Helping Puerto Rican Heritage
Marc Williams and Cesar Pineiro have voluntarily created a project called Helping Puerto Rican Heritage. Marc is the former Chief Wooden Objects Conservator at the Smithsonian Institution and the founding Director of the Smithsonian’s graduate level Furniture Conservation Training Program. Cesar was trained in the second class of the Smithsonian program and practices conservation in Puerto Rico. Conservators are the professionals who assist museums, historical societies, historic houses, and other cultural institutions in better preserving and caring for their collections. For many years, we realized that conservation training and knowledge in Puerto Rico has lagged behind the mainland, and have established Helping Puerto Rican Heritage as an initiative to begin to remedy this. This need has been made greater by the recent hurricane damage. Our efforts will be focused in two general directions, educational opportunities in conservation in Puerto Rico, and offering advice on collections preservation and care to museums and historic sites.
The project is designed around bringing 30 conservators to Puerto Rico for a week who will volunteer their time in a number of collections preservation and care activities. Included will be tours of conservation facilities and conservation projects; visits to museums and cultural sites in San Juan and Ponce; speaking to students and faculty at the University of Puerto Rico who are interested in conservation education; holding a seminar for staff of museums and historic sites on preservation and care issues, grant funding for collections care, capacity building, planning, and other aspects of collections stewardship, as well as emergency preparedness and disaster response for cultural heritage organizations; and a day-long hands-on collections preservation and care practicum at Casa Blanca, the first stone house and fortification in Old San Juan, overlooking the San Juan Bay, built as the residence for Juan Ponce de Leon and his family.
The participating conservators are volunteering a week of their time. In addition, they have to pay all of their own travel costs - air fare, lodging, food, local transport. Also not funded are the costs of bus transportation to Ponce, the group dinner, and several receptions. There is no organizational, governmental, or other funding for this project. All of these costs have to be borne by the conservators.
If we are fortunate to raise funds due to your generosity, they will first be applied to the cost of bus and local transportation, then to the group dinner and reception expenses, and then if additional funds remain, to travel costs for the conservators. We thank you in advance for your assistance. It will mean a lot not only to the conservators, but also to the cultural heritage of Puerto Rico.
Email Marc directly at [log in to unmask] if you would like a copy of the program.