Introductions: Personal and Institutional

My name is Bill Mastandrea and I am an American graduate student studying objects conservation at University College London (UCL). As a kid, I was always fascinated by ancient history and have tried learning and connecting to ancient people and the remnant objects and places that became their legacy. My formal educational background is in the archaeology and material studies of the Mediterranean and Near East receiving degrees from both Lycoming College and Cornell University - where I focused on the Bronze Age Aegean and the beautiful and wonderful ceramics created by the Minoans of Crete and the Cycladic islanders. However, my appreciation and passion for history comes from my father, a car mechanic - owner and operator of Mr. Bill's Auto Repair in my hometown of Warwick, NY - who through his knowledge of automotive history and technology taught me that objects reflect the hearts, minds, and ingenuity of the people who worked so hard to make them, use them, and care for them. I moved to London two years ago to pursue my dream of becoming an object conservator for archaeology, anthropology, and museums. I have been working super hard these past two years to make sure that this dream becomes a reality.

The conservation program at UCL is a total of three years: one year of classroom learning, one year of hands-on laboratory training - learning to treat real museum objects, and one year in the workplace as a conservation intern at a museum institution or private conservation firm. This year, I have been exceedingly fortunate to have the opportunity to be the new conservation intern at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London, UK.

The Horniman Museum, showing the bee garden in the foreground (Photo credit: Author's own)

The Horniman Museum

The Horniman Museum is the result of the lifetime of collecting by Frederick John Horniman, a Victorian tea trader and philanthropist. The archaeological, anthropological, and natural history objects which comprise his collection were derived from his travels all over the world. Beginning in 1860, his goal was to "educate and enrich the lives of the local community." After thirty years of collecting, it became evident that he needed a better place to store all of his finds. His first plan, in 1890, was to display them in one of his former residences, Surry House, as a public museum. By 1898, he resolved to building a more suitable public museum which was formally opened in 1901 and has since been a center for learning, community engagement, and cultural exchange.

Today, the museum has an extensive collection: a Natural History Collection, containing skeletons, fossils, and taxidermy (including one very famous walrus) , a Music Gallery, with over 1600 different instruments from around the world, the World Gallery, which contains anthropological objects and materials ranging from ancient to modern times highlighting the incredible and fascinating ways of life of people across time and geography, an active aquarium, a contemporary art space, an exhibition hall, and much more.

The Horniman Walrus, Taxidermy Mount (Photo Source: Horniman Museum Collections Catalogue)

Being such a unique place with such a large breadth of collections, I feel very fortunate to be able to spend the next ten months helping in maintaining the objects on display, those in storage, objects coming in or going out on loan to and from other museum institutions for exhibition, as well as learning to navigate all of the daily duties and responsibilities within the purview of a conservator. The staff conservators at the Horniman Museum, Julia Gresson and Charlotte Ridley, are very friendly and have decades of collective experience accumulated across their conservation careers. I am really happy to be working alongside them and learning as much as I can from their collective expertise.

The Plan

I wanted to create this blog as a starting point. Here, I want to share my process and progress of learning and growing through the internship at the Horniman and provide a glimpse into the life of an object conservator. The nature of our work often makes it difficult to see from the public perspective; for this reason, it is often said that "if we do our job right, no one will be able to tell we've been there". It is my hope that I can bring that silent gap to the fore to show how much training, work, expertise, collaboration, trial, and error goes into the continued preservation of material culture. Somewhere between my incessant ramblings and professional self-reflection I hope I can impart some knowledge and bring something of value to the reader. Thanks everyone! Stay tuned for another post next week about the work I've already started!