In an effort to do our part during this current health crisis, the VCA membership meeting scheduled for next week has been cancelled. We will keep the membership updated if we are able to reschedule our speaker. It is unclear how this situation will affect the VCA planning meeting in April. Keep an eye out for more emails and check our Facebook page for information as well. Please everyone stay safe!

Many of you may remember in September when the VCA posted a notice for a talk that Dr. Susan Buck was giving at William & Mary about microscopy and art conservation. Dr. Buck has kindly agreed to give her talk again to the VCA. Optical microscopy techniques reveal minuscule clues about object’s creation, history, deterioration, and past interventions.

January’s membership meeting will be held Wednesday, January 15th at the Main Street Public Library in Newport News. The meeting will start at 6 pm. There is no lecture this month. Instead, our January business meeting will be followed by a discussion about the future of the VCA. So have a think about any ideas you’d like to share.

Conservators Mary Studt and Wendy Cowan, proprietors of Richmond Conservators of Works on Paper will discuss the art, science and practice of conservation as it relates to the preservation of paper artifacts.

Please join us on Wednesday November 6th at 6pm at Historic Jamestowne/Jamestown Rediscovery for our members meeting. We will be touring the conservation labs. Dan Gamble, the senior conservator will be discussing the history of conservation at Jamestown, and the aspects of conservation at an active archaeological site.

We are all accustomed appreciating the appearance of art objects, but what about looking below the surfaces of an 18th-century polychrome chest, a painted carriage, a gilded frame, or a painted wooden bust?

The first members meeting of the year will be Monday, September 23 at 6 pm. The meeting will be at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Conservator Chelsea Blake will be discussing her work on the materials from the Betsy. We will then have refreshments and our business meeting.

The last meeting of the year will be this Friday (June 7) at 5:30. Casey Mallinckrodt will be presenting a talk on Conservation Initiative in African Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Please click Read More to get the sign-up link for our highly anticipated Spring Field Trip to Virginia’s Horse Country. Space is limited so sign up asap to avoid disappointment.

Join us this Sunday (4/7) for the April meeting at Kittiewan Plantation. Kittiewan is the headquarters of the Archaeological Society of VA, and they’re going to give us a tour of the house and the Civil War archaeology of the site.

This is a reminder that the VCA January Program is being held tonight at Jamestown Settlement at 5:30 to see the ‘Tenacity’ exhibit with friends and colleagues, and presentations by Katherine Egner Gruber, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s Special Exhibits Curator, and conservators who were involved in treating artifacts in the exhibition.

If you plan to attend the VCA’s January 24th Program, ‘Tenacity’ at Jamestown Settlement, please sign up via the link below. We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there!

Preservation Virginia is seeking textile conservators to propose conservation treatment for John Marshall’s Supreme Court Robes.

Please join the VCA and the Mariners’ Museum and Park for an open house of their newly expanded Conservation Department and lab spaces.

Please Join the VCA and the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for our first program of the season which will focus on the new exhibition ‘Upholstery CSI: Reading the Evidence.

There will be a meeting of the VCA Board on Wednesday, August 22nd at the Crosby Room at James City County Library in Norge from 6:00pm-8pm. The location of the September member’s meeting is TBA.

The Department of Historic Resources has a position opening.

The Virginia Conservation Association’s Field Trip to Prestwould Plantation! Please join us for this highly anticipated Summer field trip to Prestwould Plantation.

This is the new format for the VCA website. It was chosen so that there could be ease of interaction and input from the membership. From this site, you should be able to fill out and submit your membership form directly to the membership committee. On that same page, you should be able to pay online through PayPal.

Please join the VCA for for our last VCA membership meeting of this season! The program will take place at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond and will feature a lecture by Andrew Baxter about the conservation and reinterpretation of the gothic revival James Monroe Tomb enclosure.