Collection Care Highlights from Fiscal Year 2020

Each year ArtsWA staff and independent contractors repair, re-frame, evaluate, install, and de-install between 150 and 200 artworks in the State Art Collection using conservation-grade materials. We also photograph and document the condition of many artworks, which helps us plan for future conservation work. The health of our region’s arts workforce is essential to the care of Washington’s State Art Collection.
This web exhibition includes highlights from the more than 230 artworks that were worked on during fiscal year 2020 (July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020). The Walner Company re-framed an Eduardo Calderón photographic portrait of Louise Billy, a Yakama Nation artist known for her beadwork. Objects conservator Corine Landrieu cleaned, repaired, and re-sealed Salish artist Susan Point’s exterior sculpture Four Corners (1999) that honors the diversity of students at North Seattle College. Paintings conservator Peter Malarkey repaired paint losses on Spokane-area artist Bruce Douglas Beal’s peaceful painting, A Dense Grove of Magnificent Trees (1990). And objects conservator Tom Fuller stabilized Privacy Window (1975), a delicate string and wood sculpture by the late Olympia artist Gloria Crouse.
Our deepest thanks go out to these professionals and the many others who contribute to ArtsWA projects. They are important arts-workers. And they play a critical role in the well-being of our cultural assets. The State Art Collection is better for their work.
—Janae Huber, ArtsWA Collections Manager

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