The 2009 American Glass Guild Conference
July 16-20, 2009
Buffalo, New York
2009 Conference
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Jonathan Thornton
Hands-On Workshop:
Stained Glass Conservation
Lecture and Workshop
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Thursday, July 16th
** Note: This workshop is sold out **
Location: The Art Conservation Department, Buffalo State College.
This is one of only four graduate degree training programs in conservation in North America. Buffalo is the only one of these to have full-time faculty members teaching all areas of conservation treatment and science- including “objects conservation” covering the conservation of glass. Graduates of this program can be found in virtually all major museum conservation departments in this country. Many also work in private practice and abroad. The state-of-the-art facility is located at the heart of the Buffalo Museum district which includes the Albright-Knox and Burchfield-Penny art museums, and the Buffalo history museum set in a landscape designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The campus marks the beginning of the “Elmwood Strip” with its galleries, shops, restaurants and cafes.
Lecture: (classroom)
The morning lecture will provide a survey of architectural glass conservation in the built environment and in collections. The slide series will present a range of options for windows that are still in place, along with their advantages and disadvantages. A survey of treatment options within collections will also be presented, and illustrated with treatment case histories.
Lab/Workshop: (objects conservation studio)
The afternoon will begin with a brief tour of the facilities. The workshop will include both demonstrations and practical hands-on participation focusing on mending breaks in glass and making epoxy-resin fills for small losses. The pros and cons of various mending adhesives will be discussed and special tools and fixtures for mending glass will be shown. Cleaning and color compensation will also be discussed.
About Jonathan Thornton
Professor;
Fellow: American Institute for Conservation, International Institute for Conservation, American Academy in Rome.
Jonathan Thornton teaches in the Art Conservation Department of Buffalo State College, instructing graduate students in the technology and conservation of "objects," including art and artifacts made of stone, bone, leather, wood, metals, glass and ceramics, including material from ethnographic and archaeological contexts.
Jonathan graduated from Antioch College where he studied Art Studio and Art History. During that time he studied and worked with Robert Metcalf senior and junior (Making Stained Glass, Robert and Gertrude Metcalf, McGraw Hill, 1972), and made several windows. He has continued to work in stained glass as an avocation ever since, and has taught the techniques to many students.
After post-college career as an artist/silversmith, he received his training in the conservation of art and artifacts from the same graduate program (formerly located in Cooperstown, NY) where he has taught since 1980. He has completed internships at the Victoria and Albert Museum (in the departments of stained glass conservation, metals conservation and furniture / gilding conservation) and the Museum of London (archaeological conservation). While at the V&A he travelled around England to see all of the currently active stained-glass conservation workshops and glazier’s guilds.
Jonathan has carried out private conservation contracts for private and institutional clients, and has conserved large windows for both the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. He has guided his conservation students in the conservation of many smaller stained glass panels for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has lectured widely in this country and abroad (England, Australia, New Zealand) and published extensively in both professional and popular journals.
He has continued to pursue his art and craft interests in the media of glass, stone, wood and metal. Such work also informs his teaching about the materials and methods of artifact production. In 1999 he received the residential "Rome Prize" from the American Academy in Rome, where in addition to his research into the technologies of molding and casting, he was able to draw and paint. In 2002 he was a Fulbright scholar teaching picture frame conservation and tool-making in New Zealand at the invitation of the national museum (Te Papa).
Personal:
Born in Denver Colorado, Jonathan grew up mostly in Grinnell Iowa. Beginning in his early teens, he traveled widely with his family and lived in India, Uganda and Switzerland before returning to the United States to attend college. After brief Peace Corps Service in Iran, he made his living as an independent artist/silversmith until returning to graduate school in art conservation. He has lived in the city of Buffalo since 1987 with his wife Tamara, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo, and has two daughters, Lydia (22) and Dora (19).
