PreservationTheory.org

Résumé

Personal Notes (early life)

1952 born in St. Louis, Mo.
1957-1967 Tioga County and Endicott, New York
1968-1969 Irving/Dallas, Texas

Education

• Public school education in Endicott, N.Y. and Dallas, Texas. 

• B. Mus. from Houghton College, Houghton N.Y. (1974)

• Science for Conservators, AIP Distance Learning Program 1998

• Historical Musical Instrument Making Traditions and Technologies: independent study since 1972 resulting in the making of 32 reproduction keyboard instruments, several lectures and publication of five articles.

• Museum Ethics: independent study 1989-present, resulting in eight public lectures, (including American Institute for Conservation, General Session 1990 & 2003) and two published articles.

• Information Technology for Conservation: independent study 1990-present, resulting in programming of computer systems for conservation project tracking, conservation surveys, and treatment documentation. All systems are in daily use at Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Employment

• 1988-present: Conservator of Instruments and Mechanical Arts
  (and as of June, 2008) Associate Curator of Musical Instruments
  at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Va.

• 1977- 1995: conservator in private practice – conservation of keyboard musical instruments for museums, musicians and private collectors.

• 1972-1988: Church musician in three churches, directing overall program, and choral conducting

• 1974-1995: Self employed, making reproductions of early keyboard instruments (4 clavichords, 7 single manual harpsichords, 7 double manual harpsichords, 11 spinets, 1 regal organ, 1 fortepiano.)

Professional Memberships

• American Institute for Conservation

• American Musical Instrument Society

•  Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society (board member)

•  Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society

•  Comité International des Musées et Collections d'Instruments de Musique (CIMCIM)

•  Organ Historical Society

•  Virginia Conservators Association

•  British Institute for Organ Studies

•  Westfield Center

•  Early Music America

Awards

• Professional Associate, American Institute for Conservation

•  Samuel H. Kress Publications Fellowship 1999

Other Professional Activities

• Compiler with Martha Clinkscale of a comprehensive, international database of pre-1860 pianos: www.EarlyPianos.org  

• Designer of software for conservation, including development of CDS-Documentation, a conservation documentation program published and distributed by Conservation Data Systems, LLC (www.ConservationDataSystems.com)

• 2006-present Member, Board of Directors, the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society

• Organ Historical Society - Restoration and Conservation Guidelines Revision committee (co-chair)

• Program Committee American Institute for Conservation National Meeting for 2003

• Reviewer, Kress Publication Fellowships 2002

• Organized an international organ restoration conference in 1999

Publications List
(in reverse order of publication)

• Artifacts in Use: The Paradox of Restoration and the Conservation of Organs (Book) Published 2010 by the Organ Historical Society.

• "The Restorative Conservation of Organs: A Conceptual Roadmap" in The Organ Yearbook  Vol. 37 (2008)

• "The Elements of Conservation: A Conceptual Model"
  in forthcoming proceedings from the conference "The Conservation of Archaeological Materials: Current Trends and Future Directions" Nov. 13-17, 2005

• "Instrument and Document: Balancing Values in the Conservation of Musical Instruments" in Postprints of the Wooden Artifacts Group

• Organ Restoration Reconsidered: Proceedings of a Colloquium. (book) edited by J.R. Watson. Harmonie Park Press, 2005

• “Conservation of a Jeffersonian Vision: Jefferson’s 1786 Model of the Capitol of Virginia” in Interpreter. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Summer 2002 pp. 1-5

• “Conservation of Six Historic Organs at Colonial Williamsburg” in The Tracker  (Journal of the Organ Historical Society) Vol. 46, Number 3, July 2002 pp. 22-34

• “Instrument Restoration and the Scholarship Imperative” in Early Keyboard Journal, vol. 19 (2001) pp. 7-31.

• “Performance Standards meet Museum Standards: The Conservation of Organs” in Towards the Conservation and Restoration of Historic Organs: A Record of the 1999 Liverpool Conference, ed. Jim Berrow, Church House Publishing, 2000

• Costume Close-up: Pattern and Construction of Antique Clothing, 1750-1790 (book) with Linda R. Baumgarten. CWF and Quite Specific Press , New York, 1998 [graphic design and CAD drawings; L. Baumgarten is curator of costume at CWF, and my wife]

• Makers of the Piano, 1820-1860, by Martha Clinkscale, illustrated by J.R. Watson, Oxford University Press, 1998

• “Theory and Practice in the Conservation of Musical Instruments,” with David B. Blanchfield, Journal of the Violin Society of America, 1998.

• “An 18^th-Century Harpsichord Workshop contributes Two New Technologies,” in Eighteenth-Century Woodworking Tools edited by James M. Gaynor, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1997

• "Recommendations for the Conservation of Musical Instruments: an Annotated Bibliography" (CIMCIM - Comité International des Musées et Collections d'Instruments de Musique) co-written with five other international writers. 1993

• “Historical Musical Instruments: A Claim To Use, An Obligation To Preserve,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, Vol XVII (1991), 69.

• “Balancing Physical Integrity with Aesthetic Integrity: Ethical Problems in the Conservation of Musical Instruments.” Abstracts. American Institute for Conservation, 1990. 18.

• “Claviers for Salem: Historic Keyboard Instruments in the Salem Moravian Community,” Moravian Music Journal, Vol. XXXI No. 1 (Spring 1986), 9.

• “A Catalog of Antique Keyboard Instruments in the Southeast,” published serially in Early Keyboard Journal, II (1983-84), 64; III (1984-85), 60; V (1986-87), 53; IX (1991), 71; XV (1997), 93.

• “Three Examples of Keyboard Restoration,” Early Keyboard Journal, I (1982-83), 16.

Reviews

Selected Lectures
(in reverse order of date)

• A Philadelphia Survivor: America's Only Harpsichord
  (on the 1794 Trute & Wiedberg harpsichord) Southeastern and Midwestern Historical Keyboard Societies, Temple University, Philadelphia, March 13, 2009.

• Copying Period Instruments as a Research Tool
  the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI), University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, October 19, 2008

• Fossils, Oddballs, and Miraculous Survivors: Year 25 of the SEHKS Inventory of Historic Keyboard Instruments
  Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. March, 2008

• The Restorative Conservation of Organs: A Conceptual Roadmap
  (abstract) Keynote address for New Dimensions In Organ Conservation and Documentation: An International Symposium Co-Sponsored by the American Organ Archives of the Organ Historical Society and the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative, University Of Rochester, Rochester, New York, October 11, 2007  

• Instrument and Document: Balancing Values in the Conservation of Musical Instruments
  American Institute for Conservation, Wooden Artifacts Group Providence, RI, June 17, 2006

• The Elements of Conservation: A Conceptual Model
  11-2005, Archaeology Symposium, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation