Conservation is a growing field, and the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works (AIC) is a good place to learn more about this discipline, and to also learn about possible job opportunities. First-time visitors should look at the "About" area to learn more about what the Institute does. Within this area, users can read such timely documents as "Defining the Conservator:...

Based in Washington, D.C. and New York, Americans for the Arts is primarily interested in "representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts." From their homepage, visitors can learn about their most recent advocacy efforts and also learn more about creating and supporting arts opportunities in various...

If you've ever thrown some clay around or experimented with different glazes (and even if you haven't), you'll want to turn the electronic pages of Ceramics Monthly. Published ten times a year, the magazine focuses on all things ceramics, and visitors to their site can read selected articles about exhibitions, installations, ceramics techniques, and those ceramicists who are making their mark in...

The world has many great textile traditions, and the art and practice of quilt-making is certainly one of them. The International Quilt Study Center (IQSC) was founded in 1997 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the kind assistance of Ardis and Robert James, who donated 900 quilts. Since then, the Center has grown to include research symposia, a graduate program in textile history, and...

If you started to play the guitar anytime after the late 1940s, you probably encountered the guitar instruction books of the late Mel Bay. Bay started his life in the tiny town of Bunker, Missouri and over the next eight decades he created a vast music instruction empire that included hundreds of publications. This particular website happens to lead to Mel Bay's Creative Keyboard, which is a...

The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents this online mini-tutorial on the conservation of fine arts objects, complete with definitions, and plenty of examples. The site starts with differentiating preventative conservation measures - everything that can be done to slow the deterioration of a work. The Projects section contains examples of these conservation techniques. Within this section, the...

The Internet allows many interested communities that may be spread across great distances to share information, and PreserveNet is just such a community. Since 1994, preservationists have had a fine resource to draw on at the PreserveNet website. The site has been redesigned several times since its creation, and currently visitors to the site can find out about funding sources for projects,...

In the modern world, if one could ask only one person about the art and science of origami, that one person might be Dr. Robert J. Lang. Through his corpus of work, Dr. Lang has brought together origami with mathematics, frequently drawing on his own background and education as a physicist and engineer. He has authored a number of books on the subject of origami, and has also been an invited guest...

Knitters of the web rejoice - TECHknitting can elevate your skills and answer your questions. With archives dating back to 2006 and hundreds of entries on everything from stitches to patterns, both simple and abstruse, the TECHknitting blog offers tips, tricks, and advice on nearly every conceivable aspect of the knitting adventure. Looking for directions for the perfect ski hat? You can find them...

How can the arts improve our lives as we age? It's a great question and one that is addressed in this 28-page report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Released in 2012, this report presents the official summary findings from a National Academies Workshop formally titled "Research Gaps and Opportunities for Exploring the Relationship of the Arts to Health and Well-Being in Older Adults."...