Makayla Rawlins was an undergraduate intern at a university museum when she came across an object that affected her so much, it changed the trajectory of her life.
While helping to photograph the museum’s collection, which includes Native American acquisitions, Rawlins picked up a Hopi kachina doll and found herself overcome by sadness. Some of the doll’s feathers had been torn off, its ear had been broken, and seemingly random pieces had been glued back together.
She wondered why objects like this were not cared for with the same levels of dedication and respect as items from other cultures.
“I am native—Luiseño or Payómkawish from Southern California—but I’m not Hopi. I felt that strong connection because I just knew that if that were a Luiseño piece by an artist from my nation, I would not want it to be treated in this way,” Rawlins says. She also knew that most Indigenous folks don’t get to see behind the scenes at museums or hold these kinds of works, and so her question became, “How can I advocate for these collections since I am here?”
This encounter started her on a path to becoming a conservator trained in the care of cultural objects and materials through the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Master’s Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. Now in its 20th year, this three-year offering uses purpose-built conservation and research laboratories at the Getty Villa and is the only graduate conservation program on the West Coast. It’s also the only US graduate program that focuses on the conservation of Indigenous and archaeological materials.
Ongoing research in the program includes the consolidation of adobe materials.
Filling a Void in Conservation Education
In the 1990s the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) conducted research on education gaps in the conservation field and found a void in US graduate conservation training programs. Of the three university-based offerings at that time, none were dedicated to Indigenous and archaeological heritage. All were focused on the conservation of fine art such as Western easel paintings, sculpture, and works on paper.
Part of the GCI’s mission is to create pathways for learning—courses, trainings, and publications—that advance the global practice of conservation. So, the GCI took on the challenge of creating a graduate degree program to fill the void in conservation education.
“Getty fortunately realized that we were not really teaching what needed to be taught in archaeological and Indigenous cultural heritage conservation in the US,” says Glenn Wharton, professor of art history and current chair of the UCLA/Getty program.
Getty began to search for a university partner with which it could design and establish an objects-based graduate conservation program. In 2001 it found its match in UCLA—one of the premier US research universities.
UCLA has well-regarded programs across the physical and social sciences, and degree planners knew that students would have ample opportunities to work with individuals from other disciplines. This is an important aspect of conservation, since projects so often require a team of experts from multiple domains. Because UCLA and Getty have complementary resources and areas of expertise, the program was built to offer students an array of important experiences—from learning in the classroom to working in museums and in the field.
Once the program was well established, the GCI stepped back from its active role, though Getty and UCLA continue to maintain a close relationship. Getty staff frequently contribute their knowledge and expertise through guest lectures and beyond.
Today, students and faculty focus on a broad range of cultural heritage objects. This emphasis gives students greater depth of knowledge about metals, ceramics, stone, adobe, and organic substances from plants and animals. They encounter these materials in the labs at the Getty Villa, where they undertake much of their study. However, learning how such items should be treated also requires, when possible, that conservators engage with the people who use the objects and whose cultural heritage they belong to.
Lecturer Alice Paterakis discusses treatment of metals with students in the UCLA/Getty program.
Collaborating with Communities
During the fall term last year, Rawlins went with one of her classes to the Barona Cultural Center and Museum in San Diego County for a three-day field trip to look at baskets that the museum potentially wanted treated. The group from the UCLA/Getty program listened to the museum staff’s concerns, met with tribal council and community members, and worked with a basket weaver who demonstrated her technique and shared information about gathering materials. At the time, the students were learning treatment techniques for baskets, including how to repair broken stitches, as well as the ethnobotany of the plants involved in their making.
After the field trip, Rawlins began the task of repairing two baskets, thought to have been made at least 100 years ago, both of which required stitch repairs. “I chose two, because the first one was really small, and then there was a second one that could potentially be from my tribe back home,” she says.
To repair the baskets, she first had to identify the different materials used to make them. Once she had done so, she and the other students presented this information to the museum and proposed their treatment plans. Once treatment began, students stayed in contact with the community about their progress and presented their work again when they finished.
Community members asked for x-ray imaging of the baskets so they could better understand the internal structures of the objects. Students shared this and more. They were able to deliver photographs of the baskets before and after treatment, detailed images of the materials used, and close-ups of the structures.
This kind of direct collaboration with community stakeholders is a central part of the UCLA/Getty program. “For me, this is exactly the kind of work that I’m looking for in my career, because I want to work directly with the communities, with cultural centers that don’t have access all the time to a conservator,” Rawlins says.
A graduate student creates a rock art mock-up.
Reciprocity, a Core Program Value
Paths into the UCLA/Getty conservation program are as varied as the people who take them. For participant Tom McClintock it began with an encounter with a rock art site in Southern California. “I was really blown away,” he says. “I loved being outdoors, the images were graphically powerful and enigmatic, and it was a place that felt very at risk —to the elements and to human interference. And so, everything kind of clicked, and I thought this was something I could focus on.”
The UCLA/Getty program was the only US graduate conservation program with a curriculum that would accommodate McClintock’s interest in rock art. He began studying at UCLA in 2013.
During his third-year internship, McClintock worked with the Njanjma Rangers, an Indigenous land management group based in the community of Gunbalanya, east of Kakadu National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory. Called West Arnhem Land, this area has a very large collection of rock art sites. Community leaders there were concerned that dust from an unpaved road might be damaging the many paintings. Before the local government could be convinced to address the issue, the community needed evidence to demonstrate that it was indeed dust from the road, and not simply ambient dust, affecting the artworks.
McClintock’s principal project during his internship was examining the impacts of this road. But this was just one aspect of his work—there was much else that needed to be done. He spent time consulting with rangers and community members to draft an illustrated bilingual glossary of conservation terminology in English and Kunwinjku to develop a shared vocabulary for discussing the condition of rock art sites.
McClintock also visited dozens of these locales, photographing many of them for the first time, and, where possible, recording the sites’ Indigenous names. At the conclusion of his internship, he gave all the images to the ranger group. This kind of reciprocity—which benefits both the community and the researchers—represents conservation best practices and is a core value of the UCLA/Getty program.
At the end of his time with the Njanjma Rangers, McClintock prepared a report for the territorial government that was used as the principal evidence in the proposal to seal the road, which is what the community wanted.
McClintock graduated in 2016. The connections he made through his professors led to the work that he does now as a staff member at the GCI since 2018 and as Getty’s representative to the international Rock Art Network.
Last year Makayla Rawlins learned treatment techniques for baskets, including how to repair broken stitches, as well as the ethnobotany of the plants involved in their making.
Toward a More Inclusive Future
In January 2024 major US museums, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago, announced they would be closing exhibition halls and covering displays featuring Native American cultural heritage. These moves came in response to updated federal regulations requiring institutions to work with the Indigenous groups whose cultural heritage has been displayed and obtain their consent to show their objects.
Reciprocal practices—which allow the wider world to learn about and appreciate Native communities, but also give resources and control to the communities themselves—are a mainstay of UCLA/Getty’s programming. As Rawlins and McClintock’s work shows, students can learn both to care for cultural objects and sites and to honor the communities to which this heritage belongs. In this way, the work of preserving the past can continue while a more inclusive future can be built, together.
