Conservation and Education (09/06/2016)

Francisco and Patricia Rodriguez are definitely among the busiest people here working with the collections. Francisco is the Chief Conservator, and has worked with the Colombian National Museum, Pontifical Vatican Library, Columbus Memorial Library, Library of Congress, White House Library, and Ronald Reagan’s personal library. He is also a member of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC). Patricia is the Assistant Conservator, with specialized training and experience with textiles as well as vellum and parchment. As conservators, they preserve and, sometimes, restore damaged artifacts and make sure they are in a condition that allows exhibiting them with minimal danger. You may guess that this is a huge task—especially since the collections are still growing. They are preparing items for exhibition at the museum in Washington, DC, which is scheduled to open fall 2017. Beyond that, there are temporary and traveling exhibits and events coming up all the time.

Given the nature of the collections and the museum, the MOTB conservators mainly deal with manuscripts and printed books. Before they can start with any repairs or restoration, every item needs a detailed condition report first. Such a report details the current state and condition of an artifact. With manuscripts and books, any kind of rips, damaged edges, accretions, color changes, stains, planar distortion, or former repairs—to name a few items on the list—are carefully recorded and photographed. After the conservation process, all changes and repairs are documented in the same way. Done professionally, working as a conservator is not just about preserving or restoring artifacts, but also involves an enormous amount of documentation and administration. Last week, I provided Francisco and Patricia some help with this. After an introduction to the procedure, I started taking photos and filling out reports under their supervision. They also let me do some actual “conservation” work—or at least almost: Part of every conservation is cleaning the object so, equipped with a soft brush, I helped clean books and manuscripts.

06-prayerbook_charlesv

Page from the Prayer Book of Charles V (© Museum of the Bible)

The things I did with the conservators might not sound too exciting, but I enjoyed being able to examine the items more closely. For example, Brian has been working on the “Prayer book of the Young Charles V,” and he kept telling me what a beautiful book it is. Unfortunately, so far I did not have the chance to see it. Francisco, however, is preparing the prayer book for an exhibition so I got the opportunity to take a look at it in the conservation lab, and I can confirm what Brian says: the prayer book is simply gorgeous with the most beautiful illuminations.

Education

Throughout the week, I had interesting conversations with Amy Van Dyke, Curator of Art and Education, about the design of the museum. In the context of museums, the question of how to put across the educational content and what content it should be is something I had not really thought about. With regard to the DC museum, this is a complicated and fascinating issue.

Creating a museum about the Bible is one of the most difficult endeavors you could start. I think that only a few people have a “neutral” attitude towards the Bible. This leads to the question of what kind of people you want to reach and with what kind of presentation: “Conservative” Christians? “Liberal” Christians? Jews? Atheists? Non-religious people? I think the museum is creating something that all these groups can potentially enjoy. I really like this approach, but it is a most difficult one.

It starts with the basic details. Two of the museum’s floors are the History Floor and the Narrative Floor. The History Floor, on the one hand, tells the history of the Bible as a book through archaeological finds and manuscripts, etc. On the other hand, the Narrative Floor is designed to let people engage with a variety of biblical narratives.

What is interesting to me here (and a really smart choice) is the name “Narrative Floor.” This term is very neutral and can be understood in different ways because it does not evoke a statement about the biblical narratives’ relationship to historical events. If the museum had chosen the name “story floor,” it could convey a sense of something less relevant or fictional (like a “bedtime story”). The other extreme would be a name like “(Biblical) History Floor,” which would be a statement on the other end of the spectrum. Narrative Floor, however, seems quite in the middle. Some people will not like this approach. They will demand a clear statement. But if you want to invite as many people as possible to simply engage with the Bible, it makes sense to go for a way that is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Amy said something interesting in this context: When you are offending the same number of people on both ends of the spectrum, then you know that you are probably on the right track.

To find out more about my internship at MOTB, check in again next week!

P.S.
This Labor Day Weekend I visited the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. The current exhibits about Matisse and Dale Chihuly (an artist who works with glass) were amazing. I just found out that towards the end of my internship they will have another temporal exhibit there called Sacred Words: The Saint John’s Bible and the Art of Illumination. Except for the Saint John’s Bible featured in the title, they will also display several artifacts from the MOTB collections—among them the above-mentioned prayer book of the young Charles V. So I believe the OKC MOA will see me again for another visit.

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