Lisa Duncan, Art Conservator, LLC

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