This September, I finished my internship at the conservation lab at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. I will really miss the Kelsey and all the opportunities I was given through the University of Michigan. I was lucky to have had this wonderful internship, and I am grateful for everything Claudia and Suzanne has done for me.
I am now in Cardiff, Wales for my masters degree program, MSc in Conservation Practice at Cardiff University. Cardiff has one of the few archaeological conservation programs in the English-speaking world. They have an undergraduate conservation program as well, which shares some classes with the masters program. The people here are very friendly and helpful, and the professors are wonderful so far. Cardiff is quite a nice city, with all the perks of being a capital but more compact and friendly than most.
The MSc program is two full years, with a placement over the first summer and a dissertation over the second. This year, the classes focus on organic material, and next year it will be inorganic. My classes are Practical Projects (lab), Essentials of Conservation (which includes an introductory course in conservation practice, a chemistry course in polymers, and investigative cleaning), Conservation of Wet Wood, Structure and Decay of Organic Objects, Museums Collections Management, and Analysis of Artifacts. There are also conservation seminars and research seminars weekly.
There are 9 students in my year, and 7 in the year ahead. There are far more Americans than British in the program. In my year, 7 people are from the US, 1 is from Finland, and 1 is from England. It is also dominated by women, with only one man. I do not know what this says about the American programs, but it is nice that most of the people are adjusting to the new city and new schooling system like I am.
In lab, everyone gets a coin and a wooden peg. I was assigned a Victorian silver coin and a wet wooden trenail to stabilize. We are also assigned other individual objects to work on. They asked us what type of object we wanted, then came up with some things they thought we might like from local museums and clients. I was given copper alloy fragments from Roman bracelets, buckles, and wires with active corrosion; archaeological iron from a hoard; and a large, monochrome painted wood statue with cracks, flaking paint, rusting nails, insect damage, and missing pieces. I will be working with another girl on the statue, who has experience with paint conservation. I think they will all be good experiences, but the statue seems like a huge, daunting task.
The benches in the main lab. The room beyond has a reference library. Down the hall and on the next floor, there is a microscope room, X-ray and SEM rooms, a waterlogged wood room, an object reference and archive room, and a photography studio.
The large object lab room. The covered object on a cart on the far left is my statue. Off of this room, there is a fume extraction room and an air abrasive room.
The large object lab room. The covered object on a cart on the far left is my statue. Off of this room, there is a fume extraction room and an air abrasive room.
Left: My new toolkit. Right: The storage room, where the objects are kept on assigned shelves.
I look forward to the next two years. I will learn a lot about conservation, both in theory and in practice, and hopefully get to work on many different objects.
