Museum Conservator

Never mind that they’re inanimate, objects age, just like people do. And when they do, skeletons fracture, papers disintegrate, paintings fade, jewelry tarnishes, and pottery crumbles.

Unfortunately, when relics perish, a piece of history dies alongside them. Because they don’t want that to happen, museums, libraries, and historical societies hire Museum Conservators to prevent and repair physical and chemical decay.

As a Museum Conservator, you maintain and restore objects in your employer’s collection. A fountain of youth for historic and scientific artifacts — including art, fossils, furniture, tools, weapons, textiles, books, documents, and currency, just to name a few — you typically begin the conservation and restoration process as a Museum Conservator by determining an object’s age and condition, which requires doing historical, scientific, and archaeological research using X-rays, chemical tests, and microscopes.

Once you know what you’re up against, you then begin the process of caring for, restoring, and protecting objects. Usually, that means cleaning them, using gentle cleansers and delicate tools to avoid further damaging them; using sealants and hardeners to prevent breakage and decay, particularly when you’re working with paper, wood, or clay; repairing damaged surfaces and split pieces; reassembling objects with broken or missing components; and determining what display and storage conditions — optimal mounting, lighting, temperature, and humidity — will be most conducive to the object’s preservation.

Straddling the worlds of art, history, science, and anthropology, you’re at once a puzzler who solves riddles and a Carpenter who rebuilds treasures when you’re a Museum Conservator — kind of like Bob Villa, only your show isn’t “This Old House”; it’s “This Old Artifact”!