Tag: conservation

Claire the Conservatrix

Little starfish

Aren’t these little starfish adorable? Pictured larger-than-life, they’re actually about the size of a 10p piece. So cute!

And in case you’re wondering what a jar full of preserved starfish are doing on a crafty blog… well, they won’t be here for much longer. You know I volunteer at the Cole Museum of Zoology? And I’m hoping to train in the conservation of natural history objects? Well, I thought it was about time that those subjects had a little blog of their own.

So, here it is:

claire the conservatrix
adventures in natural history conservation

 

I’m going on a course in London next week, learning more about the preservation of specimens in spirit, like these starfish. I’ve also applied for a voluntary position at another local museum, cataloguing beetles, so fingers crossed for that.

It would be lovely to get some discussion going on at the new blog, so please feel free to follow me. However, I’m aware that many people find pictures of wobbly things in jars a bit unpleasant, so there’ll be no hard feelings if you’d rather not look!

 

I will, of course, still be updating here with all of the things that I make. My extra hours at work finish at the end of this week, so once I’m back from the conservation course, I can get on with making a few things!

Working 9-5…

…what a way to make a living!

This photo crossed my path at work this week, which rather took me by surprise! It was taken earlier this year, when I was volunteering at the Cole Museum of Zoology. I’m very carefully cleaning one of the many bullfrog skeletons. I’m going back to the Cole Museum next week, to continue volunteering, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve been volunteering and working in museums now since 2009, and my intention was to get involved in as many different areas as possible, to work out where I wanted to specialise. Most of my work has been in education, with a little foray into marketing, which I really enjoy.

In the long term though, I’m now hoping to train as a conservator, specialising in natural history objects. There’s no straighforward qualification route for this, so I’m trying to gain as much experience as I can by volunteering, and by taking short courses as they come up. In December I’ll be learning about the care of fluid-preserved collections, at the Horniman Museum. I’m also trying to raise the funds to study an MA in Preventive Conservation.

So, if you’ve been wondering why there haven’t been as many making things posts around here as usual, the answer is that I’ve been at work! I took on some extra hours during the summer, and those hours have now been extended for a while longer, so I’m saving all the extra pennies towards the fees for the MA.

I’m also trying to decide whether to blog about SCIENCE THINGS here, or whether to write about them somewhere different. I will be required to keep a blog as part of the MA, but I’m aware that some of you really don’t like to see wobbly things in jars (which is the area I’m hoping to specialise in), and I don’t want to frighten anybody away! Your feedback on this would be very welcome.

Cole Museum: Conservation Cleaning

Damaged display

Over the summer I’ve been helping out behind the scenes at the Cole Museum. We’ve been taking an inventory of some of the storage cupboards, and doing a little bit of conservation and cleaning along the way.

This display had been stored unwrapped, and had become rather damaged and dusty. The label says “Canis Familiaris – Cranial Vertebrae”, which is the bones of the head of a dog. There’s also, somewhat inexplicably, a little forelimb of a puppy attached too.

Parts removed for cleaning

First of all I removed all the parts that could be safely removed from the board without damage. The red part is glued on, and the other pieces are held securely into place with pins. I then used a combination of soft brushes, cotton buds, tweezers and smoke sponge to clean off the worst of the dirt. The loose dust on the backing board was brushed into a museum grade vacuum cleaner.

Complicated jigsaw...

These are the rest of the pieces, waiting to be cleaned. They’ve gone back into their cupboard again while I find out how to clean the dust off the bones without also removing the paint. The tube contains some tiny fragments that had broken off. This has been numbered, and will be kept with the rest of the display.

I’ve really enjoyed working on this little piece of conservation – although I have a sneaking suspicion that putting it back together again might be a little more difficult than taking it apart!

Cole Museum: Bat Conservation

Bat, being re-wrapped

Once a week I’ve been helping out at the Cole Museum of Zoology as a volunteer. A couple of us have been checking the inventory of some of the store cupboards, and we’ve started to do a bit of conservation work as we go along.

This little bat was wrapped up in a plastic bag, which is a bad idea as condensation can develop inside and damage the specimen. I carefully unwrapped it and prepared some little cushions of acid-free tissue paper so that it wouldn’t get squashed.

New boxes for the bats

There were two bats which belonged together (mounted to show the front and the back), so I wrapped them up carefully and popped them each into a little box. This was then labelled with the specimen number and a brief description, so that the next person to come looking for these bats can find them nice and easily.

There are quite a number of bats in the Cole Museum’s cupboards, including a huge vampire bat that I pulled out on a day I didn’t have my camera with me. I think we’re going to need a lot more tissue paper and a bigger box to keep him safe!