5 Minutes With... Jennifer Walker

What is your current role at ICS and what does that entail?

As Senior Paper Conservator at ICS, so much variety comes across my benches.  Architectural drawings, collages, limited edition prints on handmade papers with deckled edges, acrylics and oils on paper, pastels, watercolours, by famous artists from Australia and around the world.  Recently, I've been seeing many more water damaged scroll paintings, and punctured and torn folding screens in our labs for conservation. 

How did you get into conservation and what are your specialties?

A visit to the prehistoric Lascaux Cave Paintings was my first introduction to conservation, and I  knew instantly it was the profession I would pursue.

Directly after the University of Hawaii’s Library archiveswere flooded under 2 metres of muddy river water, I began my master's degree there and became involved in the disaster recovery effort of the earliest hand drawn maps and first aerial photographs of the islands. I needed that type of motivation to study the chemistry courses required to become a qualified Art Conservator. 

On assignment at the Honolulu Museum of Arts, I began a half year internship for my Museum Studies course in the East Asian Paintings Conservation studio, which then became my full time employment. After 7 years of training in conservation of scrolls and folding screens, I found I needed a degree in conservation to be hired in art collecting institutions.  I studied at the University of Melbourne, diversified and completed my master’s degree.  Then I was employed by the Queensland Government and various Brisbane collecting institutions for many years as a Paper Conservator alongside a brilliant team.

Everyone has a part of the job they are passionate about– their first love, what is yours?

My passion has always been and always will be conservation and remounting of East Asian scroll and folding screen paintings.

My favourite seven years were working in Japanese and South Korean Paintings Conservation studios. It is rare to find opportunities to learn alongside mentors trained in Tokyo National Museum’s Handa Kyuseido studio.   I feel so fortunate to have been steeped in traditions and techniques refined over centuries, surrounded by delicate gilt papers, silks, gold brocades, and to have developed a long lasting level of skills using materials in ways that have stood the test of time.

Your top projects, what were they and why are they your favourites?

So many favourite projects over the past 20 years, how do I choose? 

Some of my favourites include - the collegial connections made while rebuilding broken hinges of “Tales of Genji”, an 8-fold Japanese folding screen from the 18^th Century, collected in Queensland Art Gallery.

Teaching colleagues right across Australia how to make traditional Japanese Karibari drying boards, then using them to flatten fragile early 1900s hand-painted theatre posters, 1800s hand-inscribed maps, and the scroll painting “My Dress Designs”, from the State Library of Queensland collections.

Assessing Japanese and Chinese scroll paintings in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Archbishop Ishida calligraphy scrolls in the San Francisco Public Library, where I built bridges with curators while conducting delicate and complex repairs. 

Refreshing my scientific eye for detail when analysing the Binney collection of Persian and Indian Miniatures in the San Diego Museum of Art. I used X-ray Fluorescence and InfraRed imaging to identify pigments and underdrawings for the curatorial educational materials in the Visible Vaults.

Remounting a contemporary traditional Chinese scroll painting, “Magnificent Peacock”, by Zhang Shuqi presented a really special opportunity to meet the owner, whose grandfather’s 75th birthday was celebrated by the painting!  I also met the artist’s son, Gordon Chang, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and shared my conservation treatment and how it would extend the scroll’s longevity, balancing it with its companion scroll, which resides in the Shanghai Museum collection. 

I hold a special place for projects that have opened my world to deeper levels of cultural reconnaissance. The remounting of 59 thangka paintings from Bhutanese temples for the exhibition “The Dragon’s Gift”, beginning at the Honolulu Museum of Art is a great example. These consecrated thangkas were not just paintings, but a physical host for an enlightened being. Monks were present during the conservation and exhibition, tending to the living artwork - their role to bless and cover the thangkas with silk curtains each night to shield the deity from the mundane actions of life. This experience is so different from working on Tibetan and Nepalese thangkas held in museum collections where the paintings are no longer sacred or inhabited by the deities, merely beautiful objects and paintings.

And finally, when “Ten Symbols of Longevity”, a 10-fold Korean screen in South Korea went on a temporary repatriation exhibition at the Seoul National Palace Museum after our full conservation work, before its return to its home Museum in Oregon.

Interests outside of work?

I'll never tire of travelling far and wide, with enough time to form a genuine understanding of and connection with different people and places, not so much as a tourist, always as a traveller.  While I don’t often stray very far from the coast, if I’m near waterfalls with swimming spots or reefs with visibility for freediving, I’ll hop in or paddle out in the surf on a longboard.  Hiking to see petroglyphs is an extra special treat, beyond beautiful views, while being absorbed in the natural beauty surrounding us.  Take me anywhere there’s good live jazz, any great live music, spicy delightful food, and lively art exhibitions, that increase the joy in the world!  

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