Volunteers Vacuum Away on Collections Care Sunday

Sunday the 12th saw a lot of activity at the Arden Craft Shop Museum. A group of five volunteers came out to help our curator clean a group of papers from the Arden Forge. The papers, donated by Pete Renzetti in the early 2000s, consist of sketches, patterns, and other papers used (and stored) in the Arden Forge. As one might imagine, paper and forges have different standards of cleanliness, so the papers arrived at the ACSM in need of extensive cleaning before they could be rehoused and stored safely.

The ACSM has been working to clean and stabilize the papers for a while, but last Sunday’s crew really helped push the project forward. A team of six, including June Kleban, Sadie Somerville, Peg Shaw, Barbara Macklem, Robin Valencia, and Kelsey Ransick put in over 20 woman-hours of work! They were able to clean and rehouse about half of the papers–a momentous step forward.

Another crew will be coming in this Sunday to care for the rest of the papers. Once the papers are rehoused, they can be processed and placed in the museum office, freeing up processing space for other donations.

Can you tell the before and after sides of this sketch?

thank you, volunteers! your work really makes a difference!