Daly Conservation

Conservation calls for a specific set of problem-solving skills.  It is helpful if you have visual-spatial skills “That is not going to fit through the door, in the elevator, etc.” and the identification of materials is key “Since the metal is magnetic, it is ferrous”.  But the skill that I have found to be the most important and interesting is the ability of conservators to look at whatever they have around and make something out of it that could be useful for their purpose.  It is a wonder we didn’t all grow up watching Macgyver, maybe we did.

This week I was reminded of this ability while I watched, then assisted, then completed, making a long trough to hold a steel sculpture so it could be submerdged in a bath of rust converter.  The trough was made of crates that were around the lab and spare lumber.  The tarps were purchased at a hardware store, once the piece was in the bath the tarp on each side was further padded with foam to make the space around the sculpture as small as possible so the liquid covered as much of the sculpture as possible.

This project required spatial skills to see how the pieces would fit in and a lot of wood and screws to hold everything together.

My second week at the Nasher Sculpture Center focused more on outreach than direct treatment. We organized the lab in preparation for a tour of high art school students who have been chosen to be part of a program that will give them an overview of the different departments in a museum. We gave a tour of the lab to the students and spoke about what conservation was, the training needed, and the difference between working in private practice and in an institution. I wished I had this type of exposure when I was in high school, but my wandering introduction to the field now makes a lot of sense to me. A rust conversion treatment was going on while the students were touring, which was a great opportunity to talk about rust and chelators.

We also went on a field trip to tour a paper conservation lab, the center for art conservation. The lab is beautiful, with great lighting and paper conservation is so peaceful after spending a week working with an 11-foot piece of metal. The conservators also teach classes for DiY or crafts with paper and they have a fantastic blog that shows their work and the work of the students in these classes.

John also introduces us to the galleries in Dallas, visiting Conduit Gallery to see a show of paintings and delicate smaller pieces, then to the dallascontemporary where we watched some video art. There will be an upcoming video art festival beginning July 31st and check out the program on C-blog.

There was a lunch with the Dallas and Fort Worth conservators scheduled as well. This group meets once a month and has lunch and then tours a conservation lab. Dan Cull mentioned about our tour of the NCPTT labs that touring labs is a great for conservators who are new to the field, so they can see how other conservators have set up their spaces.

This past week struck a good balance to me, after a week of intensive treatment, to then be able to reflect on your work is really great and helpful to grow and develop as a professional.

I just finished my first week of my summer work project at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas. The first day was a meeting of the staff, the registrar, curator, and John Campbell - the conservator and my supervisor this summer.  It was a fairly standard meeting, discussing the logistics of upcoming loans and exhibits and general updates from each department.

Then we went out to Arlington, Texas, a short drive, to Displays Unlimited, where the weeks project was waiting, a huge piece by Alexander Calder called Three Bollards (Trois Bollards).  The project was ongoing, John had been working on it for the past two-and-a-half months and it was in the final phases before it would need crating and shipping for an upcoming exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago.    Here are a few things I learned during this project last week:

1. How to use a high volume low-pressure paint spray gun, clean it, take it apart, and put it back together.

2. How to apply rust-preventive coating and primer with a roller, then sand with electric hand-held sanders - here the proper sand paper is key, John has a small filing box of sandpapers, which is a really great way to store everything in one place that is easily accessible.  He would also say “get the 120″ which meant something to him, but I couldn’t tell you the difference now, hopefully I will know by the end of the summer….

3.  Hardware - I was given part of the task of painting new hardware.  Interesting fact about Calder is that he used square bolts and nuts, so if the hardware is hexagonal, it is not original.  Calder also stamped his bolts with a “C” so you know if they are original.  New hardware was purchased and painted for this object because the original hardware was no longer functioning, and the replacement hardware was distracting.  This was really exciting because I had a little project, and I made a mount, taped, and painted the hardware, and took images of the process which show my army of nuts and bolts.

There is a pre-program intern working at the Nasher this summer as well, Nicole Berastequi, who has undergraduate degrees in theater and art history. It is really great working with Nicole and John, last week we were in a warehouse with no air-conditioning, during the day it reached 100 degrees fahrenheit outside, and was probably hotter inside, and they kept focused and had a great sense of humor, I am looking forward to the rest of my summer at the Nasher.

I love natchez, my parents took me and my younger sister there when we were in high school.  We learned all about crown moulding symbolism, that a gentleman was never allowed to see a lady’s ankles, and other general helpful facts about antebellum life.  So, when I proposed a road trip I was thinking of places to visit and my sister suggested Natchez and even recommended a plantation by name Longwood.  I remembered it immediately, the octagonal plantation that was left unfinished, the impression that structure made on my mind, probably 12 years ago, is still there.  Longwood is unique because it is unfinished, the basement floor was completed, but the upper stories are not, and the experience of walking around a 1860 construction site is really memorable.  The top of the house would have had an onion-dome and this image is looking up at the interior of that dome, with all the original scaffolding in place as if the builders had left recently. After Longwood we saw two other plantations, Rosalie, where guests are encouraged to play the piano, and Stanton, with some fantastic crown moulding. Rosalie is where I was told the difference between a porch and a verandah “If you’re having a mint julep, it’s called a verandah, if you’re having breakfast, it’s called a porch. And if you’re having nothing? It’s just a shame”.
I really enjoyed the trip, and I think Dan did as well, we stayed in a bed and breakfast built in 1888 called the Wensel House, ate at: Mammy’s cupboard, the haunted tavern “King’s Tavern“, and Cock of the Walk restaurant. It was hot and humid, I felt like I was back in my element, I grew up in Houston, Texas so heat and humidity are not a problem. Daniel is from England so I think it was a bit of a shock. Maybe next time we’ll visit during the pilgrimage in the spring or fall.

Roadtrip day one began with a long drive from Delaware to Asheville, NC.  I had taken my qualifying exam on Friday from 9AM until 2:30PM, Dan flew from Phoenix to Philly Friday evening, arriving for a party around 8PM.  I was somewhat packed, luckily my bed is on risers so everything that wasn’t packed went under the bed.  We set off around 10AM and arrived in Asheville around 8PM, with only a few stops, and with Dan driving most of the way, I guess the test took more out of me than I thought.

Biltmore is fascinating to me for many reasons, the collection is really fantastic, it is off the beaten path so anyone who comes to visit is more like a pilgrim than trying to fill an afternoon, and it’s for profit. This means the house is not run by volunteers at Biltmore, like almost all other historic homes.  How this is accomplished, and with movies like ‘The Art of the Steal’ talking about the commodification of culture it seemed quite appropriate to visit Biltmore now.

It is amazing, the house is huge and the gardens are amazing (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted).  The tour begins in the public spaces like the dining room and billiard room, then continues to include 4 bedrooms, having recently undergone conservation and opened in the past few years.  The tour then enters the basement, where servants quarters, kitchens, and laundry facilities are explored.  The room that takes your breath away is the indoor pool, at the end of the tour, and since Dan is from England where the tradition of building country homes was hundreds of years before the American tradition, the sight of an indoor pool, with underwater electric lighting, is really fantastic.