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During mid September, Gregg Perry attended 3 weeks of graduate level courses at the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies in Mount Carroll, IL. This is the only location in the country to receive world-class conservation training. Conservators attend the school from all over the world. The instructors are experts working in their field in which they teach. They do not teach from a textbook, nor promote specific products or work for modern material companies. What the students are able to experience is learning from each other in small group discussions because of the lack of distraction in Mount Carrolls remote location.
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The first course taken was “Revealing Lost Content: Low-Tech Digital Forensicsâ€. Students learn inexpensive and nondestructive forensic techniques to reveal lost or obscured content. The cases obvious concerns are palimpsests; anthcrial erasures or fraudulent alterations; wash–away, delaminated, faded, bleached or otherwise lost content, image optimization using digital algorithms for feature extraction. This program was led by Hal Erickson, practicing bioformalticist and scientist. He also maintains a private practice in molecular biology.
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The second program titled “Enzymes and Their Targets: from the Fundamentals to Optimization of Enzyme Cocktail in Conservation Usage†Covered in the course is the molecular structure and activity of enzymes, enzymatic activity or related to pH and innerbalance, spot test for neutral digestion, structures and vulnerabilities of adhesives and residues, treatment applied to artifact safety and choice of appropriate enzyme for target.
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The final weeks course was “Microchemical Analysis – Quantitative Methodsâ€. The course taught by Skip Palenik, owner and chief scientist of the most foremost independent forensic laboratory. All work was performed under the polarized light microscope (PLM) from spot testing to identification of microcrystalline structure for the testing of silver, lead, copper, zinc, iron, nickel, tin, bismuth, chromium, calcium, potassium, sodium and nitrates. Decantation and polymer analysis were performed. Palenik, who led the formation is one of the most notable forensic scientists in the world, working on notable high profile cases such as Atlantic Child Murders, Jon Benet Ramsey, “Ivan the Terribleâ€, Hillside Strangler and spearheaded the reinvestigating of the MLK assassination to name a few
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