Month: May 2012

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting,Wooden Artifacts Group Session, May 10. “Making the Case for Conservation” by Carey Howlett

Carey Howlett suggested that the title of last year’s meeting “Ethos, Logos, Pathos: Ethical Practice and Critical Thinking in Conservation” evoked the first two of Aristotle’s principles, ethos and logos, but the last of these, pathos, fit more comfortably in this year’s topic, Outreach and Advocacy. Pathos is rhetoric that targets emotion, and while emotional appeals may not fit easily with a professional presentation of what we do, conservators do need to create messages that appeal to the emotions of the general public. Drawing from case studies from his career, Carey indicated that too often we focus too strongly on environmental and condition issues in a manner that are emotionally neutral or negative and disconnected from context that conveys why others should care about saving cultural property.

Suggested solutions included sharing the excitement of discovery that comes as a result of examination and technical analysis in a summary in treatment reports provided to stakeholders. Carey illustrated this with his investigation of the painted surfaces on Fouquet’s 1:60 scale plaster model of the Virginia capitol, commissioned in 1787 by Thomas Jefferson.

“Cheap tricks” like repackaging presentation titles to reference popular culture can also provide a hook. The example he gave was retitling a talk he had given to conservators “Conserving the Worsham-Rockefeller Bedroom” as “Extreme Makeover: the Boudoir Edition” for a general audience. The point – to utilize irreverence as a means of engaging- was also brought out Rosa Lowinger’s presentation in the Communicating Conservation session in talking about her posts entitled “Ask the Art Nurse” on the blog C-monster.net and James Jankowski’s suggestion that we all learn to be more “bilingual” when talking about what we do in his presentation during the Articulating Value session.

Further tying this presentation to the one he offered last year, Carey urged us to publish more often, especially in arenas outside of our own, to make our efforts more widely known and understood.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 9 “Study on the Influence of Gunpowder Residues Found in Paper-Based Materials”

Study on the Influence of Gunpowder Residues Found in Paper-Based Materials. Jen Jung Ku, Research Assistant and Paper Conservator, and Fei Wen Tsai, Associate Professor, Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan.

Gunpowder is used as a medium in modern physical and conceptual art. This presentation described experiments in artificial aging of gunpowder on paper in order to develop preservation standards for dealing with this material.

The presenters concluded that keeping gunpowder affixed to the artwork is a foremost problem for this form of art; therefore consolidating gunpowder without changing its physical texture is a subject for further exploration. Since gunpowder is a hazardous material, safe storage is another consideration.

Artists who have used gunpowder as a medium include Edward Ruscha, Matthew Stromberg, Aoife van Linden Tol,  Rosemare Fiore, Cai Guo-Qiang ,and Robert Weibel .

Here is a short video in which Edward Ruscha discusses gunpowder art:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRIeREGW51o

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 9 “The Mysterious Voynich Manuscript:  Collaboration yields new insights”

The Mysterious “Voynich Manuscript”: Collaboration Yields New Insights.  Paula Zyats, Assistant Chief Conservator, Yale University Libraries; Gregory W.L. Hodgins, National Science Foundation—Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory, University of Arizona; Joseph G. Barabe, Senior Research Microscopist, Director of Scientific Imaging,  McCrone Associates, Inc.

The Voynich manuscript, also known as “The Book That Can’t Be Read”, was donated to Yale in 1969. It is a vellum manuscript, bound in limp vellum (the binding is probably not contemporary, according to Paula Zyats), and is of unknown origin. It is written in either code or an unknown language and contains fantastic and garish illustrations. There have been a number of theories as to who authored this work, ranging from Francis Bacon, Leonardo Da Vinci, to Voynich himself. 

This presentation described the materials analysis and conservation treatment that were undertaken, partly as a result of a proposal by an Austrian film crew in 2008, to discover more about the creation of this work. Curators, conservators, and scientists collaborated to sample portions of the manuscript in order to identify and date the inks, paints, and parchment used in the manuscript. The manuscript was in good condition and conservation treatment focused on stabilization. Some fold-outs had cracks and tears needing repair, and some corners were turned up.

Carbon dating at the National Science Foundation—Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory at the University of Arizona revealed that the parchment used for the folios dated to the 1450’s. Analyses by McCrone Associates suggest the drawing and writing inks are from the same period. Numbers on the folios were from a later period, but it was determined there are no modern components in the volume.

The Beinecke Library has made digital images of the manuscript available at:

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pid=2002046&iid=1006074&srchtype=

The documentary can be accessed at: http://documentarystorm.com/the-book-that-cant-be-read/

And, Renee Zandbergen has a comprehensive website describing this work: http://www.voynich.nu/

Ms. Zyats expressed her initial surprise that Yale agreed to this project, and there was some discussion about libraries and museums being willing to promote unique items in their collections. There is an understandable reluctance to market these materials since that may increase their handling and use. Rather than acting as a substitute, digital images often serve to increase curiosity about the real artifact. Nonetheless, it is exciting for conservators, scholars and the general public to learn more about the provenance and materials of such a unique item.

 

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 10, “Confronting Stenciled Posters: The Discovery, Conservation and Display of Soviet TASS World War II Stenciled Posters”

Presented by Cher Schneider, Senior Special Collections Conservator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Harriet Stratis, Head of Paper Conservation, The Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1997, in preparation for a major renovation, collections at the Art Institute of Chicago were inventoried and temporarily relocated; during this inventory project, curators discovered two thick rolls and 26 parcels of folded newsprint tucked away on a closet shelf. This discovery turned out to be a long-forgotten collection of 157 World War II Soviet propaganda posters. Created by artists and writers under the auspices of the TASS news agency in Moscow, these large “TASS Windows” were produced and displayed daily during the war in order to boost Soviet morale. Over the course of the war, the TASS Studio produced over 1,200 individual designs and nearly 700,000 hand-stenciled posters. In addition to being displayed in shop windows around Moscow, the posters were distributed internationally to sympathetic cultural institutions; the Art Institute of Chicago began receiving posters in 1942. The Art Institute’s posters were never exhibited during the war; in fact, they had never been accessioned into the collections and though a few were mounted on linen, most remained untouched. All of the posters received conservation treatment and research was conducted on the stenciling process and materials used by the TASS studio in preparation for last year’s exhibition Windows on the War: Soviet TASS Posters at Home and Abroad 1941-1945.

The posters were created by a collective of artists, poets, and writers; at the height of the war, they were working 24/7 to produce 1500 copies of each poster daily. The artistic style of the posters falls into two broad categories: social realism, used to promote national pride and patriotism; and caricatures/political cartoons that expressed anti-German sentiments. In the very early days, TASS posters were oil paintings on canvas. They quickly moved on to the stenciling process, which became more complex over time. Posters were comprised of four parts – header, TASS #, imagery, and footer (a poem or translated text). Imagery was often one large, unified image but there were also some “comic strip” style posters. Creating the posters was a seven step process: writing the text, creating the art, editorial approval, stencil cutting, stencilling/painting, gluing, and dissemination. The studio suffered materials shortages at various times and towards the end of the war the studio was evacuated and materials were destroyed.

Just as the posters were created by collective effort, so was their conservation a collective endeavor. The posters are large – up to 12 ft tall and 5 ft wide – and were found in very poor condition. The support paper, made from highly acidic wood pulp, had become extremely brittle and discolored, especially along the fold lines and in areas where adhesive had been applied.  Treatment goals were to stabilize the paper and fill in areas of image loss in preparation for exhibition. Due to the extreme fragility of the paper, the conservators made every effort to minimize handling. Posters were placed face down on Pellon and sprayed overall to humidify; wetted Mylar was used to aid in moving and aligning detached poster pieces. The posters were then lined with custom-made Korean paper adhered with a mix of methylcellulose and wheat starch paste. Lined posters were placed face up in a drying stack. Schneider and Stratis included a series of images of the lining process step-by-step, which provided a nice illustration of the scale of the project and the collective effort required.

Visual compensation in areas of image loss took place after the posters were lined.Conservators found that colored pencils dipped in turpentine or mineral oil to soften the pigment provided a good match to the original colors. Large losses were filled with acrylic-toned Korean paper and inpainted with watercolors. After treatment, the posters were encapsulated in Mylar to protect them during further handling. For exhibition, the posters were sandwiched between artcare foamboard and UV filtered Plexiglass; these “plexi packages” were sealed at the edges with J-lar and attached to gallery walls with metal clips.

The second phase of the project was to study the posters in order to understand the materials used, trends in damage, and the stenciling process. In addition to the Art Institute’s collection, Schneider was able to look at the Ne Boltai collection of TASS posters in Prague. Many of the Prague posters had received previous conservation treatment, so this provided a good opportunity  to see how the posters responded to treatment and to gain more in depth understanding of the materials and processes used by the TASS studio. Local Chicago artist Alexis Petroff assisted with the project by recreating a TASS poster to demonstrate how the stencils were produced; click here for more information on the stencil technique and a video of Petroff at work.

Q: Tell us more about the paints used in the TASS posters. Were they oil- or water-based?
A: True nature of the paints was elusive. Conservators originally believed them to be water-based, but the fact that they could get the posters so wet without bleeding media led them to explore the oil-based option. The fact that many of the posters gave off a pronounced turpentine smell lent credence to the oil-based theory. Further inspection revealed that the stencilers used a combination of handmade and commercially available paints. As the war went on the studio’s supplies dwindled, forcing them to modify their process – they began mixing their paints with turpentine, but when that became unavailable they moved on to acetone, and then finally had to resort to using bug repellant.

Q: How did you finesse the water content of the lining adhesive?
A: The conservators working on this project were lucky – nothing moved as they wet out the posters. Posters were placed face down on a piece of Pellon and sprayed out evenly. No transfer or bleeding was observed. They experimented with the water content of the paste/MC mix in order to get the right amount of wetness so it could be applied easily; again, the conservators were lucky – the lining went on easily and without incident. The lining paper was toned to closely match the original poster paper, so it is possible that some discoloration moved into the lining paper and was just not very noticeable.

I had the pleasure of visiting this exhibition at the Art Institute last fall, so it was very exciting to hear a little more of the “inside scoop” about the conservation process. Schneider and Stratis illustrated the talk very well, using images taken inside the TASS studio by Margaret Bourke-White (a Western photographer allowed access to the studio) juxtaposed with images of the posters and visitors inside the gallery.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Conservation and Education II, May 10

Chaired by Beverly Nadeen Perkins, Chief Conservator for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, this session included 4 interesting presentations. All focused on post-secondary education in conservation for students in allied professions.

Beverly began the session by stating two important beliefs from early in her career: 1) that she should share information freely with other conservators, and 2) that she should be cautious about sharing information with non-conservators. Over time, however, she has come to believe that her knowledge and experience can and should be shared with all. To facilitate conversation on this topic, she chose two questions for the presenters and the audience to discuss following the talks. Sadly, the session ran out of time and no discussion was possible. But if you attended the session and are reading this post, perhaps you’d like to comment and discuss here? Here are the questions:

1)      To what extent should conservators be involved with directing and educating upcoming artists about their use of art materials? Is there any ethical dilemma here? Would conservators be overstepping their bounds by doing so?

2)      How is increased outreach and education among allied professions impacting the role of conservators?

In presentation order, the talks in this session were as follows:

Ingrid A. Neuman, Conservator at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, in Providence, Rhode Island, gave a fascinating overview of her work with young artists at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). At RISD, she educates undergraduate students about art materials, with the goal of enabling them to make informed choices about the materials they use. Her teaching includes information about how to use art materials safely and about how to manipulate them to achieve desired effects. She also described her work with the “Sitings Competition.” In this program, degree candidate students at RISD can apply to create site-specific installations in the Museum of Art. Working with Ingrid, the students are introduced to issues in exhibition conservation and to tools like MSDS sheets.

Ingrid linked conservation to artistic creation by enumerating common activities shared by conservators and artists, including: problem solving, creativity, repurposing, borrowing, and experimenting. She also discussed the reasons to transmit knowledge to young artists. Practically – their work will be acquired by collection institutions. Idealistically – conservators have a professional obligation to share knowledge. Realistically – professors of art are responsible for educating students about artistic processes, not the chemistry and deterioration of art materials.

Finally, Ingrid noted that while this population might not be seriously invested in preservation at this moment in their careers, their views may change over time. In future, she would like to survey recent alumni about what they found valuable and what they would like to have learned in regard to art materials and preservation. She also encouraged conservators to participate more in education at art schools, suggesting that more widely available, quick, and simple classes on this topic would be beneficial.

Nina Roth-Wells and Lauren Lessing spoke about their work with students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Their goals at Colby are to give students a hands-on connection with art, to expose them to the field of conservation, and to instill in them the importance of cultural heritage in a comprehensive and inclusive way. Nina and Lauren talked primarily about two courses they’ve been involved with at Colby College, a special January term course (a month-long course between the regular academic terms), and an upper level chemistry course.

Nina, a conservator in private practice and an instructor at Colby College, spoke about the January term course that she designed and taught. The class was open to all students, not just those in related disciplines like art history. In fact, she observed that art history students had a harder time engaging with the physical, material aspects of artwork than did students who had never studied art. Nina shared the structure of the course, in which she tried to present a wide range of conservation activities to her students. The class included many field trips, as well as lab-based activities. Notably, students were required to write condition reports and to propose and defend conservation treatments (although no treatments were conducted – a disappointment to some students). The collections of the Colby College Museum of Art were used for these activities, and the assignments encouraged students to think about how conservation treatment might change the informational value of artwork and artifacts.

Lauren, the Mirken Curator of American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art, talked about the need to make academic museum collections valued and useful for students and faculty across campus (an incredibly important goal!). At Colby, she has worked to expand the Museum’s collections use from the art department to the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. More specifically, she spoke about engagement with an upper level chemistry course focusing on instrumental methods and analysis. The Museum’s involvement with the class has evolved over time and, thanks to assistance from Nina, now includes a concrete connection to art, as students examine artwork with different, measured wavelengths of light and use a digital camera to produce infrared reflectography.

Both Nina and Lauren stressed the ways in which conservation can build bridges to the humanities and made the point that opportunities for sustained examination of cultural heritage materials are rare and valuable in today’s world of mediated, virtual looking.

Norman Muller, Conservator at the Princeton University Art Museum, in Princeton, New Jersey, gave a very practical talk focused on the activities he has used to successfully teach technical information to art history students. His work, as presented in this talk, has focused on teaching the materials and technology of painting.

Norman described how he introduces students to examination techniques and to technical analysis. His teaching helps students see how paintings in a particular school, or during a particular time period, are related in a physical, technical way, deepening the students’ understanding of artwork and enabling them to evaluate paintings in multiple ways.  He also discussed the ways in which he works with students in the galleries at the Princeton University Art Museum.

A truly committed teacher, Norman demonstrated the use of a 14th century Siennese triptych model that he built (!) to teach students about the construction of panel paintings. He also presented information about an exhibition he designed to share technical information about paintings with students and visitors at Princeton’s museum.

Katherine Untch, Director of the Conservation Division at ARG Conservation Services in San Francisco, California, spoke more broadly about conservation education for allied professionals. Her presentation posed multiple, wide-ranging questions about education and conservation.

In evaluating conservation education, Katy encouraged conservators to examine what allied professionals should learn and why, and what conservators are teaching and why. She also asked conservators to think about the ways in which conservation education relates to education in allied professions, and what conservators might learn by looking more carefully at what is taught in those professions.

In a disturbing portion of her talk, Katy reported that allied professionals have told her they prefer not to work with conservators because conservators are inflexible, don’t deliver to expectations, and are not team players. As an audience member, it was not clear to me how many professionals had expressed this view or in what context the criticism was delivered. Katy made the point that conservators must learn how to engage and respect other professionals, and learn to work more efficiently and effectively in teams.

Katy also examined professionalism and respect among conservators. Are we wise to criticize past treatments? Do we define our jobs too narrowly by always focusing on treatment in outreach? To illustrate this last point, she examined a series of conservation images online, all of which showed treatment activities. To balance this focus on treatment, Katy argued that we should share more of the complexity of what we do. She further encouraged conservators to develop joint curricula with allied professions, and to pay more attention to feedback from non-conservator colleagues, including whether or not we are meeting their needs. Opportunities that she enumerated for conservation education in future included expanding opportunities for continuing education and expanding research degrees at the doctoral level in joint fields. Finally, she listed a series of concepts that conservation educators could focus on in teaching, including team and project based learning, process based decision making, and the development of communications skills.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting – Committee for Sustainable Conservation Practices Luncheon, May 8, “Linking the environment and heritage conservation: presentations, tips, and discussions” by Braden Allenby, Matt Eckelmann, Jia-sun Tang, Christian Hernandez, Patty Silence, and Eliza Gilligan

This lunch session featured engineers, poetry, and enchiladas.

The session opened with a few remarks from Sarah Nunberg, the chair for the Committee for Sustainable Conservation Practices, thanking all those present for the support she has received in the planning and implementation of this lunch session.

Laura Word of the NEH said a few words about the NEH grant program for Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections and that the intent of this program is to help Museums, Libraries, and Archives to plan and implement preventive conservation measures in sustainable ways.  She encouraged conservators to not only be involved in these projects at the planning phases, but to stay involved throughout the duration of the proposed NEH project.

Braden Allenby, PhD presented ‘Sustainability and Conservation of the Human Past’ He began with a quote from Martin Heidegger, 1977, “So long as we do not, through thinking, experience what is, we can never belong to what will be.” Allenby then laid out the basic ideas of sustainability in 3 parts: environmental, social equality, and economic (and culture should be added) Sustainability and basic political values include egalitarian versus libertarian values, communitarianism and welfare is optimized by individuals being absorbed into community.  However, current U.S. policies include libertarian and corporatism political values so we can see where we have gotten confused.  The big questions like – What is to be sustained? the Earth? Biodiversity? Human life? or Existing economic and power structures?  If the answer is the last, where have we gone wrong?

There is a socio-cultural importance of heritage conservation which is absolutely critical to sustainability, but this is not well-recognized by the heritage conservation community or the sustainability community.

3 levels to sustainability and heritage conservation

1.  Environmental practices (keeping in mind that we do not ask hospitals to kill patients to improve their carbon footprint, it is so important to maintain high levels of professional practice while striving for improvements in environmental practices)

2. Display sustainable practices as part of the preservation of cultural heritage

3. People learn not just from artifacts, but from the context they symbolize and create, and sustainable heritage conservation is a critical, and heretofore overlooked, educational pathway towards a sustainable culture.

Allenby ended with a quote from Goethe, perhaps from this original translation –

Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben der täglich sie erobern muss.

Of freedom and of life he only is deserving

Who every day must conquer them anew.

The next keynote speaker was Matt Eckelman, Phd

Eckelman discussed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).  He began with examples like the LCA of a cup of coffee (140 liters of water), a sheet of A4 paper (10 liters of water).  The amount of water that is used in the production of everyday materials like a newspaper is sobering, and it is easy to see why LCA is so important to fully understand the environmental impact of the materials we consume in our lives.

Eckelman gave an example of how we can evaluate LCA for the chemicals used in conservation, using toxicity data, and he outlined the limitations of toxicity of chemicals (650 chemicals are tracked by the Toxic Release Inventory, and there are 80,000 chemicals in commerce). For more information see this article by Sousa, et al in Green Chemistry

Each person in America generated nearly 2 pounds of paper waster per day, 93% of original material used in production i the USA becomes wast before the product reaches the consumer, 80% of the remaining 7% goes to waste, making 98% of materials used in the production of new goods.  However, one of the biggest sources of environmental impact in your life is your car so at the grocery store ‘Paper or Plastic’ doesn’t matter as much as how you got there, starting biking to work programs could be a big benefit for the environment.

Eckelman ended by pulling it all back to museums, going to museums to enjoy art is a fairly low environmental impact activity, while art is expensive it is usually small and does not have the same environmental impact as other activities.  Museums can lead the way with sustainable practices that are economically, environmentally, and socially conscious.

Michael Henry lead a discussion, beginning with a statement about the search for an increase in longevity, in our buildings and our collection materials.  Because of multiple climate zones in the USA there are no ‘best practices’ and conservators go right to the object to determine the needs of the object, but to determine sustainable solutions we need to step back.

Braden Allenby warned of using terms associated with social engineering because it could be interpreted as a political and cultural hierarchy, but instead to focus on the economic benefits obtained from adopting sustainable practices.

The luncheon then transitioned into a series of tips sessions from 4 speakers.

Jia-sun Tsang, LEED AP, described a project in the Smithsonian Institution Sustainability Committee that researched materials for the retrofitting of exhibit cases.  The research included fabrication of a micro-chamber to provide zero Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).  Her research showed that bamboo held together with adhesive emitted VOCs from the adhesive, materials that are PVC based also emitted VOCs during testing.  This project is also included in the Smithsonian Environmentally Responsible Exhibits and Displays.

Christian Hernandez gave a presentation of the research for his thesis, which included a discussion of the different terms to describe sustainability and his decision to use the word ‘green’.  He tested many Eco-friendly materials including Ethafoam (in a variety of recycled contents), coroplast, corogreen, corrugated board, multiuse board (archiveart ecophant).  Most of the materials passed his Oddy testing, except the EcopHant, which will be re-tested. These materials were evaluated for a re-housing project at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum.

Patty Silence from Colonial Williamsburg Foundation presented on how her institution reduced energy costs while maintaining a safe collections environment by focusing on making the room or case work as efficiently as possible. Her tips included – installing shades on western facing windows, correcting thermostats, opening or closing vents, only using a fume hood when needed, installing CO2 monitors so the HVAC is moving air depending on how populated the museum and storage areas are, nighttime setbacks, LED lights and light occupancy sensors. Reducing the amount of light realized significant savings and is better for the collection materials.

Eliza Gilligan presented on a new way to purify water in a lab, using electrodeionization.  She showed her set up which fits on a small cart, and described how electrodeionization works to remove cations and anions from water.  She mentioned that this system has high initial costs, but there is no service contract unlike other fractionaing columns and de-ionization systems.

I enjoyed learning so much during this luncheon, both theoretical ideas and practical applications of sustainable practices in conservation.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 9 “The Conservation of the Jefferson Bible at the National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution”

The Conservation of the Jefferson Bible at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.  Janice Stagnitto Ellis, Senior Paper Conservator, and Emily S. Rainwater, Post Graduate Fellow, NMAH; Laura A. Bedford, Assistant Book Conservator, NEDCC.

The Jefferson Bible is an assemblage of texts from the New Testament created by Thomas Jefferson, and bound into a book by Frederick Mayo. Jefferson titled this work The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.  According to the presenters, it has been in heavy demand and exhibited frequently during its lifetime.

This project was a team effort between conservators and curators. Before beginning treatment,  the conservators in consultation with the curators, thoroughly analyzed  its condition, materials and sewing structure, and together developed a plan for treatment and materials testing. As  the folios were separated conservators and curators examined each one before it was professionally photographed, and together decided where paper repairs should occur.

The treatment goal was to not improve the appearance of the folios (through flattening, for example) or to change Jefferson’s work.  Aqueous treatment and humidification were deemed too risky. Treatment consisted of removal of the textblock from the binding, replacement of the stubs, page repair, resewing and replacement into the original binding. The original endbands and their tie-downs were retained.

It is to the Smithsonian’s (and the conservators’) credit that they were willing to share the treatment of this artifact. The Smithsonian produced a facsimile and documentary, both for sale from the Smithsonian Store, and digital images are available online. An exhibition was installed in 2011, and the conservators allowed tours of the lab while work continued.

The UVA magazine has an illustrated description of the treatment: http://uvamagazine.org/features/article/jefferson_bible

The presentation also included a description of the conservation of 2 of the source books for Jefferson’s work. It was exciting to learn more about the life-cycle of this unique work.

 

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 9 “Exploring New Frontiers: Outreach and collaboration across institutional boundaries with the treatment of De Brys’ Collection of Voyages”

Exploring New Frontiers: Outreach and Collaboration across Institutional Boundaries with the Treatment of de Brys’ Collection of Voyages. Erin Hammeke, Conservator for Special Collections, Duke University Libraries.

This presentation addressed the challenge often faced by book conservators: do we treat the item for maximum use by scholars even if that means some of the components of the current binding might be lost; or, do we retain everything that’s “original” even if some of these components might be harming the text? The conservation staff and their curatorial partners at Duke chose the first option in the treatment of 3 volumes of de Brys’ Voyages. These volumes were pulled, washed, resewn on tapes for maximum opening, and rebound in full calf bindings. The half leather bindings on 2 of the volumes were removed and stored in the new clamshell boxes constructed for each volume.

This treatment provided an opportunity to not only maximize the durability of these bindings for use by scholars, but to also make digital copies of the text, thereby making these materials even more accessible.
I have to question the decision made by the conservation and curatorial team involving an incomplete map in one of the volumes. Although a complete copy of the map was obtained from UNC and used for the placement of a fragment found tucked into the volume, the missing area was left blank. Since the goal was to make the volumes useful to scholars, why not take this opportunity to make the volume complete? This question was posed during the question and answer portion of the presentation, and the answer seemed to relate to the size or “newness” of the replacement portion. It seems to me that there were several options here. Since the book was resewn, the copy of the map could have been inserted after the original, incomplete map. Or, it could have been included with the other material in the clamshell box. The digital copy could have at least been made complete, with a note to that effect somewhere in the restored volume (perhaps it was).
The conservation of the de Brys’ Voyages coincided with a symposium of de Brys scholars that was held at Duke. The conservator (Ms. Hammeke) made the most of this opportunity by meeting with the scholars and discussing her treatment with them. She also enhanced her treatment documentation with short videos.

Generally, the information contained deep in the binding that is discovered by conservators remains hidden from scholars and curators, but this project is an excellent model of how collaboration between conservators, curators, and scholars can allow that knowledge to be shared.

40th Annual Meeting- Book and Paper Session May 09: “Change the Frame and You Change the Game?:Research and Re-evalution of the Presentation Formats of the Kunstammlung’s Paul Klee Collection” By Nina Quabeck

The focus of this presentation was the search –or self-described quest- by the staff of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf to return their collection of Paul Klee works to their original presentation formats.  The speaker began by giving the genesis of the Paul Klee collection at museum which has recently acquired their 100th Paul Klee artwork. 

Through study of photographs of Klee’s studio and gallery exhibitions combined with the detailed handwritten cataloging Klee himself kept of completed artworks (predominately if not exclusively paintings) lends much insight into the manner in which the works on paper were likely displayed as well.  The studio catalog was transcribed in entirety in the nine volume catalog raissone of Klee.  Currently the collection of works on paper is predominately framed in a typical “gallery” style format with a gilded molding and textile covered wooden liners.   It is likely these frames were the addition of owners or dealers to increase the cache of the artworks as Klee’s original presentations were likely very modest.  The research into what the original or appropriate presentation style of these works has lead the conservators and curators to choose to display the works on paper in a uniform manner as they are not able to recreate the original presentation of each individual work.  The selected presentation format will be a simple, thin wooden molding frame, reminiscent of the plain strip frame used for many of the paintings, with a dark stain and white mats. 

In addition to the discussion of the framing of Klee’s works the speaker also touched on the topic of Klee’s use of a secondary support on which he typically made notations about the work.  She presented several examples from the Kunstsammlung’s collection in which the works have been removed from these secondary supports.  This lead to a discussion of the role these secondary supports played in Klee’s original presentation and the challenges this will present in proper display in the future. 

This was a very interesting presentation about a project which is taking a strong look at just how important presentation and framing formats can be to the intended aesthetic of a work.  While for some artists framing/presentation are secondary thoughts if thoughts at all but the scholarship of Paul Klee clearly shows that it was important to him and an integral part of the completion of an artwork prior to leaving the studio.  In this presentation Quabeck asserts that it is the duty of the conservator and curator to respect this in a similar way in which they respect the integrity of the image.

AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Book and Paper Session, May 09: “A Creative Obession: Materials and Techniques of the Self-Taught Artist James Castle” by Nancy Ash and Scott Homolka

In this presentation Nancy Ash reported on a study of the working methods and materials of James Castle a self-taught artist from rural Idaho conducted by conservators and conservation scientists at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.   This comprehensive study including visual examination and analytical testing was done in conjunction with a 2008 retrospective of Castle’s work organized by the PMA.   James Castle was born deaf and scholars are unsure of the extent of his communicative ability outside of visual representations as it is believed that he could not read or use sign language.  Castle is known for creating soot and spit drawings, full color drawings and painting and constructions.   In relation to his art it was purported that Castle never used commercially made art supplies, instead using only self-made or found media/ materials.  It was this piece of the James Castle enigma that PMA conservators and conservation scientists set out to unravel.

The first component of the study Ash described was the in depth visual examination in which conservators found it necessary to develop a language specific to the methods and materials of Castle’s work.  An example of this was the phrase “wiped soot wash” to distinguish that a dilute application of a soot and spit slurry was applied with a wad of material instead of a brush since using only the term  soot wash lends itself more toward an interpretation of brush work.  I found this idea of an artist directed or at least artist specific lexicon very interesting in that it likely increases descriptive accuracy.

In addition to the examination of the artworks attributed to Castel the PMA researchers were also allowed to examine the contents of his studio that were donated upon his death to a museum in Idaho.  Within this collection poster paints, colored pencils and other commercial art supplies of school arts and crafts type were found among buckets of soot, sticks shaped by the artist, food packages and other non- “art” supplies.

Analytical testing confirmed the use of both the non-traditional art materials such as soot as well as some of the commercial art supplies found in his studio in the finished artworks.  This was the first confirmation of characteristic components of stovepipe soot and enzymes present in spit in the soot and spit drawings.  Other unique media identified in this study were laundry bluing used as paint and dyes extracted from colored papers by wetting as an ink or paint.   An additional result of this project was the establishment of a chronology for some of Castle’s works based on the date of introduction for pigments such as the chrome oxide poster paint and/or food packaging and advertising slogans or images.

This study and this presentation highlight the complexity of the art of James Castle, an artist who left only his works to speak for themselves and himself.