Terry Marsh is an expert when it comes to conserving valuable works of art. A professional associate of the American Institute of Conservation since 1989, she is a conservator of works of art on paper. “Primarily I'm a bench conservator,” she said. “That just means I actually work on the art, as opposed to conservation scientists who just do research.” A paper conservator works on anything on paper — watercolors, silkscreen, prints, documents and ephemera.

Marsh grew up in New York City and majored in art at Yale. Her father was in the advertising business in New York City (think “Madmen”), and across the hall from his office was a photo retouching company. She applied for a job there and got it, but only lasted about a week and a half. “They didn't want a girl in the office because they wanted to be able to swear,” she said.

Marsh said she liked the idea of being a retoucher because it paid well for someone straight out of school. She found another photo retouching company that specialized in transparencies, and went to work. “This was before computers,” she said. “One of our clients was Estee Lauder, and we had to bleach the whites of the eyes and the teeth, and everything needed to be hand-painted.”

Next she secured an apprentice position with a man named Erwin Braun, a painting restorer who specialized in Hudson River School 19th century paintings. Marsh said he was very talented, but an old time restorer. One of her early jobs working for Braun was restoring a Winslow Homer oil painting of a soldier climbing up a hill in the Civil War.

After apprenticing for Braun for about two years, she got wind of an opening at another studio in New York City. Orrin Riley had been the conservator at the Guggenheim Museum, and Marsh knew he was the best around. She found a number in the yellow pages, and called. “I hand-wrote an application and rode over on my bicycle. And I got the job.”

Riley’s studio, on West 36th Street, was shared with his life partner, Suzanne Schnitzer. “Suzanne was my real mentor,” Marsh said. “She was the paper conservator at the studio.”

After working at Orrin H. Riley Ltd. for about nine years, Marsh set out on her own, and Terry Marsh Art Conservation was born. She started her business in Greenwich, Connecticut, before opening her studio in Damariscotta in 2009. Her studio is at 526 Main Street on the second floor of the Round Top Ice Cream building.

Marsh carefully inspects each work of art she is asked to restore, and types up a detailed “condition report” describing her interpretation of damage that has occurred over the years, and what she feels needs to be done to restore it to its best possible condition. “Every decision is a measuring of the pluses and minuses, and what is or isn't possible, and what makes sense,” she said.

There are around ten art conservators in the midcoast Maine area, and Marsh said they are all professionals. “People who are part of the American Institute of Conservation abide by a code of ethics about what is ethical to do, like not touching up a signature (and) not adding new colors if they were washed away.”

Her detail-oriented work requires great skill, both mental and physical, and a lot of patience. It is painstaking work, but she clearly loves what she does.

For more information, visit the A.I.C. Website, email Marsh at tmarac@tidewater.net, or call 207 563-5631.