2023

ADFAS (ArtsNational) Armidale Mid-Career Scholarship Harpreet Tanday

Harpreet has received the scholarship to attend the three day workshop ‘Hydrogel for Conservation’ taught by Mathew Cushman in Italy and run by Cesmar7 (Centro per lo Studio dei Materiali per il Restauro). She will gain theoretical and practical knowledge on hydrogel materials used for cleaning treatments. This will then be applied to Australian mural paintings and painted surfaces to ensure best national and international practice.

Assessment of a mural painting with portable microscopy. Image courtesy: H. Tanday, Delta Conservation.

ADFAS (ArtsNational) Mid-Career Scholarship Celia Cramer

Celia has received the scholarship to attend the 2023 Infrared & Raman Users Group 15th International Conference and Workshop in Japan. She will present her conservation research where she has developed an analytical method for the non-destructive chemical analysis of objects made from skin such as leather goods, ethnographic objects and natural history specimens using near infrared spectroscopy. At the conference she will learn from other delegates, draw attention to her research and promote Australian conservation research.

2022

ADFAS Armidale Mid-career Scholarship – Evan Tindal

Evan has received the scholarship to undertake specialised built heritage metalwork conservation training at West Dean College. This will help bridge a gap in built heritage metalwork knowledge where experience with traditional metalworking techniques is required.

ADFAS Bowral Mid-career Scholarship – Jennifer O’Connell

Image Photographer Jessica King

Jennifer has received the scholarship to attend the upcoming Thread by Thread Tear Repair workshop. As the Senior Conservator (Painting) at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery she will be able to use this technique on a number of paintings in the collection, and share what she has learned with other conservators, colleagues and the public.

ADFAS Mid-career Scholarship – Peter Mitchelson

Image courtesy of Grimwade Conservation Services. Phot by Paul Burston.

Peter has received the scholarship to undertake book conservation training on the conservation of 17th century vellum bindings. This specialised training will contribute to Peter’s work as a Book and Paper Conservator and directly by applied to the University of Melbourne Rare Book Collections.

2021

Lisa Charleston

Lisa has received the scholarship to undertake a specialised frame guilding techniques course. Lisa is the Conservation Technician at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and is responsible for the practical care and conservation treatment of frames in the collection. By attending the course in frame guilding techniques, Lisa gain further skills and confidence in frame conservation methodology and practice, directly benefiting TMAG’s significant frame collection.

Charlotte Walker

Charlotte has received the Scholarship to attend a suit of pattern making courses at the Centre for Adult Education, Melbourne. As an Objects Conservator at Museums Victoria, Charlotte is often responsible for mounting the costume collection that spans from early 19th century to present day. By attending the courses in pattern making, Charlotte will increase her skills in creating underpinnings for the safe and aesthetic display of historical costume and garments.

Sherryn Vardy

Sherryn has received the scholarship to take part in a two week work placement in the painting conservation lab at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. She is a private paintings conservator who runs Gippsland Heritage Conservation, the only conservation service in the Gippsland region in Victoria. This scholarship provides a two way learning opportunity with the team at TMAG, where Sherryn can learn from and assist them with treatments while gaining access to long-established lab with major equipment.

2020

Nicholas Flood

Nick will attend a metal coatings selection and specification course with the Australasian Corrosion Association, to build on his knowledge and expertise in outdoor sculpture and metals conservation. Nick plans to share this knowledge with conservators locally, and has been invited to Taiwan in 2021 (if international travel permits) to lecture on the conservation of painted sculpture in a week-long workshop held by the Juming Museum.

Tess Evans

Tess has been awarded the mid-career scholarship to further her research into the potential of a commercial biocide to treat mould. Tess has completed master’s-level research in this area and is currently working with a manufacturer to create a viable commercial product. The scholarship will support further research and product trials.

2019

Elizabeth McCartney

Elizabeth has been awarded the scholarship to attend the course ‘Conservation and Repair of Architectural and Structural Metalwork’ at West Dean College of Arts and Conservation (UK) in February 2020.  West Dean College is an internationally recognised and widely respected conservation education institution.  In her role Elizabeth directs the conservation program that looks after the Victorian State Collection.  The collection is substantial and varied and it includes a large number of technology items made from metal.

In particular, she is the project conservator for the Great Melbourne Telescope (GMT) Restoration. Erected at the Melbourne Observatory in 1869, for three decades the GMT was the largest operational telescope in the world.  In 1945 it was sold for reuse at Mt Stromlo Observatory near Canberra and after modernisation it continued to be used for astrophysical research.

In 2003, the parts of the GMT still in use were burnt in the Canberra bushfires.  In 2008 these parts were returned to Museums Victoria and the restoration project began. This is a complex project to restore an object of great state, national and international significance.  The restoration project has recently arrived at a critical juncture and further development of knowledge of metals conservation at this point would be of great and very timely benefit to the work on the project.

Undertaking this course at West Dean College is necessary as there is no metals-specific mid-career conservation training in Australia.  Receiving this specialised training would benefit the conservation of a number of objects and structures of high national and international significance, the preservation of the Victorian State Collection in general, and the support that Elizabeth if able to provide to her team and the other organisations who come to Museums Victoria for advice.

An additional 2019 ADFAS Mid -Career Scholar award has been  sponsored by ADFAS ARMIDALE.

Wendi Powell

Wendi Powell has been awarded the ADFAS Armidale Mid-career Scholarship to secure a place in the 7 week-long Preservation & Conservation of Photographic Materials Course held by The Centre for Photographic Conservation in London, England in 2020. This is a seven week ‘Certificated’ career and professional development course held annually for experienced conservators seeking to increase and develop their knowledge, skills and experience in the field of photographic conservation.

This course will help Wendi to broaden her knowledge and skill base in the field of photographic conservation. The course entails the history of photography and the theory of photo-chemistry and as well teaches practical hands-on skills for the preservation and conservation treatment of photographic materials. It will also enable Wendi the opportunity to assemble a collection of comparative images for the identification of different types of photographic materials.

Wendi wishes to share the information she gains from attending this course with the greater community of conservators within Australia and therefore proposes to hold an overview workshop at an AICCM event in Sydney, NSW upon her return.

2018

Kelly Leahey

The PRF award will enable Kelly to attend the joint American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Photographic Materials Group (AIC PMG) and the International Council of Museums – Committee for Conservation, Photographic Materials Working Group (ICOM-CC PMWG) conference and workshop, New York, in February 2019.

This conference is highly relevant and timely, as the Queensland State Library starts initial planning for the conservation of a significant collection of Richard Daintree’s  hand painted photographs from the 1870s. In 2019, Kelly will be leading the technical examination component of this project, and will be looking to build capabilities at the State Library in this area. She will take the opportunity a the conference to consult with photograph conservation colleagues to research international standards and current options. This will help to make wise investment decisions in the instrumentation purchases. In particular, the library is looking at options for documentation using Ultraviolet Fluorescence photography (UVF), Infrared Reflectography (IRR), and Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). Attending this joint photograph international conservation conference will help make good decisions in this area, and will have a huge impact on conservation work and research into Queensland collections in the years to come. In collaboration with Rachel Spano, Senior Conservator at State Library, she is working on two paper submissions for the conference.

2017

Dr Wendy Reade

Wendy attended and had her paper accepted at the biennial International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICANNE) conference in Munich, April 2018.

Her paper related to her work on reconstructing a very rare example of a 3400-year-old Egyptian fresco painted pavement from Amarna held at the University of Sydney Museums.