-
Art Restoration with Kat and Megan:

Weeks 1 and 2

The best thing about being an artist interning at an art restoration company is joining while already understanding the basic nature of an oil painting or an inkjet print. The worst part is being absolutely terrified to rub a canvas with a sponge.

Although art restoration is not my ultimate career goal, this internship has been extremely beneficial and enjoyable so far, and I recommend art restoration as a jumping-off point for other artists. 

I’ve been learning the beginning to the end of art restoration, including packaging the pieces to return to the owners and the fact that removing smoke from a damaged painting using a chem sponge (a sponge particularly good at picking up particles) actually does not harm the piece. Art restoration is about returning a damaged piece of art to its original state as best as possible, and reducing the chance for further damage by re-sealing the art so that it’s dust and mold free. Of course, while using chemicals and cleaning mold, we wear face masks and gloves to protect ourselves. There’s something about the professional nature of blue gloves that makes me feel important, and I was disappointed when during an art pick-up I did not get to wear the biohazard suit (because we didn’t end up entering the building).
My alumnus host has given me the opportunity to clean art pieces by myself. For a heavily damaged oil painting of a boat, I gently scrubbed soot from the canvas using a chem sponge, then shifted to a special liquid mixture when the charred piece still needed some work. The colors became so bright and lively after removing the damage from the ocean scene! Although ultimately the piece was too damaged to restore, it was wonderful to see what improvement we could make. After cleaning a piece, I will then clean all parts of the frame, glass, and other necessary pieces before replacing the hardware and recutting foamcore, matte board, and glass when needed. When everything is clean, the piece is put back together and wrapped in foam and paper and labelled before being taken back to the owner. 

We go on art pick-ups some days to take the art from the owner’s home, and it’s always a different adventure. During my second week, we picked up art from a home where the pipes had burst, and mold effected most of the art and furniture. When we arrived at the house, all of their belongings were being kept in large metal trash boxes outside, and had been there since February. The art was heavily mold damaged, but we managed to restore most of it. 


Next week is another art pick-up, and it’s supposed to be at a very fancy home in NY state. I’m excited to see what we have in store. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching Wheel Throwing! ~Say It With Clay

-
Image
Hey Guys, So today was pretty great. I spent the morning labeling different pieces. Then I got the opportunity to paint clear glaze on pieces that have already been fired. Its a really easy job, but very relaxing and mindless. After that I cleaned the rolling pins. They are really easy to clean, all you do is scrape them with a metal rib. This morning we had four girls in the studio. Its really fun to see how they all interact with each other. A lot of them at that age will copy what each other do. Its fun just to witness the innocence of them making things in clay. Sadly, this morning I had other projects to do, labeling and glazing, so I didn’t get to be as involved with the kids in the morning. The afternoon was a lot of fun. We had five kids in, two boys and three girls. While they were doing hand building, I started with cleaning the rolling pins but after that was done I didn’t have that much stuff to do. I decided to ask the kids if they wanted to th...
Read more

Nina & Nicole (1)

-
Image
Hey! After some time with Nicole, I'm finally settled. Our first week was spent organizing and setting up social media. We downloaded hootsuite, and from there managed instagram, facebook, and twitter as a business. I made two posts a day - one for The Station, and one for Eiland Arts Center. We've talked about business cards and fliers, and what events bring people in. We also took a trip to hand back art and meet the kids the we're going to be working with. My second week there was focused on photoshop and actually making some of those graphics for immediate use. The first was an imagine for their email-based news flier, in order to promote their July free coffee. We debated fully digital versus using an imagine of the needed mug, what information was important to put on the flier, hand done versus digital, and on what platform it would be mostly viewed on. In the end, this is the graphic I made: After that, I focused on starting to spruce up some of the signs in...
Read more

Week 3 Art Restoration with Kat and Megan

-
Week 3 The UArts alumnus I’m working for is Megan Becker, who pursued the same internship program I’m part of when she was an Illustration student at the university. She has been the one handing me an airbrush and letting me (tentatively) try my hand at stain remediation for water damaged pieces. Megan and I are a good alum-student match because of our shared interest in illustration, and quieter introverted nature. Although Megan’s and my art is very different, we share an understanding for visual meaning and narrative.  The weeks at ART are fairly reliable work-load wise, but on Wednesdays we get to do something a little different. Megan teaches art classes for young students directly after work on Wednesday, so she takes me with her to where her classes are. Of course, I can’t roam around aimlessly while she works, so I take her car to Dunkin Donuts and sit outside, sipping a black coffee and reading The Sandman, volume 5. I enjoy these little quiet moments where I f...
Read more