Meet your colleagues in the field and museums around New England! It’s often too easy for colleagues to feel isolated in their own institutions—we hope this feature will help close the gap. We also hope that it reinforces your own joy in your work and encourages you to recognize your own positive impacts.
In this edition of the NEMA Member Profile, we feature Marylou Davis, conservator and longtime NEMA Conservators PAG Co-Chair. Davis has worked all over the New England region, including the Wadsworth-Longfellow House of the Maine Historical Society, the Mayhew-Hancock-Mitchell House in Martha’s Vineyard, Old Sturbridge Village, the Emily Dickinson House, and the Joseph Webb House in Wethersfield, to name a few. She has coordinated numerous NEMA workshops and sessions over the years, including “With Scarcely a Rival,” The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion: 50+ years of Groundbreaking Preservationoff-site at the 100th Annual NEMA Conference in 2018.
Tell us about yourself.
I’ve worked in the field of restoration, preservation and conservation for 47 years.
At the age of 21, I was hired as an apprentice in a restoration workshop connected to a high-end antiques shop. I was the first woman in the shop’s long history. My role was to assist six European master cabinetmakers, gilders, painters and finishers.
No one spoke a word to me for three months. I had to watch, wait and figure out how to be useful through long days. Often my work was quietly rejected and placed back on my workbench. That meant I had to do the work over without encouragement or instructions given, except by one African-American man who repaired the antique ceramics. Leroy quietly gave the necessary tools and explained the techniques so I could carry tasks through to approval. I thought I was treated poorly because I was female. But a young man was hired as an additional apprentice a few months after me. The masters treated the new hire in the same manner. After I endured three months of baffling, sometimes humiliating treatment, the craftsmen began teaching the skills I was so eager to learn, simply because I came to work each day throughout the hazing period.
What was your first job?
After the apprenticeship, I moved to Massachusetts, and was hired by Old Sturbridge Village, where I made reproduction furniture in the cabinetmaker’s shop.
Curators brought artifacts they wanted us to copy for use in the museum’s interpretive program. I was a better finisher than cabinetmaker, so I began focusing my research and work on historic finishes. At Old Sturbridge Village we were given the time, the use of collections and library for thorough research, then we copied the artifacts using hand tools for interested visitors touring the museum. It was a terrific way to learn a historic trade.
What sector of conservation do you work in? What sparked your interest in that part of the field?
I work across a number of areas, but I’d probably most accurately be described as a specialist in historic finishes, on both furnishings and architecture including fabrics and wallpapers. When I worked at OSV, I planned for self-employment, so concentrated on developing skills in an area not overly populated by good craftsmen. This began to become a reality when I did conservation work on furniture for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, when conservator Robert Mussey secured large contracts with the State Department and the White House. We worked on pieces in the National Collections of colonial and early American furniture. I researched and designed historically appropriate finishes for other cabinetmakers’ reproduction furniture. During those earlier years, I also worked and studied with accomplished gilders to learn gilding conservation. Collectively these experiences allowed me to offer a broad palette of historic finishing services.
How long have you been a member of NEMA? What’s your best experience thus far?
It feels as if I’ve always been a member of NEMA, certainly in spirit!
I enjoyed the recent NEMA annual conference held in Newport the most. That conference felt as though all the stars aligned perfectly for New England museums and the organization. Sessions were headlined by new technologies and taught by good speakers. I felt great pride in being part of the museum field and was glad I had chosen to serve it. I thought the ambiance was elegant and warm with attendees relaxed and collegial. While not represented by any figure on a balance sheet, that conference made me understand the extent of my rich professional life.
On a recent episode of The C Word – The Conservators’ Podcast they talked about their favorite tools in the conservation field. Do you have a favorite tool?
In my specialty, all tools are needed equally, depending on the problem. I do, however, have a favorite material. It is de-waxed, garnet-lac shellac. There’s nothing as beautifully therapeutic or mesmerizing as polishing an Empire-style, flame mahogany sideboard with garnet-lac shellac. It’s transporting.
Can you tell us about a highlight from a project you have worked on?
There are many to choose from. I was contracted as an instructor in the Smithsonian Conservation Analytical Laboratories, Furniture Conservation Master’s program over a 24-year period. I traveled to the Laboratories every four years to teach sessions on historic decorative finishes. One of those sessions coincided with conservation of the Enola Gay aircraft in preparation for exhibition at the Air and Space Museum. Students and I took our bag lunches over to the aircraft hangar to see the small plane and talk to the conservators working on the project. It was one of the most fascinating lunches I’ve experienced as we asked questions and discussed their approach to conserving the aircraft that altered history. There was a great deal of passionate discourse around whether or not it was suitable to commemorate the anniversary of such a fearsome historic event, and, if so, what might be appropriate, what points of view should commemoration include. As we sat on concrete with plane parts all around, the conversation evolved into one of the ethics and philosophy of curatorial interpretation, and who possesses or controls the authoritative voice. I’d call the conversation a high point rather than a highlight.
Do you have a museum conservation horror story you’d like to share?
I have only one, thank god, but it was a doozy. It happened at the end of a long day as these accidents typically do. You know, the five o’clock flub up. I wouldn’t mind describing more, but I don’t know how the client would feel about it, so I can’t. Full disclosure was made at the time, of course, and I included it and the repair work in the treatment report.
How has your work in conservation changed over the years? Are there current trends in the conservation field that you are excited by?
There are two trends, one across the field, and one within my own work. First, there is a shift from conservation of 18th and 19th century objects and buildings to 20th century ones. All sorts of new challenges arise as conservators approach materials that were new and experimental in their time. There is little conservation precedent for these. I’m wowed by the methods, tools, and materials conservators are developing to address these problems. While I don’t work on Modern works of art, I enjoy hearing and seeing case studies of those who do.
In my own work, one project leads to the next. I find I’ve migrated to historic design; now combining it with conservation of surface finishes. For example, I work with pipe organ builders to design new organs that must appear visually seamless within historic churches. Typically, I also execute the specified decorative surface coatings. I copy artifact fragments of densely patterned block-printed floorcloths and fabricate floorcloths for halls and dining rooms of house museums. The handpainted floorcoverings must undergo the wear and tear of visitor traffic. Recently, based on wallpaper fragments found in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom and dated to her tenure within, I designed a wallpaper pattern that was then roller printed and is now hung in the bedroom of the museum.
What lessons has your work life taught you?
A few unrelated things:
- Patience. Patience. Patience.
- Competition is pointless, a waste of time and energy.
- Conservators are the smartest, best principled, most kind, helpful and inquisitive group of people I’ve been very lucky to know and share friendships with.
I often hire young adults to assist in large project work. Over the years, I’ve developed some sayings they tend to repeat back to me.
“It isn’t a mistake if you can fix it.”
“If you don’t like sanding, then do it faster so you get it over with sooner.”
“Don’t give any time or attention to an area invisible to the observer. The ancients didn’t do it; neither should we.”
What do you think the conservation field will look like in 50 years?
The museum field has fully embraced conservation over restoration. This has happened during my adult life span; it’s great to watch the smooth operation. I think it represents the adaptable intelligence of the museum world; a field grounded in unswerving ethics and defined policy. The problem exists within operations outside the museum field. There aren’t enough conservators or conservation programs. I don’t see that changing in the future. This aspect may separate museums from constituent visitors by presenting objects and content at such a high level, it’s not easily accessible to a public that museums strive to serve.
Is there a piece of advice that you would give to someone new in the field?
To anyone in the museum field no matter the position, I’d say
“Are you sure you can manage financially for a life time and raise a family as a museum staff-person?”
What is on your museum and historic sites bucket list (things to do, places to visit)?
I’d like to someday work on a pipe organ project with a European organ-building company, perhaps in Germany, Italy, France, Spain or the United Kingdom.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Yes, I have a life outside my work, although I love what I do so I’m happy I’m not forced to retire. I live in the bucolic historic district in Woodstock, Connecticut. I share life with a Schnauzer-poodle mix named Boris and a bunch of very cool personal and professional friends. My hobby is gardening. Last summer my gardens were chosen for inclusion in a regional fundraiser garden tour day. I was thrilled!