 Hello, and welcome to the webinar series of the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network, or ECPN, a network of the American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. My name is Jen Munch, and I am the webinar coordinator for the 2017 to 2019 term. Today's webinar is entitled, Showcasing Your Work, Preparing and Maintaining a Conservation Portfolio. No. In one moment, please, we're having a technical difficulty. Oh, there we go. Before we turn to today's program, I'd like to quickly familiarize everyone with the GoToWebinar program. You can use the control panel to make modifications to the audio settings. And one moment, please, while we wait for the slide to advance. All attendees are automatically muted by the program, but you can communicate with us and ask questions throughout the webinar using the question box. If you are watching this webinar with a group of people, please let us know how many using the question box. Okay, that's the question box. And also, if you would like, you can also hide the control panel using the orange arrow at the top of the screen, circled here. I'd like to take a moment to briefly share information about ECPN and our webinar series. ECPN is a network within AIC that is dedicated to supporting conservation professionals in the first stages of their career. Please visit our page on the AIC website, our Facebook page, or our Wiki of Resources for Emerging Conservatives, for more details about our activities. ECPN has an ongoing interview series with conservators in specializations that require particular training. On the AIC blog, you can find recent ECPN interviews with conservators who specialize in the care of East Asian art and electronic media. You can also find ECPN interviews with United States citizens who trained abroad and are currently practicing conservation in the U.S. Now a bit about our webinar series. ECPN organizes two webinars each year on topics relevant to emerging conservators. Our webinars are all recorded and the full videos are available on the AIC YouTube channel. If you have any ideas for future webinar topics, please feel free to contact ECPN at the email you see on the screen or post suggestions on the ECPN Facebook group. Today, you'll hear viewpoints on some aspects of a much larger topic. The conservation portfolio you compiled may take different forms depending on your individual circumstances, including your level of work experience and education, your chosen specialty within the field, the country you work in, and the type of employer you have. The presentations today are not meant to prescribe a single specific template for you to follow, but to provide some tools which will help you as you develop your own portfolio. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce our two speakers for today's webinar, showcasing your work, preparing and maintaining a conservation portfolio. Susan Heald is the Textiles Conservator at the National Museum of the American Indian, where she has supervised many pre-programmed interns and postgraduate fellows. Today, Susan will discuss her experience through the portfolios as part of internship and fellowship applications. Gwen Manthi is currently the Contract Interim Paintings Conservator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She also maintains a private practice outside of Philadelphia. Gwen has previously lectured on digital conservation portfolios and the development of her own portfolio. Today, Gwen will be speaking on both of these topics. If you would like to see more extensive biographies for our speakers, please visit the blog post regarding the webinar on AIC's blog, Conservators Converse. Let's start with Susan Heald, who will discuss her experiences as a portfolio reviewer and what she looks for in a portfolio. Well, thank you, Jen, for your kind introduction and to the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network for sending the invitation to participate in this webinar today. I just want to let you know I've been really impressed with ECPN's activities and organization within the AIC, and I sure wish that something like this had been available when I was a conservation student and a young professional. And after you've emerged and you are a full conservation professional, I hope that you will become active in your respective AIC specialty groups, and I suspect some of you already have done this. I am not able to advance my slide with the arrow keys. Oh, okay. Maybe I just have to be patient. Just a full disclosure, I have not worked on my own portfolio for about 25 years, and I've been at the National Museum of the American Indian for almost 24. And when I went to my first job interview, I went with two big finders of my portfolio and two slide carousels to present my double slide lecture presentation, and I included an image here. I staged it, but I just wanted to kind of show you who aren't familiar what it used to look like. You would have to advance one slide and then the other, and then maybe both at the same time for your BTAT, advance one for the detail. So you guys have it so much easier now, and you have so many more options, better options to showcase your work as Gwen is going to discuss later in the program. But I think the fundamentals of a strong portfolio remain the same. There we go. I am really fortunate to work in a lab that's able to host yearly four postgraduate fellows, one to two six month pre-program interns, two to three ten week summer interns and occasionally a third or fourth year graduate student from one of the conservation programs. Every spring we review many applications from North America and other parts of the world. And the applications are put through an online application system called Sola, which is the Smithsonian Online Academic Appointment System. And what's required is a letter or an essay, your grades, a CV or resume, letters of recommendation from other conservation professionals, writing samples that's for the fellow applications only. And try advancing again. There we go. Let's see, where was it? The portfolios are only required for fellows and third or fourth year interns that are selected for an interview. So the portfolio is an important part of your application, but it's not the only thing that we would consider. I'm not sure if I'm controlling the next slide. There we go. Okay, overall organization is really critical. You have to remember that the reviewer may not have a lot of time and they might be reviewing 10 or more portfolios in a day. So the information within your portfolio must be easy to find and easy to digest. However, examples of your written work should have substantial content and not merely be summaries, although if you would like you could include a summary at the beginning or the end of a piece of written work. And you can also include treatment projects that are completed as part of a team effort. Just remember to give the other people credit with your documentation. And the other majority of your portfolio may be object specific treatment reports. Don't forget about preventive conservation projects such as surveys or rehousing or community outreach because these are important too. And you could also consider putting in conference presentations such as posters or PowerPoint slides. One to two examples of an artwork or reconstruction that you've done. For example, in our lab if somebody came in with images of a pair of porcupine quillwork moccasins that an applicant had made as an exercise in understanding the materials and techniques, that would be fabulous to see and to discuss. Okay, there we go. So the written organization within your documents is especially important. It's really hard to read page upon page of unbroken text, although in your letter that's okay because it's only going to be one to two pages long. So use headings and subheadings and you can look to the JAIC format for examples, underline bold, capitalized or number sections. Just whichever way you choose to divide your headings that make sure you maintain consistency throughout the document. And also it's really important to write in clear and concise wording. We're not looking for creative wording, but we are looking for substantial content and details. We want to know how you observe and contextualize, evaluate and rationalize in your writing. This is an example of a recent Mellon Fellow final report that we received and you don't have to read the text, but I just wanted to show you the format. It's something I really enjoyed reading. I like the way the headings were put together, the break, the captioned images, straightforward language. It made it all really easy to consume. And just a note, if you're continuing work from another person, I know a lot of labs have long-term ongoing projects that maybe one person will do for a few years and someone else will take it on. So if you're including something like this, make sure you're crediting all the people that are involved. Okay, so good images I think are worth thousands of words and they're especially important to your portfolio, but they should be adequately labeled and you shouldn't leave the reviewer guessing on trying to what you're portraying the image. So just basically make sure the object is filling the frame, indicate the treatment phase and the date, include a color checker and a measurement scale. And I would recommend you look at the AIC guide to digital photography and conservation documentation, especially Chapter 6, the photographic techniques for conservation. The third edition is available on AIC's website as a PDF download. I think it's $20, or you can also look at the earlier first and second versions, but the Chapter 6 I think is especially good to look at. And as in this instance, with this photograph, maybe you can't see the catalog number and the date so well, but if you make sure you put that information under, in the caption, and then you also have to make sure that you're crediting the photographer if it is not you. Okay, my images were jumping around a little bit. Okay, so this is an example of an annotated images and I really love annotated images because so much information can be visually conveyed. It's important not to try to cram too much information into one image. You might consider dividing it into two. For instance, maybe you want to have a conditioned summary of just losses and physical damage and then have another one with surface damage. This image is from a painted muslin that's 18 feet long by 6 feet wide and we had it in the conservation lab for quite a while. And what I really liked about it was you could easily remember where the damages were during treatment and also it was extremely helpful to present visitors coming through the lab with what the issues were. And for this instance, I really liked having it on one page. The one thing that's missing here is because it's cropped so close is the catalog number. And I also neglected to put the catalog number in the text at the bottom, but you'd want to include that and date. That's also missing. OK, so here's just a summary of the treatment in images, annotated images, embedded images in your text. Make sure that you are including captions with embedded images. Sometimes it's really hard to find the information if it's not there as captions. And remember that sometimes a hand-drawn image might capture detail better than a photograph and it'll also showcase your eye for detail and your manual dexterity. For a computer aided drawing would be fine too, but the hand-runner ones I think are particularly nice. OK, next slide. Graphs and tables and charts can also convey a wealth of information. For tables, make sure you're not including too many rows or columns. You want to keep it easy to read. So if it's too big, maybe you can break it up into two separate tables. For graphs, make sure you're labeling your X and your Y axes and make sure to include the units of measure for each of the axes. It's really amazing how often the units of measure are forgotten. And with attribution, if it was another scientist or lab that provided you with the analytical results, make sure you credit them. And also, if you did it yourself, credit yourself because that's something that's really nice for a reviewer to know that you're familiar with running an FTIR or X-ray fluorescence analyzer. OK, next slide, please. So this is a draft report. It's an example that shows a portion of raw data from our Natan portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer. And it's from the muslin that we saw a few slides back. On the bottom bar graph, this is showing lead levels that were detected before and after treatment on certain places on the muslin. And there were different cleaning techniques, which aren't represented here, but will be later. But you can easily graphically see the difference between the before and after lead levels in this graph. And I particularly like how easy that is to understand. OK, next slide. So with your portfolio content, you really want your portfolio to represent you. And think about what work you are most proud of. Show a wide range of your capabilities, a variety of objects, different types of treatment, different types of projects like surveys, research, outreach that we spoke about earlier. And choose things that are relevant to the school or the institution or the business to which you're applying. And make sure you do your research on them. Know what type of materials they specialize in. Know what their mission is. Think about how you can contribute to their mission, not just what they can give you. And for your treatment documentation, make sure you review AIC's Code of Ethics and guidelines for practice, especially the guidelines section on treatment, documentation, examination, scientific analysis. And this is easily found on AIC's website. I have the link down there. You may be asked why certain reports might not conform to the guidelines for practice. And different labs have different methods. And maybe you're working under different circumstances, perhaps disaster recovery. So it's OK to add an explanation with your documentation examples explaining why you might not have everything in the report. And it's really good to know that you're aware of the ethical issues. OK, next slide, please. So at the National Museum of the American Indian, we tend to be a very documentation-heavy lab. We look for background research, stated goals and rationale for self-reflection. Overall, we want to know how organized you are, how well you express yourself, and how you present your work. But we really also want to know how you think. How do you observe the details, contextualize background information, evaluate all the treatment options, and rationalize your decisions to treat or maybe not treat? We're looking for incitfulness to recognize the bigger picture, creativity in developing solutions to a challenge for flexibility in dealing with the unexpected, and especially sensitivity towards other views, like fellow students, ally professionals, stakeholders, and community members. And a lot of this will come out in an interview, but you can also capture this in your portfolio as well. And I know other conservation laboratories, especially people in private practice, may have different standards, different types of documentation. But in our lab, this is what guides us in choosing a successful candidate. OK, next slide. So just to summarize and recap, the organization of your information is critical, and it must be easy to read and understand. Don't include too many examples, but good representations of your work that are selected for a particular reviewer. And make sure that your examples have substantial content and are not just summary. So a reviewer may not be able to read your entire portfolio, but they may read certain sections in detail, and you have to be ready to answer any questions. And it's a good idea to have someone review the portfolio before you present it, maybe even someone outside the field. They'll be able to ask really good questions. So I hope that this has been of some help to you. I know that I would certainly present my portfolio differently now that I have reviewed so many other wonderful examples of portfolios during the interviewing processes over the years. And I also am hoping to work on my own portfolio in the near future when I apply for an AIC fellow. And though I've said it, I'll probably have to do it now. But I think it's good to work your way up within the AIC membership. And in the past few years, I have really enjoyed looking at the digital portfolios. And this is what Gwen is going to address next. So thank you very much for your kind attention. All right. Thank you, Susan, for sharing your insights on that topic. That was fantastic. And I'd also like to thank you for bearing with the technical difficulties we've had and thank our audience, too, for that. Next, I'd like to introduce Gwen Manthi, who will start off by speaking about the evolution of her own portfolio. Gwen? Thank you very much, Jen. And thank you to the audience, to ECPN, and really to Susan, who's been fantastic and inspiring to work with on this webinar. So a little bit of background, I think, is due. I have to admit, I had a leg up. I knew I wanted to be a conservator before I even went to undergrad. And so I sort of had my sights trained on what people were doing around me, what grad students had for their portfolio, things to pursue, and internships. And at the undergraduate level at UD, you have to take two program internships with UD faculty before you can even graduate. At least it was at that time when it was our conservation undergrad degree. I was in the pre-graduate track. And in addition to taking those two program internships, I also took a class in color mixing and matching, historic reconstructions. And a lot of this material actually formed the backbone of my nascent portfolio. From those program internships, I was able to get a summer internship at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. And I was tasked with the examination of nine Frederick Remington Grisies. These were paintings that were made for publication in print in Harper's and other periodicals at that time, which is why they were black and white, and actually did a fair bit of research into that technique. These also built up my portfolio. I managed to get the time to treat one of these paintings over that summer. And later on, post-undergrad school, I was actually back at the MFAH. And then spent two years with Dilwit and Rob Proctor in Houston at their private practice, where I got to treat a vast array of paintings and materials and tried my hand at different conservation techniques. They were enough to let me keep copies of all of my reports. Of course, I eliminated all of that information regarding the client and the treatment costs associated with that, just focusing mostly on materials and technique examinations. Between a number of other summer internships, I had actually two years of experience to put in my portfolio before applying to grad school. And it was pretty weighty at that point. And I was excited to be accepted and to start at UD for my graduate program. And of course, at graduate school, you get a number of reports. And I forgot about the slide. It's actually, these are some images I took of those historic reconstructions. And while I had them on my person for my grad school interview, printed copies were also in the back of my portfolio, which I could turn to if I didn't actually have the works with me. And of course, for Buffalo at that time, I had to submit these photographs ahead of time. And grad school, as I mentioned, you get a plethora of work of experience, research, technical analysis, and your hands-on bench treatment, when you can really delve into research and writing, and lots of fantastic images as well, working with your staff photographers and your classmates to get the best images possible. This painting I actually treated during my second year, focusing on easel paintings. It was examined by a student who actually went on to become a photograph and a conservator. She was a wonderful examiner, fantastic research. And I actually made sure to include her report in my portfolio, of course, crediting her on the front page and as well in my final treatment report. As I mentioned, I was able to print off all reports as I went along. And in grad school and during my grad fellowships as well, I've maintained all of the formatting at the different institutions. Not only was it easier for me to not worry about reformatting things for my own personal use, but I can turn back and look what was relevant for these, what was relevant about these objects? What were they looking for in these reports? And how did their examination reports for treatment differ from condition assessments for alone? How were annotated images included as well? And later on, it makes me think about archiving concerns or how to import images as well as file management systems. At the Chrysler Museum of Art in one of my post-grad fellowships, I got to that turning point where I was thinking critically about how to develop my portfolio because no longer was I including absolutely everything I had done, but as well just the management of the paper alone, the weight, the expense, and then archiving all of that at my home as well. I was at that interesting micro gap where I applied to grad school and actually finished my third year with a hard copy portfolio. It was required at that point, but almost immediately following or in the year or two following school, the students were encouraged to either have an E portfolio or a digital portfolio when that could be used for applying or for finishing grad in school. And for me, it was appropriate to move to a digital portfolio when I had one of the most satisfying treatments at the Chrysler Museum of Art. This portrait by Hansel by the Elder had such extensive damage and abrasion and so many details, of course, in these really beautiful German paintings you really want to zero in on and focus on the image. And when you're giving a presentation, you can do that images better when they're projected. You can print off a plethora of images, but for me, having that digital portfolio or showing these images during treatment on my iPad with the curator, I really took to that. So using my iPad, which I had at the time, I was actually actively using for condition assessments, for uploading large batches of loan reports to the Chrysler's hard drive, I used that to create my digital portfolio with a number of free apps, as well as the established iBooks app on the iPad at that time. And during those interviews as well, if I was talking about digital management, digital condition reports, I could turn to either PDF notes or to another PDF annotator, which I was using and demonstrate how to use that because at a number of places where I was interviewing or visiting or working with other conservators, there was a big push to do digital and they wanted to see what apps I was using at that time. Within iBooks, you can actually create your own portfolio, just a tab there and then upload individual reports into that or do it all through your desktop to upload as a batch. Within iBooks at that point, you can actually get this exploded light box view. So instead of paging quite quickly through a larger portfolio, you can zero in on each page that you want be it for art historical research. What were those treatment steps? What was the scientific research done or to those images? The individual paintings, painting treatments, I created individual albums for, which had to go through iTunes for uploading these batches. There is a downfall to doing this actually, at least in the older iPad where I didn't, I wasn't able to see the details about the treatment, about the file name or what step you were at. Those are things I had to walk the person through, but with some extra time, pre or post processing, that could have been included, but at the time it was something that I needed to work through. And it's probably different now with newer tablets and updates. And here in those individual folders, you can see again, a light box view of all the images regarding to a specific treatment. And I'm sure all of us enjoy the pinch and zoom feature on our smartphones and tablets. So being able to do that when speaking about a treatment, that's probably going to keep me in the digital realm from this point forward, at least when I can be with that interviewer or with a colleague discussing treatments from here on forward. Of course, I would have printed reports accessible, either available via Dropbox or send that via email or print them off and provide to my interviewer. Of course, this is one of those great treatments where no matter how often I printed off an image, I couldn't get the full scope of the rich surfaces in this painting or the deep blacks. In attempting to print off the details of fingerprints that were found in the cuff, only with excessive post-processing or enhancing that image, could you see the details of the fingerprints? And then at that point, it was difficult to see where the fingerprints were in the context, the colors and tone had shifted so much. I do want to mention image rights. That's a big thing to think about. Of course, not only as Susan mentioned, you want to credit who might have been the photographer for your treatment as well, but do you have the permission to share images regarding treatment? Most of my fellowships where I've worked on the collection pieces, if I've been there as an intern or a fellow, I don't have those permissions to share them, especially on my for hire website. And so I've actually really delineated what you can have on, what I have on my website versus those treatments that are available overall. I might have details on social media or Instagram, but I don't have those images on the website alone. The ones that I do have on the website have actually already been shared by the Chrysler Museum of Art or other institutions on their social media. Chrysler actually, while they were down for renovation for nearly 14 months, I believe it was kept an active blog on all of the activities that were occurring, not only in the structure of the building itself, but with the artwork as well, because this gave us the opportunity to do some pretty intensive treatment. Of course, on my website, all of the treatments that I might have some details about, I've already gotten permission from those owners of the pieces, but I think critically about, not only do I have their permission, but is this the living artist? Is this something that might be sell because the treatment or if I were to share images for this painting, for instance, with its extensive losses, that could have a really negative effect on the perceived value of the piece? Of course, scientific research or historical research could enhance it as well. Instead of having a full CV on my website, I just have tombstone information about my background as well as the logo for the AIC Professional Associate. That is, it's a big push to get that if you do have four higher services. It's not even okay to mention that you're a member of AIC if you have a website, so it's a big input is to get that PA status. So in this not-for-profit page, the NFP, these are the details regarding bigger painting treatments. The things that I did as an intern as a fellow that this is a tiny little slice in my website, which is essentially my ePortfolio. It's accessible at any point. I can just pull out my phone if I'm meeting with the curator or conservator, discuss a treatment option or even a potential contract position within a lab. I can pull out my website, put in the password and access just the handful of treatments that I have here and then forward my CV to them, which I maintain in my Dropbox and I keep that master CV available at any point when regularly updated. Of course, the website, as I mentioned, is freely accessible except for this one little window, but that is going to be available to all participants and to the public actually just for, just in combination with this webinar. If you put in the password ECPN into that password page that pops up when you click on NFP and you can see what I have there, I do hope to upload some more files in the coming weeks. It's going to be accessible until January 7th, 2018. Within each of these specific projects, you get that lightbox view below and then just some general information about the treatment, not necessarily all of the layering structure or the deeper art historical research that we might do, but it is something that I could actually upload via in the report down the road. About digital e-portfolios and websites, there are a number that are out there. I'm sure a number of many of our participants actually have their own website, either for conservation or a blog or in other arenas of their life. And this information you can find with an easy Google search. The prices do change considerably as is easier use with these websites. So I don't want to list that, but on almost all of them, you get tiers of customization and prices. You can try it out for a couple of weeks before spending any money. And of course, there are some free ones that are available. You can have a number, either the entire website password protected or specific pages like I do. Of course, you don't have a lot of options to discuss some of those bigger research projects, especially when these websites tend to be very image heavy and those are the things that pull you to them. There are workarounds, but if it is a final publisher port, especially with other people, you definitely want to make sure that you have the permission to share that information before putting it out there on the web. Of course, everything worthwhile takes time and effort, particularly formatting or learning new websites. It's a bit of a trial by fire, at least what I had was. Something I want to mention about either digitally or on an e-portfolio is creating these project title pages for that time when you don't necessarily have the treatment, but it might be scientific research or heavy examination or group projects. These title pages work really well, especially if you have a hard copy or a digital portfolio, you can summarize your work in a single sheet. And what I have here actually is essentially the reference sheet that I created while I was at the Walters Art Museum as the YF Fellow for American Art, undertaking a technical study of all 16 known works by the artist Richard Kate Woodville. I had it on hand throughout the day as easy reference to think about images or when I was discussing with other scholars the paintings I was working on. It was so useful, the curator of the exhibit actually requested several copies to hand out to donors or to her own colleagues when she was conferring with them. Of course, with all of those paintings, it wasn't practical to have the many-page reports, but in my hard copy and in my digital portfolios that I presented for interviews, I made sure to have at least an overview of what that study did, what were the goals for it, what were the paintings, and you can see other information who owned it and had a worksheet essentially of what was found in terms of materials, how consistent was he using these things and then one full-length examination report for one of the paintings, even though I had done this for all 16 works. And I want to say that analog's not dead. There are still many hard copy portfolios that are out there and are actively being used by younger conservators, my peers and my mentors as well. I was fortunate to be the fly on the wall for two different interviews for a conservator at an associate level, sorry, three different interviews for a conservator at an associate level and two of the interviewees only had hard copy portfolios. My colleagues here at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Ariel O'Connor and Greg Bailey were kind enough to pull out their own hard copy portfolios to show some of the things that they use, especially now that they are at an advanced point in their career where you might not have everything. Greg Bailey, this is a snapshot of his portfolio of some work that he did when he was at grad school. So this snapshot isn't necessarily okay to use if you were going for your graduating portfolio or for something immediately after school but a couple of years out, particularly because grad school, you get so much support to do this examination and analysis of some of these objects you may have much more known about the works of art rather than down the road if you were in a fast-paced fellowship or starting to do private work. When he was at the Met post-grad school, he did a significant amount of research with an NYU undergrad fellow, Mr. James Newhouse and this study actually painted it. There was a number of paintouts of historic and commercial paints on the black matboard for imaging purposes with multi-band cameras. And so much time was spent on this that it was something that he felt needed to be included in his portfolio as well as working with an intern at that point. Ariel Connor has her own title slides and something that she was doing actively concurrent with my own use of title slides. So in her hard copy portfolio for a past position, she has a title slide of this earned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She's a big proponent of also having extra copies of your CV ready and at hand if it needs to be passed out. And this title slide tends to be in combination with that link there report behind it. These are really important for the interviews when you don't have time where you can just hone in on your BT, your AT and specific details of the treatment or if you're working or discussing things with a curator or a collections manager where they might not want to flip through the multi-page report. And you can spend as much or as little time on that title page as you need. A fantastic example of how title pages work, especially for lengthy research projects. She has a title slide for the work that she did while at the Harvard Art, Harvard University Art Museums. In the middle of the page, this is an example of one of their Chinese weapons. She was looking at the turquoise inlay on the bronze handle and comparing it to a known excavated object from China, which is directly above it and so similar in style and shape and materials that does help support the context of that object from Harvard. On the right-hand side, these over-the-year research, she found that there were four characteristic styles of inlay that could be found and give more information about each object. And on a month-long research trip, oh, no, no, longer than one month, the research trip to China, after Narayan Kandakar identified trigonresins to be the adhesive to use the, to adhere the inlay onto the handles, she was actually able to purchase samples of peach trigon at an art market in China. And at that point, they also had access to viewing some recently excavated bronze samples at one of the museums in China. And for websites, Stephen Pikman has graciously given permission for you to view his website. Again, this is a four-higher website, not necessarily something that would be sufficient only for a museum institution, but for clients that want to know a bit more about him and about conservation. And as well, you're welcome to go through my website with a fine-tooth comb and then unlock that not-for-profit page until the date listed. Please feel free to get back to me if you find any errors or advice or if you have any questions about it. And at the very end, I want everyone to just learn from each other. I've had the great opportunity to learn from some fantastic colleagues and mentors. And they've advised me in the past on how to present information. Am I doing volunteering? Am I doing work with regional conservation centers? Have I published any posters? These are things that almost all active conservators are doing and should be included not only in their website, their portfolio, or digital portfolio, or hard copy. If you have a lot of activities or notebooks or journals of your daily log, you can present that not only in hard copy, but you can summarize it in a website or a spreadsheet to put on your website. Again, as Susan mentioned, images are key. Make sure you get lots of working images. That's something that I generally don't have enough of is even me working on an object these days. And ask to see those portfolios of your peers and mentors. Things that might not work in a report, you can maximize your CV. CVs don't need to be a singular page or even two pages, which is common for industry. We learn so much from our supervisors and our mentors that it needs to be distilled. And the practices at institutions could vary greatly depending on who you're working with. And of course, back everything up, speaking from personal experience, and it's something that I'm sure other people have horror stories about. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this opportunity and being able to work with some pretty fantastic colleagues. Gwen, thank you so much. That was a really fantastic and insightful presentation. So I'm just looking at the time and we have about 15 minutes to take some questions. So I'm actually gonna put some questions for the speakers in the chat box. We received a few ahead of time and one during the presentation itself. I'd like to start off with a question for both speakers. And this question is, is it acceptable to include an in-progress treatment in your portfolio? And if so, how would you suggest incorporating it? This is Susan. I think that would be fine. And I think you could just include it as you would a treatment report. I mean, if you're working on the, if it's a treatment in-progress treatment, I think you could just have it like you would do your regular treatment report, but just say you've gone to a certain point and maybe what you plan on doing afterwards. Yeah, I think that's fine. We often, because especially for people that are applying while they're in graduate school, that's common to have a treatment report in progress. Yes, indeed. And you don't necessarily have to have the finished images of the treatment at that point. It could be working images or even details to include. I'm a big fan of using progress reports in an interview because it gives me an opportunity to ask the potential interviewer, what would they recommend? Have they worked with specific materials? What do they think next step should be? And it gives you an opportunity to see how you could be working in this institution or with these specific people because you're not only being interviewed, but you're seeing if this is the place where you want to work and these people will be influencing you and you will be learning from them. Great, thank you both for answering that question. Next up, I have a question that's just for Susan and actually it's two questions. So the first question which we received ahead of time is Susan, you mentioned that your institution accepts applicants both from abroad and from the U.S. And you're wondering if you could discuss the different approaches to portfolios you've seen and just to give you the second question right now as well, this one we received during the webinar, the question is does NMAI accept digital portfolios if all criteria is met or do you require a hard copy portfolio? Okay, so the first one with the portfolios that are inside and outside the U.S. Often the ones, there's so much, so many hoops to jump through to get into graduate school in the U.S. And it's so many pre-program interns already have so much experience by the time they get into grad school. The portfolios are really complete. I think in some of the programs that are outside of the U.S., you don't have to jump through so many hoops. It doesn't seem there's that long kind of pre-program years before you get into school. And often we found that the portfolios that we come in maybe don't go into as much detail. They're not full reports, they're just summaries. And I know for us, it doesn't, if it's incomplete and you don't have the full report, you don't really get a sense of how people are thinking and writing it. We really like to have the full report. And I guess that's something that we probably need to make clear on the website, that we would expect to see full reports. And the second one, as far as the digital portfolios, we don't require that people come in with binders of hard copies because sometimes we are doing Skype interviews. So in that case, if a person has a digital portfolio that they can send us a link to, that's great. Or a lot of times they'll send us the reports and images via Dropbox. So that's how we work with that. But we're not, and if people wanna come with their digital, with their full binder portfolios, that's fine too. Or maybe they wanna bring their laptop and go through their portfolio on their laptop. But that's fine as well. Great, thank you for that answer. Gwen, I have a question that came in that's just for you. And that question is about, it's about the cost of maintaining a website. So the question is, Gwen, as a postgraduate, have you found that the cost of maintaining a website is worth how much you've used it since graduating? Okay, that's actually something that I was looking at with the Squarespace is very smart and they've got its own little metrics page there. My website is not exactly high traffic. I may get about six hits a month, but I'm okay with that. I was actually, in the cost of things, because I work for hire, I do have private practice. It is a business expense at this point. It's easier for me to justify that cost. I can see how people are accessing it. I have the website link on my signature, on my emails as things go out. It's not advertised. I don't have it posted even on social media. It's something that I want people to find me via word of mouth or by going to the AIC, find a conservator page. And part of that's also because I do have a contract position, so it's not necessary for me to get out there quite as much. It's not been unduly expensive, but it is a cost that you need to consider. And in those cases, it might be prudent to, if you couldn't, I'm not saying you couldn't afford it. If it was unreasonable, especially if you did not do work for hire, at that point I would probably recommend either a free WordPress site or another free website or even just having a digital portfolio, that's something that was uploaded to the cloud and you could refer to it or send it as an entire package to a potential interviewer. Or even pull up again on your smartphone in conversation. All right, that's great. I hope that answered it. I believe it did. Especially in, you know, since you're speaking from your own experience, that you spoke about how it really is worthwhile for you. Good, okay. So I think, yeah. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I'm sorry, especially in those two years following grad school, especially when you are moving frequently and pursuing a number of fellowships, it might be worthwhile at that point, but if you go directly into a longer term fellowships and things like three or five years, it might not be necessary, but you do get a couple of free trials, so three weeks as a trial. So it's at a cost that you could have at that point or, you know, for a month or two following grad school. That's another thing to think about. Yeah, that makes sense as a great time to do that. We do have time for one more question and a really good one came in, that would be good for both Wen and Susan. So the question here is, for those who are applying, for those who are pre-programmed, applying to graduate school who may not have too many full treatments, would you recommend including projects such as light level measurements, condition checks, and summaries of symposiums or workshops that you attended? Absolutely. Sorry, Susan, please. Question, I think, yeah, I think that's really the preventive conservation. I think it's fabulous to include things like that, especially if you're working as a team or on a really large project with, you know, a report that's made of what you did, so you could format into a type of report with images. The summaries of symposiums and workshops attended, you know, I think you could just list them with a few sentences. I don't know if I'd wanna read a whole lot of information because I probably wouldn't have time, but if they're listed with the dates and with like just a short synopsis, I think that would be fine. And I think it would definitely be worthwhile to include those projects because it also sets you up when you're in an institution or you're in private practice and you're thinking about how you spent your time, written reports, images, graphs, data for your time, if it is a light measurement project, how has the light shovel level shifted throughout time? Have they maintained consistent? You want to have some sort of tangible output from your work, even if it is only maintenance and it's useful for budget meetings when you're in an institution or to think about in private work, if you're constantly going through websites to find the best source of materials, even having your own list to refer to, you wanna see where you're spending your time. I know that I had an annotated bibliography in my portfolio when I applied to grad school and something quite similar when I was finishing school, I took a seminar on American art. So I wanted to have that in there to refer to the amount of research that I had done in the past. So I think it's definitely worth including, especially if you don't have as much hands-on bench treatment because it's all relevant to the field. Yeah, I agree. Hey, thank you both for that. I thought that was such a great question because it applies to so many situations. There are so many people who, for financial or geographic reasons, just aren't able to have as many treatment experiences but might have quite a bit of related experience from collections care or light level measurements, other things like that. We do actually still have about five minutes. So if you would like, we could take one more question. And I do have, okay, great. I have one more question for the two of you and this question is about quality over quantity and whether it applies to portfolios. So the question is, does the saying quality over quantity applied to portfolios or is it best to put all work and treatments completed into a portfolio? Does this differ between program, intern and fellowship portfolios? Susan, take it away. Yeah, I think quality over quantity is really important because I think you really want to put your best work, you know, the most fullest report, that's at least for the way we review portfolios, we just would prefer to have more information to look through than a whole bunch of small things. So I think, and we really only could read about three conservation. I think we asked for two to three conservation treatments. So I think you'd really want to just put your best work that would have the most extensive research and evaluation, I would choose those first. And really we are only looking at portfolios from the certain fourth-year graduate, certain fourth-year interns from the graduate programs and portfolios from the Mellon fellow applicants. So for summer interns and for the pre-program interns, we don't require portfolios, although we're very conscious of what we need to provide that could add to their portfolios for their body of work. So we try to mentor and supervise that aspect of the summer interns and pre-program interns that are coming in, because we expect especially the pre-program interns is our job to get them ready to apply for graduate school. And when pre-program interns get interviews, we have them show their portfolios to us, go through their presentation, we give them critiques on how they could maybe present something better. And that's not only the staff, but the other Mellon fellows and interns that are around. So we're really working towards helping that individual hone it down to have a better chance of getting into one of the programs. Okay, that's what I'm thinking. It definitely does for me too. It's something I think about a lot. When I applied to grad school, I had everything in there. And then to finish for my third-year final examination of course, my third-year portfolio, I had everything I had done between my second summer and third-year in there as well. Of course, beyond that, quality is key. I did at one point post-graduate school, have somebody seen my smaller portfolio with only a select number of objects in there and they asked, is that all you have? And I think in the CV, they lost the note that I had worked on actually 100 paintings pre-program. So what could help in those cases, if you have had a lot of experience and you want to focus on a couple of real key pieces, you could actually just create a list of all the works that you treated and the level of treatment that they had that you could refer to, especially if you were submitting your portfolio essentially blind before an interview or you can refer to it at your interview. You also want to think critically too about where you are applying. If it is private practice or if it is a very fast-paced museum with an active loan policy and loan schedule, it might not be a place where you want to submit a project or a report where you've spent $500 and you have a lot of scientific analysis about. You might want to refer to it or you could have it there, but then you want to focus on things that you were able to complete with the level and the timeframe that they will be having. Great answers, both of you, thank you so much. It looks like we're out of time. I would like to say that if the speakers are willing, we will be addressing follow-up questions, sorry, any additional questions in a follow-up blog post. I'd like to thank the audience for joining us today. If you do have additional questions or suggestions for future webinar topics, please email me at the email address that's on your screen, ecpn.aic.webinar at gmail.com. And I would also like to sincerely thank our speakers for participating in this webinar. It's been a really wonderful discussion and your contributions to the topic have been really valuable, so thank you all. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you to everyone. Have a great day.