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THANKA CONSERVATION TRAINING PROGRAM TO START THIS MONTH

July 2, 1999

Dear Friends of the Kham Aid Foundation,

As I write this, two expert conservators are winging their way to Chengdu, soon to travel to Kangding where they will teach the first ever course in thanka conservation offered to Tibetans.

Karen Yager is heading up this program; she's an art conservator from New York City with more than thirty years of experience. She's worked everywhere from Columbia to Turkey to the U.S. Capitol Building, with special expertise on murals and frescos. She participated in the 1998 KAF/CERS mission to complete the mural conservation work at Baiya Monastery, and she headed up a team that went to Palpung and rescued nine paintings there even as the building was falling down around them. What perhaps best qualifies Karen for this job, besides her impeccable professional credentials, is that she's a deeply warm-hearted and giving human being who was the favorite of our Tibetan students in the 1998 team. At Baiya she worked hard all day, every day, under difficult conditions, yet still found the time and energy at night to coach three of the students in English. This year she returns to Kham as director of our art conservation program.

The second conservator, volunteer Teresa Heady, comes to us from London. Among her previous posts, she worked for four months in Mongolia as instructor of preventative conservation. Her strong background in textiles will be especially useful in caring for thanka paintings, as will her ability to cope with third-world conditions.

We first thought of having a thanka conservation training program in 1995, when Donatella Zari and Carlo Giantomassi came with me to Kham to inspect the murals at Baiya. (For more information on this project, click here). On the way up to Derge the team stopped at the Sichuan Tibetan School in Kangding for a few days. There, the pair delivered a series of lectures to Tibetan students of art. It was the first time those students had ever heard of conservation, and when they saw slides of before and after photos of Italian frescos that had been conserved, they were amazed.

On the final day of the visit, Donatella and Carlo used some of the conservation materials brought for Baiya to show how blackened thankas could be cleaned. That demonstration was a smash hit, with students eagerly crowding around the tables to watch the experts carefully swab paintings. Later that day, the school requested that I arrange a thanka conservation training course for their students. It has taken four years to find the money and personnel, but now that plan is coming to pass.

The two instructors will be assisted by Mr. Wu Bangfu, KAF's steadfast Kangding office director and chief translator. In a fantastic stroke of luck, I found a Tibetan woman with a degree in chemistry who will help us find needed materials in Chengdu, and also join the program as a student. She is Nyima Lhamo, and works curating thankas and other treasures at the Sichuan University Museum. Several other apprentices who worked with KAF previously on the Baiya project will be joining Karen and Teresa to continue their conservation education.

With participants scattered among London, New York, Chengdu, and Kangding, it's been a job to get everything coordinated. As a veteran of art conservation missions, I'm now familiar with the treasure-hunt that precedes every trip. This time, in addition to the usual solvents, fabrics, papers, dust masks, rubber gloves, sponges, tools, and paints, the team has got to locate (or build) a vacuum table, heat blanket, and humidifier. They have one week to get everything ready and transport it to Kangding before the course begins on July 12. The teaching component will last for three weeks. Afterwards, Karen Yager will travel to Dege to inspect the murals of the Dege Printing House, which is likely to be our next conservation target.

According to Karen Yager's prospectus, the thanks course will "combine theoretical, philosophical, and technical information, along with demonstrations, photography and slide presentations, microscopy, scientific research, a discussion of historic treatment and presentation parameters in Western countries, and practical hands-on workshop/laboratory treatments." The material will be new and challenging to Tibetan students, most of whom have no prior background in chemistry, however Karen is taking that into account, and will emphasize application rather than theory. Altogether twelve students will take the course.

Anyone wishing to contact Karen Yager, Teresa Heady, or any of the other participants can write to them in care of Mr. Wu at khamaid@ganzi.scsti.ac.cn. In the meantime, we wish them a safe and successful journey!

Pamela Logan

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