Adventures in Conservation

It is with great horror and sadness that we learned about the continuing destruction of mosques, shrines, churches, temples, historic sites and cultural treasures in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere by ISIS.  This senseless destruction is fueled by the misguided notion that we are not bound by a common humanity, empathy and intelligence.  These heinous acts cause us to consider the critical importance of cultural heritage – it is our shared history, and the act of destroying it is an attempt to destroy the identities of not only the cultures and religions it represents, but also the rich diversity of the evolution of humankind.  Even worse, the treasures not destroyed are being sold to finance the continuing efforts of ISIS.  The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage at Nimrud, Mosul, Hatra, and elsewhere is considered cultural genocide.  The current obliteration of heritage in Iraq has been described by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova as a war crime which cannot be tolerated.  We call to action all the nations of the world who ratified the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict.  

http://www.archaeological.org/news/hca/3137#sthash.hmAfgwQY.dpuf What can you do today?  Call or email your senators and House Representative and ask them to support the Hague Convention.  Today at noon, the organization Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE), Kicked off a  campaign to put pressure on policy and decision makers to take immediate action to prevent the further loss of antiquities with a March and gathering by the White House.

Help us keep the pressure on Congress and contact your Congressional Representatives today. There is an email template to use below, or your can craft your own message. Remember you only   need to spend a few minutes to craft an email. Congressional staffers simply track the calls and emails by topic.

To find the phone numbers and email addresses of your Congressional Representatives, visithttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/members

Email Template to Congress

If you are pressed for time, it is very helpful to just send this message as it is written. However, if you can take a minute to personalize it in a couple of places, that just makes the message stronger.

wrought iron gate to the house 

cast iron lamp

corrosion on the wrought iron fence 

At the Brooklyn Museum, a Hans Hoffman painting was going out for loan. The painting already had a backing board, but it was removed because it was brittle from age. 

A backing board is a piece of foam core (or other flat, sturdy archival material) that protects the painting from behind, preventing any penetration, dust accumulation, and creating an air cushion so that the canvas does not move as much. Limiting the movement of the canvas was particularly important for this painting because if the extremely thick paint layer, which is very vulnerable to cracking.

For the backing board I made, extra support was added in the form of polyester batting sewn to the foam core. I used cotton thread, a curved needle, and backstitch making sure not to fully penetrate the polyester batting  and foam core so that the surface  next to the painting would remain even and nothing could catch on thread on the back of the foam core. 

The backing board was also in three pieces so that it would be easier to handle when attached and removed. I screwed the backing board onto the stretcher in the original holes, because you never want to make new holes unless you absolutely have to.  

In addition to rugs and carpets, many other types of textiles exist in a historic house such as curtains and upholstery and cushions on furniture. We examined curatins in the sunroom, which had a multitude of problems due to their location. The sunroom of course has a lot of windows and a lot of sunlgiht, which has ultraviolet rays in it, and the curtains have become extremely brittle to the large amount of exposure. Rips occurred because of this loss of structural integrity and exacerbated by the weights sewn in along the edge of the curtain. The curtains also suffer from fading, mold, and pest damage. 

Many pieces of furniture in the main room have fabric upholstery, which we vacuumed using a small round attachment with bristles. The bristles allow some separation between the suction and the fabric, and when used in a kind of blotting motion the bristles do not abrade the fabric. We also vacuumed the cushions in the same way, moving them to a safety zone so that dirt on the furniture would not transfer to the cushions as they were vacuumed. 

You've seen other posts on this blog on tear repairs that I have done at the AMNH, but the treatment for these drawings differs in that I did not use heat-set tissue. Instead, I used wheat starch paste and an appropriate thickness of Japanese tissue. First, the paste was put through a sieve so that it would be extra smooth. This does not do anything to the paste's stickiness, it just changes the handling properties. Then, a piece of pellon was placed under the drawing so that any stray paste would not cause it to stick to the blotter underneath. Next, the paste was applied in the tear using a very tiny brush. 

A piece of pellon is put on top to prevent sticking and then a piece of blotter to absorb excess moisture. A glass square and a lead weight are placed on top and the drawing is left to dry for around 10 minutes. 

After that, a small piece of Japanese tissue is adhered over the tear with paste and the same sandwich of pellon, blotter, and weight is used while drying. 

After I finished examining all of the drawings I could start treating them. Each drawing would be dry cleaned using eraser crumbs. Instead of using big erasers, which increase the risk of ripping and creasing the paper, eraser crumbs are used because they are gentler, create no hard edges between clean and dirty areas, and you have more control since you are in contact with the paper through your fingertips gently rubbing and moving the crumbs around. As you dry clean areas with printed and or painted areas should be avoided or brush the crumbs lightly over the area with a soft brush. Conservators use vinyl erasers such as Magic Rub and Mars erasers because rubber erasers leave sulfur behind in the paper. 

Before dry cleaning

After dry cleaning (the bright spot in the upper left corner is from my camera, the area was not over cleaned)

A photograph of Mrs. West in front of the picture window in the main room. 

A photograph of the participants of the Genesis Project, one of Mrs. West's workshops. 

A case making clothes moth 

A plaster beetle and eastern marsh mosquitoes 

On our second day on Ossabaw Island and our first day in the main house we learned about house keeping. When you think of not very skilled labor, but in a historic houses the job encompasses much more responsibility and maintenance. Housekeepers in a historic house do more than just dust; they care for objects, furniture, and monitor potential problems to prevent major conservation treatment in the future. 

We watched a video made by Peebles Island Resource Center about house keeping that went through the proper methods for cleaning architectural elements, textiles, metals, furniture, and ceilings and walls. For this post i will just go through general house keeping procedures and go more in depth for certain areas as we come to them throughout the workshop. No matter what you are cleaning, never use typical household cleaners since they contain harsh chemicals that can cause severe damage. When dusting, only soft cotton or magnetic cloths should be used instead of terry cloth since they leave behind lint and can catch on loose pieces of veneer or flaking paint. For dusting hard to reach crevices a soft brush should be used along with a vacuum to catch the loose dirt. 

That afternoon we went to the house and made a housekeeping plan for one of the bedrooms. A house keeping plan consists of instructions for cleaning different types of objects and what should be done when, along with an ongoing list of problems found during routine upkeep. 

A housekeeping plan generally starts off with a description of the room including windows, doors, flooring, rugs, wall decoration, heating devices such as radiators, furniture, light fixtures, and architectural elements. Then the condition of all these elements is discussed. 

For example, the east wall of this bedroom exhibits sever plaster and paint flaking, possibly from water leaking from the roof. Minor paint flaking is evident throughout the room. The window in the bedroom has had the glass replaced with Plexi-glass, and the French doors do not fully close. The large area rug is in poor condition with significant loss of pile, and broken warps and wefts. Additionally, the curtains are in poor condition with holes and tears, and the window valences are warped and show damage from use. 

The exposed floors are stained, abraded, and water damage is evident around the French doors. The  woodwork throughout the room is in good condition, including the doors and hardware. General grime, dust, and cobwebs are visible throughout. 

Next, a list of recommended housekeeping tasks on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis are written out. We recommended that daily tasks include checking that the windows and doors are securely closed, drawing curtains to limit light exposure, and checking for water leakage around French doors. On a weekly basis the carpet, upholstery, and curtains should be vacuumed if the textiles are in stable condition and furniture should be dusted. If the room is not in use then these tasks can be done on a quarterly basis. On a quarterly basis hardware and light fixtures should be appropriately cleaned, woodwork should be inspected for signs of insect damage and flaking paint, and furnishings should be inspected for pests and mold. Finally, on a yearly basis windows should be washed and the walls and ceiling should be dusted if paint will not be damaged. 

 Our main goal while working on the main house was to learn how to arrest problems before they get worse or even happen by controlling environmental conditions and cleaning what we can in a noninvasive way. The main issue with the house is that there are no environmental controls; it is not insulated and many of the windows and doors have cracks, gaps, and do not close fully so temperature and relative humidity fluctuate constantly and pests can readily get in. 

After mending major tears in papers, I tackled a number of air mail letters that had been repaired with Scotch brand magic tape, which is definitely not archival. Please don't mend tears on important documents with tape! This letter had a piece of tape that trapped folded over pieces, preventing the paper from meeting together. 

The tape can be mechanically removed with a micro spatula, very carefully and slowly separating the tape from the paper. Sometimes the adhesive is too stuck to the paper for this procedure and solvents must be used. I applied toluene to the back of the paper using cotton swabs, and then used the micro spatula to lift up the tape. Toluene is volatile and highly flammable so I worked in a fume hood. 

Any adhesive residue remaining on the paper was removed using a cotton swab, or if it was being really stubborn, a micro spatula.

Here's what the envelope looked like after the tape was removed. 

Once the tape was removed I could smooth out the folded over paper and mend the tears with heat set tissue. Here's the final product! 

This marks the first of a series of blog posts about the2015 AIC Preventive Conservation Workshop on Ossabaw Island!  First off, let me explain the unique nature of the island and the main house. Ossabaw was purchased by the Torrey family in 1924 and completed the main house in 1926. Sandy Torrey West aged 102 years old currently lives in the main house. She gained control of the island in the 1960s when her brother died, and started retreats for artists, writers, and scientists. Mrs. West funded these retreats and projects with her own money. By 1978 she could not maintain the island or her projects with her own money anymore so Mrs. West sold Ossabaw to the state while still maintaining control of the main house, though her beloved artists retreats were discontinued.

Ossabaw Island’s main house lies in a unique position in its history. The house is already unique because historic houses are rarely occupied, and even more rarely by a member of the original family. Furthermore, Mrs. West is unfortunately very ill, and with her death the future of the house comes into question. Even though the island is owned by the state, Mrs. West still owns the house and the 20 acres surrounding it. To make matters even more complicated, most of the furniture and art in the house belongs to the Ossabaw Island Foundation. Mrs. West does not want the house to become a museum upon her death, and though the Ossabaw Island Foundation will gain control of the house through a lease with the state, Mrs. West is very much the backbone holding everything together. Also, when the foundation’s lease is up it is unknown as to whether the state will renew it or not. The cost of completely restoring the house is so high and with the future responsibility of caretaking so unclear there is not much incentive.

Our first day on the island we took a short hike so that we could get acquainted with its environment. We walked through a causeway right in the middle of a marsh that led to a Native American midden full of oyster shells. In many ways the island is so gorgeous that I simply just can’t describe it. It is so lush, so natural and pristine, and so isolated. I have never been any place like it and I highly doubt that I will ever again.

Now that all of the documents were in archival folders, I went back to the pages I had bookmarked for treatment. There were many pages with badly damaged edges from being squished into a too small box, and so I mended them by gently smoothing out the creases and folds with a tacking iron and then applying heat set tissue paper. It took a lot of time and patience and here are some of the exciting results! 

Last week at the Brooklyn Museum I sewed accession numbers onto some newly acquired twentieth-century Korean jackets. Accession numbers are assigned to objects so that curators, conservators, and registrars can find them in the online database (the Brooklyn Museum uses TMS). Usually numbers are assigned based on the year the work was acquired, the order it was acquired, and how many parts are in the work. 

For example, this work was acquired in 2014. It was the 59th work acquired that year and it is the third part of the work. 

I wrote the accession numbers on cotton twill tape with pencil and then sewed them onto the jackets with cotton thread, making sure that the stitches were not visible from the outside. The numbers are placed just below the collar of the jackets so that when they are displayed the number won't be visible. 

Here are some more interesting things I found while doing initial condition reports on the landaulet carriage drawings! 

This drawing has two interesting condition problems. 

First, the bottom edge of the flap has an accretion and paint loss. 

On the very edge of the flap fibers are stuck to the paint along with three areas of paint loss. Perhaps this area of the drawing was stuck to another piece of paper, leaving behind fibers on one paper while the other has the missing paint fragments attached to it. 

Second, all of the corners suffer from delamination, the separation of the different paper layers in the Bristol board, weakening the corners. 

This next drawing is particularly interesting and complex. It is not actually a drawing like the other works in the set, but an offset lithograph. This identification was determined by looking at the image under a microscope, where you can see that the ink lies flat against the paper and how the ink suctions up when paper removed during the printing process. Offset lithography was a common mass production technique for prints in the late nineteenth century.

Another characteristic that separates this piece form the others is that it is a coated paper.  On the bottom edge you can see where the coating has flaked off and the paper comes through.

The pinkish discoloration around the edge of the paper led us to believe that the coating is lead white, which is a sign of lead white deterioration. 

Under inspection with UV light, Yana helped me identify the coating as lead white by comparing it to other samples of white paint under UV. You can see in this picture how much darker the areas of deterioration are than the stable area in the center. 

My new ongoing project at the Met is to conserve a set of nineteenth century drawings of landaulette carriages made by Brewster & Co. First, I am examining each drawing individually to assess it's condition and treatment needs. 

Upon initial observation, I thought that these drawings had pieces of paper glued to them correcting mistakes underneath. However, they are hinged pieces of paper showing what the carriage looks like with the top down, and when the flap is lifted it shows what the carriage looks like with the top up. 

Each drawing has pin holes in the corners, while some also have fingerprints and handling creases, showing that these drawings were actually used in the Brewster and Co. workshop as reference drawings. 

This drawing has a large tear on the left side and significant discoloration around the edges. Additionally, the blue paint on the carriage is cracking and can be seen at certain angles in the light. 

In the top left corner a blind embossed stamp can be seen with raking light, showing that the paper used is Bristol board. 

For this next drawing, two interesting conditions occurred. 

First, in the upper right corner a section is abraded showing that the number might have been changed. 

Second, at the bottom center edge of the drawing there is a metallic inclusion commonly known as foxing. These occur when pieces of metal get into the paper during the manufacturing process and then rust. 

This next drawing has two conditions that provide answers to a couple of questions regarding the medium of the drawings. First, you can see that the attachment on the upper right is adhered with paper tape.

Upon lifting the flap, you can see that the glue originally used to adhere the attachment is extremely discolored and probably failed, necessitating the paper tape. Glues that turn very dark with age are most likely animal glues (fish or rabbit)  instead of starch glues. 

You can also see that on the underside of the flap there is a stain matching the exact shape of the carriage beneath it, showing that the paint used is probably oil-based. 

On a different drawing the discoloration caused by oil-based paint is even more pronounced. Notice, however, that there are lines lacking discoloration. These match areas where a shiny coating was applied over the oil-based paint, sealing it off from contact with the paper above. 

My new project at the AMNH is to rehouse the unsorted research notes of J. Teague Self on pentastomidae. There are four boxes total and this is the first. The previous box was meant for normal letter sized paper so many legal sized documents were crammed into a too small box. Additionally, the folders were not modified to fit the thickness of their contents and so many pages had creases and folds along the inner edge. 

The aftermath of being stuffed into a too small box.

Also, the older folders were not archival. The new folders I placed the documents in were archival and legal instead of letter sized. As I transferred documents from their old folders to new, I went through them page by page removing rusty paper clips and staples and leaving bookmarks to remind me where I needed to go back and treat something after going through everything. For example, this envelope mended by regular tape and a page with a very damaged edge would be treated later after all the documents were in new folders. I also made sure that all the documents and folders stayed in the original order. 

Some documents I treated as I went along, such putting acidic paper and photographs in mylar folders. 

Another incident in which I treated two documents immediately was when a label was in danger of separating from it's paper. I adhered it back down with wheat starch paste and placed a weight on top of it while drying.