Lecture Number Five

The speaker for this week was Kate Cuffari, she works as an art conservator for the Philly Art Museum. She focused her lecture on materials and how technology has helped improve the longevity of materials. This lecture was better than the last two, its was easier to understand than Philip's and a lot more focused than the guy from Basekamp, and as an added bonus it was on a relevant topic. I really never thought about what materials I have used and hearing Kate talk about paintings that go through such drastic metamorphoses that museums decide to never show them again made me think more about what materials I use. She mentioned how her and her colleges have to work within the boundaries of the artist's intent, they can't restore something that an artist wanted to decay, it would ruin the meaning. She also mentioned how conservators are tasked to produce replicas that are used to display in place of the original to make sure that the original stays safe. As I was finishing up a 2-D project last night I was looking at the paper, glue and other materials and seeing if they were acid free and if they were light-fast all because of Kate Cuffari's lecture, I wanted to make sure that the work i spent too much time on would last .