Q & A: insights from collection care experts Conserv

Imagine this: you’ve just acquired a new painting by an artist whose career you’ve followed for years. You hang it proudly in your living room, then head off on your summer vacation. While you’re away, a thunderstorm knocks out the power in your home, leaving your artwork exposed to warm, stagnant air. Will your artwork be affected? That depends on a variety of factors.

“While each artwork is unique, many materials react similarly to extremes in temperature and humidity. Mold growth can begin in a matter of days when it’s hot and humid, particularly in dark places with poor airflow, like the backs of paintings,” says conservator Claire Winfield.

Unfortunately, heat and humidity can result from weather events such as floods and droughts, which, according to a study by NASA, are becoming more frequent, long-lasting and more severe.  How can collectors be more proactive and better prepared for unpredictable atmospheric conditions?

Luckily, technology can help: collectors can now keep an eye on the conditions of their artwork at home with the same methods employed by museums. Conserv is an environmental monitoring platform designed specifically for collections care, and I recently spoke with Conserv team members Allie Bryan and Claire Winfield about this tech tool that empowers collectors to stay informed about their home museums, whatever the size or scope.

Katja: Let’s start with the Conserv origin story. You have been offering this preventive conservation tool since 2018. What prompted this?

Claire: In the fall of 2018, Austin and Nathan, our two co-founders, were catching up over lunch when Nathan’s mom—an object conservator—joined them for a break from a massive data entry project. She was venting about how tedious and time-consuming it was to manually collect temperature data from every room in the museum, haul it back to her computer, and wrestle with clunky, outdated software. For two guys with backgrounds in hardware, software development, and data analysis, it was catnip: a compelling problem begging for a smarter solution. That moment sparked the idea for Conserv. From there, Austin and Nathan dove deep. They spoke with hundreds of collections care professionals at libraries, history museums, and art institutions to understand how conservators monitor their collections, what data they track, and why it matters.

Katja: Ah, so the first goal was to solve a professional problem for collecting institutions. Certainly, private collectors also want to optimize the display conditions for their passion investments? The Conserv tool seems like one more way that a collector (or their advisor) can be empowered with information, whether they have ten objects, or a hundred.

Allie: Exactly, collectors are passionate about “WHAT” they collect, and Conserv can help them with the “HOW” to protect what they collect. Museums and institutions often use Conserv as an additional layer on top of their building management systems because they need that granular, collection-focused monitoring. For personal collections, that same level of precision protection makes sense.

Remote monitoring gives you eyes on your collection 24/7. You get instant alerts if conditions drift outside safe parameters, and you can immediately contact a family member, your property manager or caretaker with specific data about what’s happening and what needs attention. Like you said, if there is a power outage, and the ambient temperature of the living room where the Mary Cassat painting is rises to 80 degrees, Conserv alerts you.

Or if the cellar where your store your collection of champagne goes above 55 degrees Fahrenheit, Conserv alerts you. No one wants bubbly that’s gone flat due to heat! We help you understand exactly what’s happening in your space so you can make informed decisions to protect your collections, whether it’s a Kandinsky, bottles of Colgin or a baseball card collection.

Katja: Some people are already using home tech monitoring services like NEST, SimpliSafe, and Ring. How is Conserv different?

Allie: The key difference is precision and purpose. Most home monitoring systems are designed for human comfort. They measure conditions at a single point, typically wherever your thermostat is mounted, which might be a hallway or corner. They’re built to “learn” your preferences and adjust accordingly.

Conserv is built specifically for protecting valuable collections. We place sensors directly where your art, antiques, or collectibles are located, giving you precise data about the actual conditions affecting those items. A home monitoring system might show your home is at 70 degrees, but what it’s really saying is that your home is at 70 degrees wherever the sensor itself is located. It doesn’t tell you what’s happening to the painting hanging in direct afternoon sunlight, or the vintage instruments in your music room.

The “learning” features that make other home monitoring systems great for comfort can have an opposite effect when it comes to your collections. If your system decides to warm up a space for four hours because it’s learned that’s your preference, a smaller adjoining room connected to the same thermostat with artwork might overheat significantly. Those temperature swings over time can cause irreversible damage to valuable pieces.

Katja: It strikes me that having a monitoring device like Conserv would also be helpful for secondary and additional homes.

Allie: Absolutely, as it may be snowing in Denver, raining in Boston, and very hot in Atlanta! When you’re managing collections across different locations, you’re dealing with varying climates, different HVAC systems, and staff who may not understand the specific needs of your artwork. A collector might have perfect climate-control in their Manhattan penthouse, but their weekend home in the Hamptons could have a completely different system that struggles with humidity during summer months.

The travel factor compounds everything. Collectors may be away for weeks, unaware that a minor HVAC malfunction was causing gradual but serious damage. Something like a water leak may start small, but if it’s not caught early, it can balloon into a major problem.

Katja: Ah, water. It’s perhaps the most significant source of loss for homeowners and a risk for art collectors as well, whether in the form of a flood, hurricane, a burst pipe, or leaky patio doors. Can a Conserv device help detect water issues?

Claire: When it comes to the risks of water in the home, I encourage people to think about the potential sources for water. They’re usually running water sources and pipes, HVAC equipment, windows, roofs, or other building envelope sources. Think about the potential path of water to your artworks; if your hot water heater has a leak, where would that water flow? When a window or skylight leaks, how would the water flow down the ceiling or wall? Where might a water leak first be visible? Often this is near the source, i.e., near the sink or plumbing, underneath HVAC equipment, below a window.

While there are some flow-detection technologies available, these often would only alert you after a huge amount of water flow, like a burst water main or a garden hose running for hours. For artwork, we’d like to know about much smaller amounts of water much sooner. Leak detection sensors, like the Conserv Smart Tape Leak Detection Sensor, can easily be installed in tight spaces and are highly sensitive; they’ll send you an email and text when there’s only a few drops of water on the sensor. Many wine collectors like this feature. Sometimes leaks or small amounts of water pool in the basement, where the cellar usually is. Mold can grow on corks, which we want to prevent!

Katja: Absolutely, we want to keep that champagne sparkling, not moldy! While oenophiles love to taste, art lovers love to look. Yet sometimes deterioration happens beyond the scope of the visible eye. Can you describe some of the common forms of perils to an artwork that we may not think about, specifically because we don’t see it – literally and figuratively – until it’s too late?

Claire: Light damage is a good example of this. We need light to see and appreciate our collections, but light can accelerate the normal degradation reactions of materials, shorten their lifespans and cause irreversible damage. We think about colors fading, but light and UV radiation also can cause materials to get more brittle, fall apart, crumble, and darken over time. Conservators can only attempt to stabilize this damage; we can’t really undo any of it.

Some materials are so fugitive that they can be gone within a year at normal light levels, and because it’s not an overnight change, sometimes we only notice it after a lot of damage has already happened. The fading curve, the color change you can get over time with light exposure, is steepest at the beginning of an object’s life, so modern and contemporary art is impacted more quickly than old masters.

Katja: You make an important point about contemporary art – nowadays made not only with different caliber of paper quality, but also more non-traditional mediums like print media, feathers, plastics, etc. It’s often a smart move to ask the artist or gallery who sold you the piece for advice on how to care for it. Of course, having the Conserv device is part of a larger preventive conservation strategy. What other meaningful practices/ habits would you recommend collectors adopt to become better stewards of their collections?

Claire: There’s a lot to consider—that’s exactly why museums, libraries, and Conserv have full-time conservators on board.

I have art at home too, and when I look at my own collection, two priorities always stand out. It’s the same advice I give to private collectors: focus on Documentation and Display.

Documentation includes taking good pictures of your artwork, and notes about its condition. Keep that information somewhere secure but accessible. Yet, it is not one-and-done! Continue to inspect your collection periodically with those pictures and descriptions and see if things are changing over time. Is that a new crack? Did this crack get bigger? Did this print slip in its frame?

Next, think about where your objects are on Display. Are they near windows? Can you close the curtains if you’re not in the room or out of town, or consider hanging a less sensitive work in areas of intense or continuous light exposure, or rotate works periodically? Is artwork placed near a drafty vent, or hung on an exterior wall or over a working fireplace, or in a bathroom with humidity changes? Good installation choices and storage conditions can go a long way to protecting your collections.

Katja: At the very beginning, we spoke about the common occurrence of power outages in the summer due to storms or even breakdown of the electrical grid. How long can a work on paper be in extreme heat before it is damaged?

Claire: Paper can be quite durable – remember, we’ve been able to preserve examples for hundreds of years! The quality of paper is a major determining factor in how long it will last. It’s an example of the old adage “they just don’t make them like they used to.” While there are certainly many high-quality modern papers, our modern age has ushered in new technologies for rapid production and wider distribution (like pulp papers and newsprints). Yet poor quality papers will be impacted much more quickly than high quality papers. Also, heat doesn’t always happen in a vacuum. When you also have high humidity or light exposure, those can accelerate damage as well. For example, poor quality paper might see discoloration and embrittlement within days or weeks in a hot attic. This is why monitoring temperature and humidity is so important to help protect works on paper.

Katja: Certainly. In addition to tips for managing artwork in warm conditions, we also want to suggest some resources for water-damaged objects, as these are what conservators see very often.

Conservation Resources:

• In the event you do have a wet artwork, all may not be lost. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation, the New York City Alliance for Response, and MoMA put together a great collection of resources for the care of wet collections.
• “Immediate Response for Collections” offers a clear outline of triage steps for different material types.
• In general, it’s important to consult with a conservator or other collections care professional to discuss your specific work(s) and the best steps forward for them. You can locate a professional through the American Institute for Conservation website: find a conservator.
• An emergency preparedness plan is another important tool. Find additional emergency preparedness plans here and here.

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Conserv is a leading provider of wireless environmental monitoring for museums, libraries, archives, and historic sites. Trusted by hundreds of cultural institutions worldwide, Conserv helps safeguard millions of priceless objects with real-time data and alerts—no WiFi required.

Katja Zigerlig is Vice President of Art, Wine + Collectibles Advisory at Berkley One (a Berkley Company).