Episode 052 Paul Messier

Show Notes

This week’s guest, Paul Messier, is an excellent example of the potential for creativity that lies within the unique brand of entrepreneurship that is running an independent conservation practice. Although working as an independent art conservator comes with many unique challenges (Paul’s journey being no exception) it also has great potential for extending beyond what most people imagine art conservators do; far beyond just restoring or documenting artworks. Over the years, Paul has been fueled by a sort of relentless curiosity, and creative restlessness that has yielded some really interesting results, and taken him to places he likely never imagined: including finding himself at the center of the most controversial authentication scandals in photographic history, building one of the most comprehensive photographic paper research collections in the world, co-founding the Electronic Media Group of the American Institute for Conservation, and much much more. Tune in to hear Paul’s story!

Links from the conversation with Paul
> https://www.paulmessier.com
> https://lml.yale.edu

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Transcript 

[00:00:00] Ben: From Small Data Industries, this is Art and Obsolescence. I'm your host, Ben Fino-Radin and on this show, I chat with people that are shaping the past present and future of art and technology. This week on the show, we are back in the conservation lab. 

[00:00:15] Paul: Hi, I'm Paul Messier. I'm an art conservator. 

[00:00:19] Ben: I was just so thrilled to sit down and chat with Paul, throughout the years he's been somebody that I often look to with great admiration as I think he's an excellent example of the potential for real creativity that lies within the kind of a unique brand of entrepreneurship that is running an independent conservation practice. When you work outside the frameworks and context of institutions. It comes with many unique challenges and Paul's journey of establishing himself certainly wasn't without its speed bumps as you'll hear, but it also has great potential for extending beyond what most people imagine art conservators do and well beyond just restoring or documenting artworks. As I think you'll hear in Paul's story over the years, he has been fueled by a sort of relentless curiosity and what I see as a sort of creative restlessness that has yielded some really interesting results and taken him to places that he likely, never imagined. And truth be told I am sort of burying the lede here at, although, as you'll hear, Paul is known broadly for being an incredible conservator of photographs, he also just so happens to have co-founded back in the mid nineties, the Electronic Media Group of the American Institute for conservation, which has been mentioned more than a few times on the show so far as EMG has gone on to become a place where time-based media conservators from all over the world, gather and exchange knowledge and research. It was such a treat to hear the story of Paul's evolution as a conservator, the growth of his private practice, and the work his lab at Yale is doing these days. Just a little disclaimer, this episode, we had some pretty gnarly technical difficulties in the recording process. So you are going to hear a little more crosstalk than you normally hear on this show. I hope you'll forgive me. And just a quick reminder, before we dive in that if you have been enjoying the show, leaving a review, wherever you are listening, if it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or something else, reviews really help other people discover the show. Thank you so much to all of you that have already left such glowing reviews for the show. You are deeply appreciated. And now without further delay, let's dive into this week's chat with Paul Messier. 

[00:02:30] Paul: I, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. The oldest of five kids and, um, my family moved to a small town called Westboro, Massachusetts, which was all, uh, apple orchards and horse farms when we moved there. And now it's kind of, you know, firmly in the suburbs of Boston. Went to school there, you know, all the way through high school. I was lucky enough to get into Vassar College that has a really strong art history program. And yeah started really studying art history at that point, always taking studio classes along the way. I was always drawn to, you know, making things and art was one of the things that I would make. You know, in effort to prolong my college experience and avoid doing any work at all. After graduation I, uh, went with a friend to, um, to Europe and, you know, back in those days, you could go through Europe, very inexpensively, you know, with a Eurail pass and all of that and so we just kind of did sort of the Janssen art 1 0 1 art history tour just looking at stuff that we had studied, through slides of course, you know, and other reproductions. And I don't know. But it seemed like, you know, every other thing that we wanted to see was being restored. They knew we were coming and then they like hid everything in the basement. There were some notable things that I really wanted to see being restored. And I was like, hey, somebody's doing that work and what does it require? And so when I finally got back it's like, well, you gotta make something of yourself, you know? And, uh, so I started , researching conservation and, uh, figured out there was this thing called AIC, figured out these things called graduate training programs. Much to my dismay, looking at those prerequisites, I realized, oh, I'm not gonna get into these things unless I go do an apprenticeship somewhere and basically go back to school for a year and get all the science prerequisites. And so that's, pretty much what I did. I really wanted to move to New York and I joined AIC to get the membership list. I wrote a letter to every private conservator in New York, Everyone, didn't matter what, discipline didn't matter. Anything. I just figured, maybe a private person could pay me cuz I wasn't paid at the Worcester art museum. I got one response and it was from this guy, Jose Araca who was a photograph conservator. And I was like, well, okay I'll go meet this guy. We sort of hit it off I guess. It was an unpaid internship for the first year. But, um, that was my introduction to doing conservation treatment really on a daily basis. And I didn't think photography was art at all, you know, I was like, well, you know, what, what is this why would you preserve a photograph? You just photograph the photograph and then you've got it. You know, it's the big deal. It's all image based. Right. And so I started learning that, yeah, there was a material history and it was a really interesting material history. Jose was, he was a really incredible guy. He was the first, I think this is accurate. I hope so. You know, the first person to be paid professionally as a photograph conservator, the first such position at the George Eastman house in Rochester. And so I caught up with him after he had had that position and done some teaching at the Buffalo program at the Winterthur program. And uh, while I was there, he was setting up this other subgroup conservators in private practice. So, thinking about, my work to kinda get the Electronic Media Group up on its feet, I give Jose a lot of credit for that cause he kind of showed me um, what it would take to get a, specialty group up off the ground. I, I was sort of agnostic, you know, in terms of specialization. I didn't really focus on photography at Buffalo. They didn't have a photography conservation program. But I was really fortunate that I had this great professor, Kathy Baker who was teaching paper conservation. So I was really into that. And I figured, Hey, you know, I've got this photography thing. If that ever emerges as valuable. Hopefully someday it will. Hey, I've got like this paper conservation credential too. And you know, also a bartending credential, if all of those just failed that's still my fallback. So the Buffalo program is a three year program you're onsite for two years. The third year you do a fellowship and I ended up working for Anne Cartier-Bresson in Paris, which was amazing from there. Got a fellowship at the Smithsonian and what was then called the conservation analytical lab and I was working principally with Tim Vitale who was, you know, just a, an amazing mentor and just the most inventive, creative conservator I've probably ever met. And at that point, you know, after that wrapped up after a year of doing research it was time to get a real job and there weren't many jobs. And I was fortunate to get a position at what was then called the Rocky Mountain Conservation Center. That no longer exists, but that was a regional center. They were designed to kind of put you know, professional level conservation practice in different regions that were considered underserved. And basically it was all treatment, right. And, uh, I became the head of that lab, like instantly I walked in with not very much experience but walked in and uh, took over that lab. And even though it was a nonprofit, it operated as a business. I mean, it, they, they were very profit centered. You had to make money, you had to produce. And you know, I sort of militated against that for a while. Hated that but then I realized, Hey, you know, I'm actually pretty good at this. I was good as a treatment conservator. In fact, I took a lot of pride in that. I was, you know, I was really good and I was fast. So I was a, you know, I was a money making machine, we had like these billing goals for the month. And I think, you know, at a certain point I was like six months ahead of my billing goal, I was just like killing it right? And so that gave me a lot of confidence. So I had the Jose thing under my belt, this private practice experience I had sort of, you know, a little research sabbatical in there and then really this proof of principle that I could make it as a private conservator. So it was good. It was good. I learned a lot. I learned a lot and uh, got the hell out of there. 

[00:08:59] Ben: And so was your private practice, the next step for you? 

[00:09:02] Paul: It was the next step. 

[00:09:04] Ben: I'm just so curious to hear about your thought process and what it was like getting off the ground, what was that like starting the business. Were there any like really hard lessons learned in the early days? 

[00:09:16] Paul: Oh my God. Well, yeah, I mean, it was a real test because I mean, I knew I could do it right. I knew I had the skillset. I knew I had the mentality and the temperament. I knew it, you know, I, and I moved back to Boston, having grown up in that area and. it was really humbling, you know, the first year, two years, maybe three. Just cuz you're the greatest conservator on the planet. Doesn't mean people know about you or wanna work with you or wanna, you know, break an existing relationship with another conservator to throw business your way. So that was kind of eye opening, you know, and I think about this a lot. If I had really known what I was getting into, would I have done it, I'm not sure, I'm not sure because it was, it was hard. My wife and I had a, new baby at this point and you know, she was going to grad school and I was like basically unemployed, it was rough, but I, didn't just sort of cower in the corner somewhere, you know, I was really trying to work it and gradually, you know, this investment in myself, it started paying off. And I think, that's the lesson really, for any kind of young conservator contemplating private practice. It's gonna be slow. It's gonna be painful probably at first, but the great thing is you're investing in yourself every day and no one can take that away from you, you can't be, you know, laid off in the next stock market crash so, yeah it worked. You know, there was a thing that kind of put me on the map. It seems lucky in retrospect, but again, when it was happening in real time, it was kind of a misery, which was I had a client who brought me a number of works that he had gotten on loan and it's something that he had purchased himself. And the question was, were they authentic? Were they actually made by this photographer Lewis Hine who died in 1940? And so I started researching, you know, the papers and all of this and came to the conclusion that, uh, yeah, no, you know, they were probably made in the seventies, eighties, maybe even early nineties, something like that. That mushroomed into, the still I think the biggest authenticity scandal in the fine art photography market. And, uh, yeah. It was, uh, it was rough for a while there because you know, the person who was responsible for these prints, he was kind of this beloved figure in the field. And, there was a lot of disbelief and a lot of overt and covert attacks on my credibility and all of that, you know, and I was pretty young. And so, articles in the Times and there was a big article in the Atlantic monthly, and it was like, ah, I had to get a lawyer it was a, you know, a little bit tough little interesting. But you know, at that point, if you were in the business, the fine art photography world, and you know, you hadn't heard of me then, you know, you'd be living under a rock, and so that was sort of a, turning point. And you know, it turns out of course I was right. You know, and so that. That was helpful. And that was really inspiring, you know, on a whole other level, which was, around then you know, eBay was just kind of getting started and I started to realize, oh my gosh, like the material history of black and white photography is available on aggregated on eBay. So I started buying all of this stuff and that's turned out to be you know, the largest kind of reference collection of photographic papers in the world. You know, that was a really kind of fertile period for me, those, late nineties, early two thousands, that's, on a sort of parallel track that's when I was doing all this other stuff, in the electronic media world.

[00:13:03] Ben: Yeah. You know, it was around that time in the early nineties when you and Mona Jimenez, co-founded the Electronic Media Group which people have heard a lot about on the show so far. I'm curious what led to that, and why did you wanna get involved in this whole time based media thing? 

[00:13:24] Paul: Yeah, You know, the principle reason I wanted to get involved, I think was I was, you know, I was always pretty agnostic. These discipline definitions, I mean, never made all that much sense to me, you know, like you had to be a photograph conservator or a paper conservator or this or that. I was really happy to explore anything, pretty much anything. I was pretty open right then. And also, you know, very entrepreneurial. I was setting up a business. I, like we talked about it was not an immediate success not only did I have time, but I had this sort of entrepreneurial drive to say like, oh, you know, this looks like an opportunity. So kind of went for it. And then I think my first contact really was through these working groups that were set up regionally by the Bay Area Video Coalition, and those working groups were part of a larger grant and that culminated in so called Playback 96, I think that's the name of the conference which is sort of a big deal and really formative for me. I'm not sure if I met Mona then or what, but she was definitely there. In fact, she was one of the creators of that grant, if I'm not mistaken of that project. I was assigned to look at, hey, you know, will digital video ever be like a viable thing, you know, as a preservation medium that was like my topic. And I was like, what are you kidding me? I, couldn't even wrap my head around analog, you know, signals, nevermind. You know, digital encoding. I mean, there was just like. So few resources back then but I tried and I actually, you know, I learned a lot, I mean, it was incredible. Mona was just like a, ball of fire back then, you know, she had gotten a grant to do surveys of video repositories in New York. And, um, she wanted to do like a, straight up conventional conservation survey, which I dunno, somebody sold her on that you have to ask her why she was fixated on that. And I think that's how we got together was probably, via email and then, phone conversations would I consider doing this survey? And Mona and I like in her truck, she had this little pickup truck, just driving around, upstate New York going to like Rochester and Syracuse and Buffalo and Ithaca and looking at these repositories of videotape and, you know, I wrote the classic survey report that, nobody on the planet has ever read. And that was sort of, you know, we forged this bond. That was like this amazing odyssey where we just got to know each other and dreamed up all kinds of different things. I think coming out of Playback 96 I knew that, this was a kind of an inevitability within AIC that there really needed to be a specialty group. I had to set up something called the electronic media special interest group. And to do that, you needed like, a hundred signatures of conservators that this was like a good thing to do. And so, yeah, I mean, we had this like, petition that we would circulate like physical thing, and once we hit like a hundred, then we were like a special interest group. And then there was a whole process. The AIC board had to be cool with it, going from a special interest group to a specialty group, you know, it's complete tedium. It was just constant advocacy, when I got a project like that, I'm sort of like a dog with a bone I just wouldn't relent until it happened. 

[00:16:54] Ben: Once you had approval from AIC and you set up this specialty group you know, it's a group, obviously that you're not so much involved in anymore. At what point did it become a thing with its own life that you were able to step away and what was that like? 

[00:17:09] Paul: I've thought about this a lot and I it's very unsettled, because I still don't really have a great rationale, why I sort of let it go on its way without me. A couple of things, one thing, I mean, Jose was a great mentor, but he was also a great anti mentor in a lot of ways. I was very close to Jose and so I stayed in touch with him for many, many years, and he took almost this proprietary interest in the photographic materials group and C I P P and all of that and really you know, made a lot out of his status as founder. And that didn't sit right with me, so I didn't want to do that. And I don't know, I really felt like my role was this advocacy role, this case making role, proving the principle that this was important and that, you know, AIC, and really the field had to adapt to incorporate time-based media, electronic media. And once that was done, I felt like, oh, okay. I'm sort of free and you know, mission accomplished. And I think this is probably, wrong but my self identity as a conservator was all about, at that point was like the heroic intervention. If you're not taking something apart or putting it back together again you're not a conservator. And the trend line for the field was very much about documentation back then about, artist interviews and a lot of stuff was getting set up around that. And I thought, this is great this needs to happen, but I don't see a role for myself in this. That's not really, core conservation, there's no heroic intervention there, so there's that also and this is sort of maybe a victim of our success, but like both Tim and I, both in private practice, we could see the writing on the wall, you know, as institutions started to adapt to these new ideas and started to create positions, MoMA, SF, MoMA, Tate those were brand names, right? And you can't really, as private conservators especially then you can't really compete for kind of intellectual leadership when someone's got, you know, MoMA after their name on a business card, that was tough. So yeah, there are a lot of these crosscurrents and then, I've gotta admit too, the private practice started catching on and I became known as one of the go to people in photograph conservation. So you know, there's only so much time and, like I said, I've always kind of been agnostic, if I'm busy taking stuff apart and putting it back together I'm happy. So yeah. I'm tremendously proud of having a role of creating, what is in my mind, probably the most interesting and robust group within the AIC bar none. I mean, I don't really take credit for any idea. Right? There was an inevitability to all of this that I think was maybe not apparent to everyone back in the nineties, early two thousands, but was apparent to enough people that, okay, this is gonna happen. In terms of the way it's panned out, I mean, I think it's fantastic. I mean, where we are today yeah, it is sort of beyond kind of my wildest imaginings, back when we were, trying to get to a hundred signatures on the petition, you know, that, that whole thing. It's tremendous. It's gonna be fascinating to see the next 10, 15, 20 years. I really firmly believe that all of institutions that collect things, um, instead of ideas yeah, I mean, you already see that being recast now so I think that trend line is gonna continue. It's gonna be fascinating to see how the culture grapples with all of this like legacy stuff that's really expensive to keep around and huge carbon footprint related to that. Yeah I can't wait. It's gonna be interesting. 

[00:20:59] Ben: Of course, all throughout those years, your private practice was continuing to thrive. And, I would imagine also developed beyond your wildest imaginations to a certain extent. So maybe you could just take us through, those years and what that was like.

[00:21:16] Paul: So, you know, I talked about the sort of authenticity scandal or whatever, you know, in the, the late nineties that kind of was a catalyst to a lot of growth in the practice. I think, you know, there were some like glory years up until maybe, the crash of 2008, we were just like growing, growing, growing, and I was really fortunate to be able to hire some really talented people. Some of which still work in the practice. It was just fabulous, but you know, around that time, you know, let's say 2008, 2010, I started reevaluating my role as a conservator. And again, this was not a conscious decision, but it just was starting to happen gradually. Like I said, I, I took great pride in my ability to treat objects. You know, I, I was sort of like this virtuoso, you know, I, I wanted the most challenging, the most risky, the highest stakes. I just that's what I would do. I really thrived on that stuff. The first thing to go, I think, as a conservator is not your eyes or your hands or whatever, it's your patience. And I was just, I was just starting to patience. And, you know, I really started to think, Hmm. You know, what do I really like to do? I really like to work with data. I really like to work with the collection of photographic papers. And the practice became sort of a vehicle for me to like, do all this other creative stuff on my own. And you know, so I was really fortunate that I ended up with this opportunity to go to Yale in 2015 to kind of, take the collection and all of the data that I was building around the collection and, really form it up to turn the collection into a scholarly resource, right, and almost a language preservation project in a way is kind of how I think about it. You know, there's, there's a language, there's a performative language, um, when it comes to making anything but making a black and white print for sure. And, you know, I kind of had that material history sitting there in this paper archive. And it was just a matter of figuring out how to kind of measure the right things when it comes to this collection, how to visualize those things at a really broad scale, and to do that work I was gonna need money and I was gonna need help. First hire was a data scientist, uh, next hire was an art historian with a background in the history of photography. And um, most recently, a couple years ago hired a, physicist who's helping us with our measuring. So it's like wild. It's great. You gotta come check it out. 

[00:23:58] Ben: So, you already kind of left some great advice. I know there's a lot of aspiring conservators that listen to the show, there's a lot of emerging conservators that listen to the show. So for those tuning in, is there any advice that you'd like to leave behind for folks who are specifically interested maybe in getting into private practice?

[00:24:18] Paul: When it comes to getting into private practice, I, I think if you're inclined to go in that direction, the sooner you can do it the better. Again, it's an investment in your yourself but it does not pay dividends right away. So if you're thinking about doing, you should do it. If you're thinking you've got an independent streak, you're thinking that maybe you're, you know, at age 35 or 40, you're gonna be effectively unemployable. Which is sort of what I was feeling. Take the leap, invest in yourself. Private practice as you've proven Ben and so many others have proven it can be not just sort of a, an entrepreneurial grind, but it can be a creative platform that can just springboard you into all kinds of other opportunities. So yeah, if you're leaning in that direction, I would say, go for it and do it just, you know, you're never gonna be ready. You're never gonna be fully prepared to do it. You're never gonna have enough money in the bank. You're never gonna have enough, backlog lined up. No, you have to like, believe in yourself, make that leap. And if you're thinking about doing it yeah. Do it. It's completely viable. 

[00:25:28] Ben: So I'm curious, what is coming next for Paul messier?

[00:25:32] Paul: You know, I'm really kind of leaning into the lab at Yale. We're finally to a point where the lab is really pushing out some products and you know, these are all like web based applications. We're gonna start pushing those out the door in the next couple of years. And I wanna build audiences for those platforms they're not just sort of static websites or static visualizations of data um, they can benefit from community input. So I think maybe building that community would be kind of interesting. So yeah, I think that's next you know, figuring out what, to do with the private practice, I think is really important. Like how to sustain that. I mean, it's a very viable. Business. And so how do I transition that? I don't wanna be like, you know, clinging to something with like white knuckles until, you know, that's just not me. And so I got some other things cooking, so, yeah. It's like, I keep saying, you know, it's just a creative process and I'm not tied to any fixed identity. I really never have been. So, yeah, I, I'm excited.

[00:26:35] Ben: Well, Paul, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was just so great to hear about, both the evolution of your work and your practice, but also the origins of EMG, which is just, you know, just such a pivotal part of the profession. So thanks for taking the time.

[00:26:52] Paul: Ben, you're so welcome and thank you for the opportunity you're doing great work. 

[00:26:56] Ben: And thank you, dear listener for joining us for this week's show as always, if you want to help support our work and mission of equitably compensating artists that come on the show, you can join us over at patreon.com/artobsolescence. Or if you are interested in making a one-time tax deductible gift through our fiscal sponsor, the New York Foundation for the Arts you can do so at artandobsolescence.com/donate. And there you can also find the full episode archive, including full transcripts and show notes. And last but not least you can always find us on Twitter and Instagram @artobsolescence until next time have a great week my friends, my name has Ben Fino-Radin and this has been Art and Obsolescence.