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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT
ROBBIN ZELLA at (203) 332-5052

HCC Offering Art-Handling and
Collections Emergencies Course

Dec. 5, 6

BRIDGEPORT – Housatonic Community College next month is offering a two-day course on art-handling and collections emergencies.

The course, to be offered Dec. 5 and 6, will cover art-handling principles and exercises, and adapt them to recovery techniques to be used following water-related events, severe weather and manmade incidents. The workshop will consist of presentations, exercises, and practice scenarios.

“Art handlers must have a solid knowledge of how to handle art objects safely and efficiently,” said Robbin Zella, director of HCC’s Housatonic Museum of Art. “These workshops allow people new to the field to acquire important skillsets that open the door to well-paying entry-level jobs in museums, galleries, art-storage facilities and fine art transport firms.”

Presenters at the workshop include Gretchen Guidess, assistant conservator of objects and textiles at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Williamstown, MA. and Nancy Valley, senior museum technician at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Guidess graduated from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, completing a M.Sc. in textile conservation with a concentration in preventive conservation studies. As part of her third-year curriculum, she completed internships at the New York State Bureau of Historic Sites/Peebles Island Resource Center, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Canadian Conservation Institute. She was the 2010 -2012 Mellon Fellow at Historic New England.

Valley has been point person on countless Yale art installations and art packing projects, and has helped see the collection through some major museum renovation and storage relocations. She serves as the primary art-handling trainer for the gallery’s new employee training program 

The workshop will be held Sat., Dec. 5, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sun., Dec. 6, 9 a.m.-Noon in Room A101 in Lafayette Hall. . Registration is $159. For more information, contact Evelyn Melendez at 203-332-5057.

Housatonic is located at 900 Lafayette Blvd. in downtown Bridgeport, less than 150 yards off I-95 (Exit 27) and Rte. 8, a block from the Harbor Yard Sports Complex. Free parking is available in the Housatonic garage.