About

Email: mikepod at yahoo dot com
Phone: 302-388-0656
Salem, Mass.
Greetings…And welcome to my web site. To give you a sense of what I offer in the way of either conservation, or bespoke work, I show a reasonable cross section of my experience and skills in a gallery/slideshow format that appears on the home page.  I am still adding to it so if there is something you don’t see, please ask. It may not yet be loaded. Look around the right hand column for different categories or tags that you are interested in to click on. When you get there, click on the picture and you will be taken to a series of related images and descriptive captions.  Click on any one of them to bring up a slide show you can scroll through.  When you are finished, click on the black background to exit, and then on Home to go back to browsing.
My background
After college I worked as a craftsman, first as a professional model maker, then as a boat builder, a foundry pattern maker, again as a boat builder, and at all times, a furniture maker. Eventually my interest turned to preservation and museum work. I have been a professional conservator for over 25 years, initially interning at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. I completed my graduate work at the Smithsonian Institution and began my professional career at Winterthur Museum and the University of Delaware in 1986. In 2007 I accepted the post as head of the Furniture and Related Objects Conservation Programme at West Dean College, near to Chichester, West Sussex, UK where I also created and taught the Programme in Historic Furniture Making Practices. I returned to the US in 2010 and established an independent conservation studio: Michael Podmaniczky, Conservator LLC; associated with the Art Conservators Alliance.
http://www.artconservatorsalliance.com/. In 2020 I left Wilmington and the ACA and returned to New England, moving to Salem, Mass. as just plain Mike Pod-
I provide conservation services for a range of objects, primarily but by no means limited to period furniture and gilded objects. Since I am a Professional Associate of the AIC, I am bound by the code of ethics there may be constraints on work I take because of my workshop situation (size, security, fire suppression, etc.). This may limit objects I will take in, but there is no harm in asking. I spend almost equal time on modern and contemporary objects and I have taken the opportunity that independence offers me to also return to my background as a craftsman, making recreations of period objects, as well as building contemporary studio furniture. I actively solicit model making and prototype commissions as well. There are many things I could help you with that may not be pictured here, so feel free to ask. If I’m not right for the project, I may be able to introduce you to a colleague who is.