CCI is pleased to provide internship opportunities to students and graduates of conservation programs. Not only do these individuals get to hone or acquire new skills and research directions, but they add to CCI's knowledge base. This regular feature of the CCI Newsletter highlights the work of recent interns.

Note: We regret to announce that the Institute is currently unable to accept new interns due to problems with our building infrastructure. However, as soon as this situation is remedied, we intend to reinstate the internship program. Watch the Learning Opportunities section of the CCI Web site for updates.

When Hildegard Heine arrived at CCI for a professional development internship, she brought with her a wide variety of education and experience. She had studied art history and archaeology at the University of Bonn in Germany and the University of Barcelona in Spain, and completed a 3-year apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker. Following this she had taken the conservation program at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne in Germany, where she had specialized in the Conservation of Wood and Ethnographic Material. Before and during her studies in Cologne she had worked in several private and museum conservation laboratories in Germany, Switzerland, and Spain, and done a 7-month internship in the Organic Section of the British Museum. For her thesis, she had surveyed the archaeological and ethnological collection of the Institute of Old American History and Ethnology at the University of Bonn, developing preventive conservation measures to improve collections storage.

Hildegard's time at CCI has been spent mostly in the Objects Laboratory of the Treatment and Development Division. After participating in the workshop Adhesives for Textile and Leather Conservation: Research and Application conducted by Jane Down, she enhanced her knowledge of the treatment of ethnographic materials and conservation approaches to them by carrying out work on an Inuit skin bag.

The bag belongs to the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal. It was collected by a missionary in the Ungava Bay Region of northern Quebec (Nunavik), and is estimated to be about 130 years old. Made from untanned skin from the feet of Canada geese, it is a pouch-like bag with a drawstring top. Or at least that was its original shape. The aging process and inappropriate storage conditions resulted in severe deterioration, multiple tears, and moth damage.

The first step in treating the bag was to return it to its original shape, and reshaping could only be done when the bag was damp. However, the bag's degraded condition precluded the use of high humidity for this purpose as moisture might cause further damage. Instead, the bag was placed into a specially constructed, small, closed chamber along with beakers of a mixture of distilled water and ethanol, for short periods. Once damp, it was gradually reshaped.

The opening at the top of the bag was too small to allow a hand to be inserted. To get around this problem, Hildegard had to be innovative. A small replica of the bag was first made out of cotton. This was placed inside the skin bag and then partially filled with sand to aid the reshaping process. Smooth-contoured tools such as spoons and ladles were also inserted into the bag to assist reshaping. A special device was built to hold these tools so that the hands remained free to manipulate the skin bag from the outside. Temporary facings were adhered to the outside of the skin to stabilize the tears during the reshaping process.

Once the bag was reshaped as much as possible, the tears were backed to stabilize the object and to avoid losing more material. The final step was detail work: inpainting, consolidating damage to the keratin layers of the skin (which had separated in some places), and cleaning. A padded mount and a box were also made to support and protect the bag while in storage.

In addition to work in the Objects Laboratory, Hildegard spent some time in the Preventive Conservation Services Division. She accompanied Siegfried Rempel on several site visits in Canada and assisted him in providing advisory services to institutions to assist them in implementing preventive conservation strategies. She also attended the workshops Emergency and Disaster Preparedness for Cultural Institutions (conducted by David Tremain and Deborah Stewart in Kingston in March 2002) and Caring for Collections (conducted by Stefan Michalski at the University of Victoria in April 2002).

Some other interns who have been at CCI in the past months include: Anna Krimmel, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (Master of Conservation - Restoration with specialization in Paintings Conservation), in the Treatment and Development Division - Fine Arts (a professional development internship).