Kate Cuffari

Kate works at the PMA as a conservationist.  She takes care of the pieces at the museum as they grow older, moves them throughout the museum and in and out of storage, and creates custom containers to ship the pieces.  She taught us a lot about our artwork and artwork in general over a long span of time.  Some key points she mentioned were willful destruction, intended degradation, decomposition, and having insufficient documentation to know what the artist wanted in regards to these terms.  She showed us a lot of examples of work in the museum that needed restoration or needed to be updated or maintained in some manner.  She told us to consider a few things when creating a piece of artwork if we are concerned about its longevity: consider the materials used, do some research on how the materials will react to one another, consider storing archives on updated file formats, and be sure to document decomposition sentiments regarding the piece.  Her lecture was VERY informative and I learned a lot about her job and how my work as an artist can benefit from knowing what she does.