Airbrushing in Conservation
- Registration Closed
November 8-10, 2022
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA
Instructor: Sylvia Jeffriess
This hands-on workshop is designed to introduce and broaden the conservator’s knowledge and technical skills of airbrushing. Instructors will provide an overview of how the airbrush tool and its related components work, in addition to how they can be used for different purposes. Health and safety instructions and tips on how to prepare your studio space for spraying will be covered and participants will be guided through the process of choosing the right material for spraying. The instructor will also discuss the pros and cons of different masking techniques.
Case studies will be presented to illustrate how airbrushing can be used to successfully to solve a wide variety of conservation challenges, as well as the role that atomized paint application has been used by artists in contemporary art production. Participants will develop an understanding of the function and versatility of airbrushing as a tool in conservation before gaining practical hands-on experience.
Each participant will be provided with an airbrush station, water-based paint and different conservation materials for testing and practice. Participants will be guided through simple exercises to help master the airbrush tool and subsequently move on to more advanced applications. Discussion and feedback on the challenges faced will be provided following the hand-on exercises.
Space is limited and we ask that only one person per institution participate. FAIC and the Seattle Art Museum are closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation. We hope to be able to move forward with the workshop in November and encourage you register. The situation will be reevaluated in the months leading up to the workshop. View our Help page for our cancellation policy.
Funding for this program comes from the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) Endowment for Professional Development and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The FAIC Endowment for Professional Development, which was created by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is supported by donations from members of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and its friends. Workshops are made possible with the assistance of many AIC members, but no AIC membership dues were used to create or present this course.
FAIC relies on your contributions to support these and its many other programs. Learn more about donating to the foundation.
Sylvia Jeffriess
Sylvia Jeffriess is a conservator working in modern and contemporary art, with a background in contemporary art fabrication. Her fabrication background includes working directly with contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Mika Tajima, and Tony Matelli, and for fabrication studio Alchemy Paintworks to deliver restoration and fabrication projects for a variety of stakeholders including numerous galleries, museums and artist studios including Urs Fischer, Aaron Curry, Gagosian and the Guggenheim, and works treated include those by Anish Kapoor, Takeshi Murakami, Zaha Hadid and Sol LeWitt. She completed a Masters of Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne, and internships at the Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia) and Modern Art Conservation (NYC, United States).
She worked as Associate Conservator at Modern Art Conservation for six years before taking a position to head up the new Preservation department at UAP (NYC, United States). UAP is a multi-national contemporary art and architecture fabrication company, with foundries and facilities in Australia, China, Singapore, the Middle East, and North America. Most recently they acquired the long running and well renowned Polich Tallix foundry located in Rock Tavern in upstate New York. The foundry has a legacy of producing monumental, fabricated works for several leading modern and contemporary artists including Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Tuttle, Louise Bourgeois, Joel Shapiro, Claus Oldenburg to Nicole Eisenman. Committed to delivering turn-key services for contemporary art production delivery, UAP is excited to now add preservation and conservation services to their capabilities to ensure the ongoing care of fabricated, monumental artwork.
The following list of nearby hotels was compiled for the convenience of workshop participants and are in no way endorsed by FAIC or the Seattle Art Museum.
- Mayflower Park Hotel: A short walk to SAM and near the light rail station for transportation to the airport. The hotel is providing a limited reduced rate for workshop participants for $120 per night for up to three nights (while availability lasts). Contact learning@culturalheritage.org for instructions on obtaining this rate.
- Inn at the Market
- Kimpton Hotel Monaco Seattle
- W Seattle
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