The assistants all have backgrounds in the arts.
Marco Buerger is an art conservator, formerly of Cologne, Germany, who has worked locally with Detlef Klein on furniture restoration for the Sarjeant.
Ella Wylie is an arts graduate from Southland.
Sarah Dodson is studying for a master’s in cultural materials conservation at the University of Melbourne, and Lewis Batchelar is a local glass artist.
The opportunity to work closely with the collection was exciting for the assistants, Wylie said, giving them access to works not generally seen by the public and also enabling them to hone skills working with many art genres.
Wylie has assisted in the relocation of two Southland museums and says the Sarjeant collection transition work gives her valuable career experience.
“It’s all very interesting and varied. I’m interested in collection care and just finished an undergrad degree, so in the future I’d like to study more and work in this field permanently,” Wylie said.
Putting theory into practice is another step along Dodson’s career path.
“This is a really fantastic opportunity for me to see an entire collection, it’s a great chance to see different mediums and familiarise myself, not just with what I’ve learned from the textbooks, but to get hands-on experience,” Dodson said.
For Buerger the hands on is familiar, but digitised record-keeping is a relatively new skill.
“The whole system of record-keeping within a big collection, I haven’t done to that degree before,” Buerger said.
The assistants work meticulously, checking every item in the collection - assessing and reporting on the condition of each artwork, updating and standardising digital records on the Vernon database for all items, verifying that the work image matches the entry, whether the measurements are accurate, if it is signed and dated correctly, and more.
They also recommend the correct size of mat boards for easier future storage.
The paper works will be packed and kept in Solander boxes for the move and future storage. The New Zealand Community Trust granted $150,000 towards equipment for the transition project and this includes the durable, archival hand-made Solander boxes for storage of works on paper.
As mutiple items will be stored in each box, an accurate recording and tracking system is another crucial detail for the move.
Before the first move in 2014, the collection was housed in the basement of the heritage building, which was not a purpose-built collection store.
“It had low ceiling heights, brick arches everywhere, and the entryway was smaller than a domestic door. It was a fire cell door, so you couldn’t widen it.
“It was really difficult. A number of artworks couldn’t fit through the door, so they were housed [elsewhere]. A lot of material also hadn’t been catalogued,” Taylor said.
But the move to the temporary site at Sarjeant on the Quay enabled the gallery to introduce modern storage, and full climate and humidity control systems.
“The new collection store has amazing access and there’s room for growth.
“It has climate control and everything will be stored in one place. I just can’t wait to get the whole collection into the new store. At the moment it smells like a building site, but once all the artwork is there, there will be an amazing smell of oil paint that tells you it’s filled with art.”
