Hidden Gems
Hi! I’m Leslie Vilicich, a junior at Gallatin and conservation pre-program student who has been working in the lab as a preservation assistant since September. As someone with a flair for the esoteric and antique, I’ve been lucky enough to have helped on a multitude of projects, working with objects like Victorian tintypes, revolutionary war-era newspapers and, during some stranger moments, marzipan pigs. I had the opportunity to learn everything from making four-flap wrappers to heat-set mending clay-coated paper.
A particularly memorable day was learning how to clean, flatten, and mend a newspaper from 1787 from the Leo Hershkowitz Collection, which I’ve spent a lot of time working with as part of the Gardiner Project. It was incredibly tempting to stop and read everything, glimpsing into the bizarre, fascinating, and sometimes terrible minutiae of life 250 years ago. But alas, many more newspapers awaited mending.
[Front page of a newspaper from February 1787]
[Inside pages of the same newspaper]
For another project, I was entrusted with rehousing NYU’s infamous collection of Stern Pig Memorabilia, a very literal collection of pig figurines in all sizes and materials. One of the most exciting parts of working in conservation is the variety of projects I have been able to be a part of, and the unpredictability of a day’s work.
[piggy bank from the Stern Business School Pig Memorabilia]
[ceramic pig from the Stern Business School Pig Memorabilia]