Lisa Duncan, Art Conservator, LLC

I have been working on several projects this summer.  I learned one of many lessons this spring working on a diploma made of parchment.  Lesson # 27: Don’t expect to flatten it during a wet spring.  More recently, the nice days have allowed time for light bleaching and been great inpainting weather.  Light bleaching is an oxidative bleach used to brighten stained artwork.  It has been used for centuries–remember when our great grandmothers would hang their white linens out to the sun after washing? It was not only to dry them, but also to bleach them.

Light bleaching a project

Flattening a parchment on the suction table

I completed treatment on James Rosenquist’s Welcome to the Water Planet: Space Dust. There were small white accretions on the surface that were of concern.  The accretions were mold-like, but could also have been a bloom.  Bloom has been identified on several contemporary pieces and is composed of surfactants.  Surfactants are used to disperse acrylic paint in water and leach out over time.  A similar bloom can also be present on oil paint layers.  In oil paintings the composition of the bloom is palmitic acid, a fatty acid found in oil paints.

Conservation of the Truman Home wallpaper is at full speed.  I spent a week in May helping conservator Thomas M. Edmondson, a mentor, finish treatment on two walls in the Truman Home dining room.  Tom has been working on this project, still ongoing, since Spring of 2009.  This week was a major push because the home is reopening to the public on Memorial Day after an extended closure due to installation of a new HVAC system, conservation of the wallpaper, and repair of failing plaster walls.  More information about the preservation project at the Truman Home can be found at the National Park Service website and through the links below.

The work this week involved inpainting fills and cracks to reintegrate areas of loss.  We used both pastel colored pencils and also gouache opaque watercolor paints.

links:

http://www.nps.gov/parkoftheweek/hstr.htm

http://www.nps.gov/hstr/historyculture/truman-home-conservation-and-construction-projects.htm

http://www.examiner.net/news/x124604456/Truman-home-getting-some-improvements

I spent the summer working at Historic New England’s Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston, MA.  Historic New England (HNE), formerly known as the Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is one of the largest organizations for preserving regional heritage in America.  The majority of the collection consists of over 40 historic houses that span nearly four hundred years of history in New England. Historic New England also strives to archive New England history and has additional collections of over 20,000 architectural drawings by regional architects and over 300,000 photographic images and photographic memorabilia.

Historic New England has a defining collection of over 800 daguerreotypes.  During the summer I created a database to survey the collection and then completed half of the examination records.  The daguerreotype was the first photographic likeness made commercially in America starting in 1839.  It continued to be the primary form of photographic portraiture until it was eclipsed by the ambrotype just before the civil war.  HNE’s collection is predominantly portraits and many are still labeled with the name of the sitter.  Many of the daguerreotypes are made by Boston’s best daguerreotypists including Lorenzo G. Chase, John Plumbe, Jr., Litch & Whipple, Southworth & Hawes, Tyler & Co., and John Adams Whipple.  All sizes and case types are represented in the collection from the most common to the rare and unusual. The most prized collection of daguerreotypes is the 20 whole plate daguerreotypes made by Southworth & Hawes.

In October 2009 I was contacted by the Oregon State Library (OSL) to do a general survey of their collection.  I spent two days on-site meeting with staff and surveying the collection.  The circulating collection is accessible to all Oregon citizens and I would strongly recommend a visit if ever in Salem, OR.  The OSL has an extensive collection of early telephone books and a fabulous collection of glass plate negatives by Oregon photographer Myra Albert Wiggins, among other fascinating materials.

While working at Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC, I participated in the treatment of two Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (JNEM) Competition Drawings.  The competition was held in 1947 to design the 90 acre memorial complex along the Mississippi River in St. Louis, MO.  The complex commemorated the Lousiana Purchase, the first civil government west of the Mississippi River, and the most important Federal Court case fought over slavery in Missouri called the Dred Scott Case.  The winner of the competition was Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hanskarl Bandel who designed the St. Louis Arch.

Several hundred competition drawings were submitted and all were preserved by the National Park Service.  As necessary, they are receiving treatment at Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC.  Some are more damaged than others, suffering the test of time in compromised environments.  The National Park Service is now storing them in good conditions and hopes to exhibit the best ones in the near future.