Kasia Maroney Conservation

02/11/2026

1.) A small army of completed projects awaiting pickup this morning, and
2.) My favorite of them: a man celebrating his chicken

02/07/2026

Spent the entire week crawling around repairing and restoring a large mosaic floor of the chancel (front altar-area) of a historic church. This floor was created by Tiffany Studios more than 125 years ago — when Louis Comfort Tiffany oversaw the studio, but Frederick Wilson was the primary creative force behind many of its most fabulous ecclesiastical commissions.

The underlayment is a fragile mix of layered wood and cement that has slightly heaved and/or crumbled in some places, creating cracks and lost tiles. This restoration included chiseling out old repairs, peeling back loose areas of tile and cement to consolidate and strengthen the ground beneath, and carefully recreating missing sections of design. 56 separate damaged sections of floor needed to be addressed and filled.

Big thanks to mosaic artist Denise Milito for the valuable assist. She has designed and created mosaic floors, so she thoroughly understands the special challenges involved, and she was absolutely invaluable (and also a joy to work with) for the three days that she joined me.

This one was a little hard on the back and knees (!!), but honestly, it’s always a privilege to get into the minds of the incredible craftsmen who brought Tiffany Studios its reputation for top tier artistry.

11/04/2025

Art conservation often exists behind the scenes and out of view, but it's a critical part of collections care for institutions and individuals alike. Relying on materials science, historic research, and expert studio art techniques, it's the exact part of the Venn diagram where art and science overlap.

In this talk, we'll start with a broad overview of the field of art conservation, then hone our focus to some specific projects in order to illustrate both the fundamentals and also some specifics from decades of experience in the field.

This talk coincides with the American Institute of Conservation's national "Ask a Conservator" day, so we'll leave plenty of time for questions to address what you're most curious about!

This Wednesday Nov. 5th at 7:00pm, Public Works Ithaca is back at The Downstairs with two great talks. Kasia Maroney will be speaking on her work in fine art conservation.

Bring a friend, grab a drink, see you soon.

11/01/2025

Hey hey — what are you doing Wednesday night? Consider coming to have a beer and hear me speak as part of the Ithaca Nerd Night / Public Works series at The Downstairs (the bar beneath the Watershed on State St in Ithaca). These are monthly talks that usally happen in pairs — I’ve been paired with a mural painter, who is speaking at 7:00, and then I’m up at 8:00. Yeah, it’s a talk in a bar (such a great idea), so I’ll be keeping it very light. More info is linked below, but here’s the description:

"The Best, The Worst, and The Ugliest: Stories from Thirty Years of Fine Art Conservation"

Art conservation often exists behind the scenes and out of view, but it's a critical part of collections care for institutions and individuals alike. Relying on materials science, historic research, and expert studio art techniques, it's the exact part of the Venn diagram where art and science overlap. In this talk, we'll start with a broad overview of the field of art conservation, then hone our focus to some specific projects in order to illustrate both the fundamentals and also some specifics from decades of experience in the field.
This talk coincides with the American Institute of Conservation's national "Ask a Conservator" day, so we'll leave plenty of time for questions to address what you're curious about!

The event will feature 2 talks: an art conservation talk: Art Conservator Art conservation often exists behind the scenes and out of view, but it's a critical part of collections care for institutions and individuals alike. Relying on materials science, historic research, and expert studio art techn...

10/09/2025

Happy 50th, UHS! This project was a fun one!

𝟱𝟬 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟱𝟬 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀
We’re celebrating UHS’s 50th anniversary by sharing the stories of 50 objects from our collection.

𝟑𝟗. 𝐑𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐩
The Rongovian Embassy (the “Rongo”) was a famed music venue and restaurant in Trumansburg. The rather formal initial announcement in the 1973 𝐼𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤 read “Mr. and Mrs. Alex Brooks of Washington St. have purchased the Barnes Block of Main St., Trumansburg and are making definite plans to open a European type Coffee House, this spring. It will be called ‘The Rongovian Embassy.’” It became known as a welcoming place and community center. Many local bands, such as Donna the Buffalo and The Horseflies, played on its stage. Alex “Brooksie” Brooks sold the business to Eric and Mary Ott in 1987 and they passed it on to Mike Barry in 2004. In 2014 there was an attempt to revitalize the Rongo under the ownership of a consortium, but it unfortunately closed for good in 2016, leaving behind decades of fond memories. UHS is now the caretaker of the colorful map that once hung inside the bar and that has been carefully restored by art conservationist Kasia Maroney.

08/18/2025

When the easiest thing is just reaching all the way into the anoxic bag 🤣

Nobody needs to introduce carpet beetles, weevils, or other pests to their collection. If an object is bug-infested (or suspected to be), the adults, larvae, and eggs can be killed by isolating the whole thing in a sealed and oxygen-free environment for a month.

There are different types of oxygen scavenging chemicals, but the most common is made mostly from powdered iron, which is reactive enough to quickly bind up all the oxygen into iron oxide. (500 grams of the one I used today removes the oxygen from 8.75 cubic feet of air.)

I could have just cut open the other end of this container 🤣, but we’re hoping to reuse it multiple times for this ongoing project, and we don’t want to shorten it too much with two new crimp seals every time. So I just took my flashlight inside to load it all the way to the back.

06/30/2025

It’s always interesting to see an artist work in a medium they aren’t known for. This is Roy Lichtenstein’s Dinnerware, from 1967.

Lichtenstein was known for his comic book-inspired paintings and prints. This stoneware piece fits right into those same cultural lines, but has a much different form… and now the layers of damage to the spoon handle are resolved.

Long live Pop Art!

05/08/2025

POV: what the art sees

04/14/2025

Nice piece in UR's Rochester Review magazine -- after a photographer and journalist shadowed me working during a recent MAG visit, we did a Master Class interview, and this is a nice representation of that conversation.

This is my undergraduate alma mater, so for my UR peeps: this will be page 56 of your paper copy of this spring's issue of the mag!

Link to the easier-to-read social media optimized version:

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/review-spring-2025-kasia-maroney-art-conservation-646252/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJp_HpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtyCw23JBTZ5iS4-hhxCvvSEJ8hSpnFcuHNnXZvc9el2YkYLNQ2yiEuENPfP_aem_wXg97-cmB1JICOYtjXWMtQ

02/13/2025

Spent the day cleaning a marble bust of Susan B. Anthony, so Monroe County can display her outside one of the courtrooms in the Hall of Justice. This was carved during her lifetime by another woman, Luella Varney.

Every time I see a depiction of SBA, it occurs to me how EXHAUSTED she always looks!

10/09/2024

This week I spent a couple days with Syracuse University’s cast of the Nike of Samothrace. Material losses, structural cracks, and networks of loose sections were threatening the integrity of her base. In this case, strength was a top priority, so the cracks were sealed and fiberglass cloth was soaked in resin to build in the losses, then they were smoothed over with water-soluble plaster and touched in with color to blend the repairs. Scratched graffiti in the base was also filled and resolved.

In October, my larger projects start to move indoors, and this one was quite joyful. The Crouse College of Visual and Performing Arts at SU was snug and bustling on these cool and rainy days — the chimes masters were busy, people were singing in the hallways, and opera and jazz groups and exercises from busy practice rooms filled the air. And SO many students and professors stopped to say hi and thank me. Quietly witnessing a thriving arts community for a couple days has been sweet.

💫