Preserving Your Family Heirlooms

Matheson Board Member and Museum Collections Care Specialist Elise V. LeCompte will give a presentation on how to preserve your family heirlooms. Participants are asked to bring an object (or photo of an object) that they wish to preserve.

Objects that we collect or pass down through the generations are special to us for various reasons--their relation to a special person, place or time; the memories and history that they evoke; their beauty; their worth; and a whole hosts of other personal reasons specific to each one of us. We can't stop time and the natural deterioration of these precious artifacts, but we can slow the pace of deterioration through proper care and protective measures. Preventive care of your treasures will save you the cost of conservation treatment or, worse, losing an object all together.

The program will feature a presentation on the care and preservation of precious family heirlooms, including metal objects, ceramics and glass, artwork, textiles, books and paper, photographic material, and audiovisual material, by Elise V. LeCompte, a specialist in museum collections care. The processes and agents of deterioration that work to destroy our precious objects, and how to minimize them, will be described. Then, simple museum-quality techniques for storing and displaying your treasures will be discussed. These are techniques that anyone can carry out in order to preserve their heirlooms and treasures for years to come. Sample storage and display materials will be available for examination, and handouts listing museum-quality supplies and suppliers will be provided.

The presentation will be followed by a hands-on, group discussion of each participant’s object, based on the information provided in the presentation.

This program is sponsored in part by Visit Gainesville/Alachua County, FL and The City of Gainesville.