'll ask questions and I'll be like, “I don't know how to answer that. Let me do research and get back to you!”
What do you hope to do after getting your undergraduate degree and how will this internship help you meet your goals?
K: I want to go to graduate school for conservation after college and then work in a museum. To get into conservation grad school, most of the programs require around 400 hours in what they call pre-program conservation experience, which is what this job is. So being at Landmarks is helpful in getting my foot in the door. Normally you have to have experience to get experience, and this is a wonderful way to gain more experience.
S: Definitely graduate school. I’ll need a couple of hundred hours to apply, so this position is great because it provides those pre-program hours. Managing the volunteers is also helpful because a lot of times, institutions will only have one or two conservators, and you're managing the entire collection by yourself. It's a lot to keep in your head. And my role at Landmarks has been helpful because we're responsible for taking care of 50 plus items and making sure that everything gets treated in due time and in order of importance. It's given me a good sense of managerial strategy.
What is an experience you’re looking forward to having most in this position?
K: I’m really excited to do one on one –or two on one– work with Meghan Perry. In the past I’ve just attended her workshops, which are open to everyone, but that’s obviously for a more general population that may not be seriously interested in conservation. I’m really excited to learn valuable knowledge from Meghan.
S: I really want to come out of this experience with a complete treatment report showcasing my work on metal. I'd like to learn more about the deterioration of metal and what different accretions look like and what they're like caused by. I know sometimes pieces will ooze with some of the materials that were within the metal when the works were created. Or sometimes the accretion might be rust or something in the environment that will stick on it. In the next couple of weeks, I’d love to learn to identify and treat those issues and write a treatment report.
What would you say to a student who wants to get involved but is nervous that they don’t have enough prior knowledge of preservation or conservation.
S: There isn't a club on campus of pre-conservators like there is for pre-law. That’s one of the things that’s so great about Landmarks. Through the LPG, people who are interested in pursuing conservation can connect and share resources and information. Otherwise, it can be hard to get your foot in the door. I've met a lot of people who have applied for conservation internships at various places and weren’t selected, and that can feel really discouraging if you're just starting off. You think, how am I ever supposed to learn anything? The LPG is open to all and is a great way for people to get their first experience with conservation.
Why do you think this work is so important to Landmarks?
K: I think it is really important, especially in the world we’re in now, to protect our culture. I think the preservation and conservation work at Landmarks is important because public art means a lot to the UT community. We want to take care of these works so future students can enjoy them. That’s the main reason I’m interested in conservation– I really care about saving cultural resources and saving works of art for the future.
Thank you so much to Sophie and Kendall for sharing their insights. And stay tuned for more reflections on the work these interns are doing!
Maddie Jewesson is an intern in Landmarks' communications department.