AIC 43rd Annual Meeting- Architecture Specialty Group Session, May 16th: “One Piece at a Time- The Repair of Felt-Bases Sheet Flooring at Johnny Cash’s Boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas” (Christina Varvi)

Christina first discussed the location- a New Deal planned farming community of 500 homes. It is now the only surviving home from the community and the town now has only 388 residents today. The home was acquired by the Arkansas Heritage Sites if Arkansas State University, located an hour and a half away. The home was furnished with 2 rooms of original flooring and objects owned by the family augmented by furniture dating to the time and 2 rooms of floor covering belonging to nearby Dyess Colony houses. The house was to be opened as a historic site for visitors in August 2014
RLA (Rosa Lowinger & Associates) was brought in at the end of the project to conserve the original floor coverings. Consideration had to be taken into account that the living room flooring would be walked on. There was little time and budget due to this being an add-on to the project at the last minute. The original estimate was double what the project could afford. Discussions led to a scale back in the project and priorities were set to what was most important to happen right away. Treatment was mostly confined to the 2 original-to-the-house floorings- those in the living room and Johnny Cash’s boyhood bedroom. Treatment was confined to cleaning (vacuuming and surface wet cleaning), stabilization of tears (on back with Japanese tissue and B72), fills and in-painting on living room flooring, and varnish (applied by brush) to protect the surface of the flooring. The non-original-to-the-house flooring was not varnished. Recommendations for now are furniture pads to protect the floor underneath, recommendations for visitors to remove shoes and use booties in the living room and roller shades to reduce light during off hours. Next steps are to raise additional funds to finish work on the floor, work on additional buildings on site (outlying farm buildings) and to raise funds for a visitor center.
There were many complexities to this project: the area was very rural, there was no running water in the house, the house was climate controlled but not airtight, no shops to be able to get supplies and the client was an hour and a half away. Everything had to be brought in. Additionally since the floor covering project was a last minute addition, furniture was already in place and could not be moved out of the house. With careful planning, much more was accomplished in the time given than was though possible and the treatment was a success.

AIC 43rd Annual Meeting- Practical Philosophy General Session May 15th: “Suspended Rules for Suspended Worlds: Conserving Historic Stage Scenery” (Mary Jo (MJ) Davis)

I was interested in this talk because it seemed an interesting intersection between textiles and objects together with the complications of working on objects that are still in use.
MJ discussed the set of challenges of working with historic stage scenery: climate, use, lack of funds, space to do treatments, ect. The “Curtains Without Borders” team (started 15 years ago in the state of Vermont) of conservators came up with a standard method of treatment that could be applied, with some differences as need, to the stage curtains. The typical treatment consists of: on-site technical examination, cleaning (vacuuming and dry sponging), mending tears with patches of muslin w/B72, inserts to areas of loss, consolidation of edges (all sides reinforced with muslin w/B72), structural support at top edge if necessary and reattachment of bottom roller, paint consolidation (sprayed B72), in-painting of losses and reinstallation with volunteers or professional riggers as needed.  All work is done onsite by conservators and a team of local volunteers (with at least 2 at all times). Many conserved curtains have been revisited over the years and additional issues have been attended to. Issues have mostly come from handling of curtains once they were re-installed.
The project has been a success all over New England- with more requests coming in from all over the country for help. There are plans to continue the project and expand territory.