“Experiment Day”–A New Way to Learn

As you know, we like to stop our production work every now and then to learn something new. In June we sent representatives to both the American Institution for Conservation and the Canadian Association for Conservation annual meetings.

This was the first year we sent someone to the CAC conference. Grace attended and brought back information including an interesting use of magnets to hang a traveling exhibit of vary large artwork. What she liked most about the CAC conference is that the specialties do not break up into separate sessions like we do at AIC.

Erin shows us Bill Minter’s tip on using a screen to dry tear Japanese tissue to use for repairs.

Erin and I discussed the sessions we attended at AIC including the Book and Paper Group Tips Session (always a favorite). Erin had the great idea to have an “Experiment Day” to try some of these tips. She worked with Rachel to get supplies and organize a few of the tips that seemed most useful. Rachel demonstrated a hinging technique she uses that is similar to the one Terry Marsh offered (read by Anisha Gupta) at the tips session. Erin then demonstrated other tips including a dry tear technique presented by Bill Minter, and a technique for relaxing lined artwork presented by Betsy Palmer Eldridge. It was a fun way to bring back information from a conference and experiment a little to see if we can integrate some of these techniques into our workflows.

Rachel demonstrates a hinging technique used for float mats.