Handling and Maintenance of Historic House Collections

Olivia Bascle is the manager of Preventive Conservation in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s (CWF) Historic Area. Using preventive conservation practices, her team cares for over 35 original and reconstructed 18th century properties as well as collections storage and warehouse spaces. Olivia works with many departments to ensure preservation needs are considered. Through her work at CWF, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and an internship at George Mason’s Gunston Hall, Olivia has years of experience with collections care and preventive project planning. She holds a BA in Anthropology from George Mason University and completed the Heritage Emergency and Response Training in 2022 run by the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative and FEMA.

David Bayne graduated from the Smithsonian Institution’s Furniture Conservation Training Program in 1990. He worked on American furniture for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the US Department of State, the Winterthur Museum, and private clients. At the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, David also worked on wooden folk sculpture of all sorts. David was the Furniture Conservator for the New York State Bureau of Historic Sites, located at the Peebles Island Resource Center in Waterford, New York from 1992 to 2020.

He has published in the AIC’s Wooden Artifacts Group Postprints, lectured to The Furniture Society, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, the American Association of State and Local Historians, involved in the organization of the 2001 and 2004 Furniture in France study trips, as well as the 2006 reciprocal visit for French colleagues to the United States. In 2018, David taught principals of wood conservation for two months in Beijing, China, as part of a program sponsored by the World Monuments Fund and hosted by the Palace Museum and the Tsinghua University.

Maddie Cooper is the Associate Preventive Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) where she carries out preservation surveys and assessments and facilitates educational programming. Maddie has worked with a wide range of institutional and community collections. She held roles in conservation and collections at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and the Wolfsonian-FIU prior to specializing in preventive conservation in graduate school. Through her graduate career, she interned with the Disaster Research Center, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and the Midwest Art Conservation Center. Maddie holds an MS in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, a BA in Chemistry from the University of Delaware, and a BA in Art Conservation with a minor in Art History from the University of Delaware.

Megan Ramsey is the Collections Manager at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. In this role, Megan is responsible for organizing the first comprehensive collections catalog at the museum including the preservation, documentation and management of over 8,000 objects. Megan brings over a decade of experience in museums and a passion for improving preservation of and access to museum collections. Prior to joining EDM in 2020, Megan worked at Bishop Museum and Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii; Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Virginia; Greenbrier Historical Society in Lewisburg, West Virginia; and the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia.

Paige Schmidt owns and works as an objects conservator for Dogwood Workshop, LLC. She is also the Wooden Objects Conservator for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, which provides preservation and conservation support to all of the state’s parks and over 30 historic sites. Paige previously worked as an objects conservator at The Mariners’ Museum and Park, where she helped establish the museum’s current conservation program and worked collaboratively across departments to establish, update, and implement preservation policies and procedures. She holds an MA from Buffalo State University with a certificate in conservation. Her training includes internships at several historic house and living history museums, including the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Frick Collection, and Biltmore.

Kelly McCauley Krish is the Preventive Conservator at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, where she helps implement preventive practices in the historic houses and fine arts museum. Prior to joining CW, she was the Senior Preventive Conservator at the National Museum Cardiff and a Preventive Conservation Specialist at the Image Permanence Institute, where she offered consulting services, research, and educational opportunities to support sustainable preservation practices. Kelly holds an MS from the University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and a BA in Historic Preservation from the University of Mary Washington.