This post is part of an ongoing series, “Time and Tide: Ten Years after Katrina.” Special thanks to Preston Everett, Archives and Records Services, for writing this post.
Department assessment teams worked after the storm to help libraries, museums, local governments, and other institutions stabilize their records, books, and artifacts. In the midst of this work, another recovery project was being developed to help people recover their family treasures and assist cultural institutions in conserving and repairing damaged artifacts in their collections.
Art conservation specialist Debbie Hess Norris of the University of Delaware spearheaded the Recovering Collections & Artifacts workshops, which brought conservation experts to Mississippi for a series of free workshops across the state from May through November 2006.
Teams of conservators and conservation graduate students from the Winterthur Museum and the University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation led the series. They demonstrated how to assess, stabilize, dry, and clean damaged items ranging from photographs to textiles to furniture.
The workshops were sponsored by the Winterthur Museum and the University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, MDAH, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.