5 Minutes with... Claire Rowson

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

I am currently the State Manager of WA based in our Perth office, though I started in the Sydney office as a project manager for the Objects and Outdoor Heritage team.

I am an objects conservator by training so can sometimes be found working on small object treatments in my studio and larger site-based conservation projects on public art and industrial heritage. I also specialise in risk assessment for collections and preservation planning so work closely with stakeholders, custodians, and other clients in metropolitan Perth and regional WA on strategies to care for heritage items and collections in the long term.

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

My first love is art and after studying art history and theory, took a job as an artist fabricator at the Perth Mint. I trained in engraving and other numismatic arts and worked for several years making coins. After seeing a growing need to care for cultural heritage collections there, I undertook the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne and am now lucky to work full-time as a conservator.

I specialise in the conservation of industrial heritage and metal, particularly fabricated precious metal objects, including trophies, coins/medals, and jewellery but we get a big variety of things to treat at ICS so I consider my skills more general these days.

I also work in risk assessment, preventive conservation, and policy, so as satisfying as remedial conservation treatments can be, it is great to be involved in more strategic and preventive approaches to cultural heritage preservation.

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

I love visual and fine art, particularly Australian art history and practice. The privilege of working with and caring for artworks is one of my favorite things about our work.

I also love the breadth of experience that comes from working as a private sector conservator and I’ve treated a huge variety of objects and materials since working for ICS, including plastics and other polymeric materials, timber, textiles, taxidermy, you name it! It’s never boring.

What have been your top 3 favourite projects?

A conservation treatment of Growth Forms by Margel Hinder where our conservation work was filmed by artist Di Baker Smith and incorporated into a video installation, She Speaks in Sculpture. It was a satisfying treatment of a beautiful artwork but also a thrill to be included in an art piece itself, documenting the precarity and constant flux that public art is subject to.

https://www.dianabakersmith.com/new-gallery-2

Working on Farmer, Brewer, Drayman, Publican by modernist and fellow medalist Paul Beadle is up there-figuratively and literally as we worked from a very narrow scaffold suspended above Paramatta road. I love heritage features that nod to the former use of a building and these sulfide cement bas reliefs tell the brewhouse origin story of the iconic orange monolith that is now Kennards Petersham.

Working with wheelwright and carriage builder Mark Burton on a new carriage commission and cannon conservation project in Richmond Park in 2021 was a very cool combination of fabrication and conservation. Being able to link up heritage and rare trades practitioners with meaningful conservation projects is always a joy.

What are your interests outside of work?

I’m always practicing yoga and art in my own time, thrifting for antique treasures and objects to practice conservation treatments on, and walking my dog Lucy.

Final thoughts

In conservation, you need to know a little bit about everything and simultaneously be a sort of expert in one or two things, which makes for a very interesting profession with a lot of unique and skilled people. I’m always happy to talk more about conservation projects, training and to anyone aspiring to work in the sector.

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