This year-long project is funding two new members of staff, Rachael Thomas, Assistant Conservator and Helen Pickles, Documentation Assistant.
Rachael Thomas, Assistant Conservator
Since 2015 Rachael has worked as a self-employed conservator based in Inverness, and has worked with several of the independent museums within the Highland area including Gairloch Heritage Museum, Ullapool Museum, Dingwall Museum and Grantown Museum.
Within these museums she has undertaken freezing programmes to treat objects infested by woodworm, audited and condition checked collections before a decant, reorganised store rooms, prepared objects for exhibition and created custom mounts and storage solutions for fragile material. She has also shared her conservation knowledge with museum staff and volunteers in a series of workshops focusing on correct object handling, labelling and packaging. Rachael has a BA Hons in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art, and a MA in the Conservation of Archaeological and Museum of Objects from Durham University. As a student she spent a year as the Applied Arts conservation intern at the Museum of London.
Helen Pickles, Documentation Assistant
Helen has worked in many Collections Management roles over the past seven years, including documenting a major collections decant at Kenwood House, London, digitising photographic collections for the English Heritage Archive, and most recently having worked at the British Museum in a variety of roles including the Africa Moves project which involved auditing, processing and packing up the ethnographic collections in readiness of their relocation to the main museum site in London.
Helen holds a BA Hons in Ceramics, and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. During her time as an MA student, Helen worked with staff and volunteers at Sheringham Museum, Norfolk to improve their Collections Management processes and procedures, and helped the museum to maintain their Accreditation status.
Contact: [email protected] / [email protected]
