Jeff Martin, archivist and conservator, gave a talk about the conservation project of Anthony McCall’s Solid Light Films. It started in 2012, when Pamela and Richard Kramlich gave 6 film installations made by the English artist Anthony McCall in the 1970’s, to the New Art Trust (NAT) which has worked on the preservation and showing of time-based media works, since its creation by the Kramlichs in the 1990’s.
Martin started by presenting the artworks’ history. The 6 solid light films, made between 1973 and 1975, are 16 mm silver films, where “a white dot traces a circle on a black background; and when projected, it creates a volume cone.” The films were projected in different directions, and the viewer has to move around in the light. Then, in the early 2000’s, the digital files allowed an easier installation and projection (in particular, vertically). McCall took this opportunity to revisit his work of the 1970’s and created new installations on a digital support using digital projection.
Subsequently Jeff Martin introduced the conservation, presentation, and digitalization work done by the conservator and the NAT for the solid light films. These were first considered as traditional silver films, and consequently the choice has been to make exhibition copies. Though, creating 16mm films appeared to cause specific technical problems, the main one being the need to get a double perforated film, which is only available today by special order to Kodak, and is expensive. The obstacles led the conservator to think about making a digital remake of the films. In order to know if this option would fit with the artist’s intention, Martin interviewed McCall and collected pieces of information about the history and the technique of the solid light films. Martin précised he had been “very careful not to apply his own proposition but to respect the original installation.” Finally, the choice was made to project the original installation on 16mm films, and to create new masters for all of the films, but for the future, the question of the digitalization remains open, especially because McCall says that he changes his mind all the time!
To a photography conservator, this talk was interesting, as it was bringing a different point of view on photographic material preservation and presentation. Indeed, even if the McCall artworks’ physical materiality is photographic, its existence is the result of the light passing through the film and extending into space. In this case, what has to be preserved and shown is not as much the film in itself (which has to be preserved too), but the light manifestation that results of it, and the sensation produced to the visitor who can penetrate it, which could indeed be reproduced by a digital copy… especially as the artist switched to digital projection in his 2000’s creations.
Martin ended the talk by saying that all the work done to preserve the installations started from the original films and materials, and he emphasized on the collaboration with the artist, which has been essential to achieve this project.
http://www.anthonymccall.com/index.html
Category: AIC’s Annual Meeting
Provides the membership with updated news about the annual meeting. Also announces themes, deadlines for papers, need for volunteers, etc.
43rd Annual Meeting – Photographic Materials, May 14th: “Organizing a Photograph Preservation Workshop in West Africa” by Debra Norris
Debra S. Norris, Chair of the Art Conservation Department and Professor of Photograph Conservation at the University of Delaware, is enthusiastic about fund raising for art conservation. Along with her coauthors, Nora W. Kennedy and Bertrand Lavédrine, she encourages conservation education and the expansion of international networks for all conservators. These two major contributions for the conservation profession were the bases for the project presented during this talk: Organizing a Photograph Preservation Workshop in West Africa.
Norris started by evoking the need for photographic conservation in West Africa, and the previous projects organized in Sub-Saharan Africa by the Getty, ICCROM, the Ford Foundation, SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and UNESCO. Then she presented the “3PA”: Préservation du Patrimoine Photographique Africain (Preservation of Photographic Heritage in Sub Saharan Africa), a collaborative project developed with Nora W. Kennedy, photograph conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and Bertrand Lavédrine, director of the Conservation Research Center (CRC) of Paris. Their goal is to work on the improvement of the preservation practice in this particular area of the continent, where the photographic collections are highly valuable but vulnerable because of the environment.
Last year, from the 22nd to the 25th of April, a workshop has been held at the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (EPA), in Porto-Novo (Benin). It was called “Préservation du Patrimoine Photographique Africain: West African Image Lab“. 21 participants (80% of them were artists or photographers, the others were museum and archive professionals and curators) attended the workshop, and discussed the preservation of local photographic collections of West Africa; adapted solutions were proposed. Organizers were Jennifer Bajorek and Erin Haney, co-creator of the Resolution organization. Founded in 1998 with the help of UNESCO and ICCROM, and based in Porto Novo in Benin, the EPA school offers a professional training for 26 sub Saharan countries. It is a non-profit institution, dedicated to photographic collections in Africa, with a focus on preservation, collection management, and exhibitions.
Norris then evoked Nigerian photographers and collectors met by Nora W. Kennedy and Peter Mustardo, photograph conservator and director of the Better Image in New York, who went to Nigeria. She shortly presented the work of three of them: Andrew Esiebo, Abraham Oghobase, and J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, whose artist book, containing 200 photographs, was published a few months after he passed away, in 2014. Kennedy and Mustardo met his son who owns the collection.
As Norris aims to connect different conservation initiatives, she promoted the project “History in progress Uganda”, created in 2011 by a Dutch photographer and an advertiser. Their goal is to acquire and to diffuse images about Uganda history. According to Norris, this action, like 3PA’s, must proceed in connection with education and community organization.
She promoted the Center for Contemporary Art in Lagos (Nigeria), “an independent non-profit making visual art organization set up in December 2007 to provide a platform for the development, presentation, and discussion of contemporary visual art and culture” (see their website). Bisi Silvia, the founder, curator, and director of CCA was a participant of the 2014 workshop at the EPA.
For the future, 3PA’s goals will consist in organizing more workshops to teach the fundamentals in photo preservation in sub-Saharan countries. The conservation professionals will explain “the keys concepts in preventive conservation and materials”, spend some time on both hands-on and lecture, visit collections, and share some tools kits and published resources. Brainstorming sessions about techniques will follow. She emphasized on the fact that the 2014 workshop was the first talk about conservation in French and English in Africa. As photographers are an important part of the participants, development of conservation strategies for photographers in West Africa will be discussed. Funding for the workshop in photograph preservation was made possible thanks to many sponsors that Norris listed – AIC/PMG was one of them.
Some observations were done. First, to Norris, “community engagement and connections are clear” in Africa, which is a wonderful advantage. Then, the specific challenges: “lack of electricity”, and “dealing with material and digital collections simultaneously”. For the EPA, in Benin, where the workshop happened, the next steps will consist in “renewing commitment to preservation of photo collections”. Thanks to the “saving photo heritage” website, they began to rise money to create “a major center for photographic preservation, archiving, and digitization on the African continent”. Every one can help them!
The next 3PA workshop will be held in 2017 in Zimbabwe.
She finished the talk with a quick look on beautiful African textiles!
To discover the Nigerian photographers:
http://www.andrewesiebo.com/index.htm
http://www.abrahamoghobase.com
About the Center for Contemporary Art in Lagos: http://www.ccalagos.org
About the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain in Porto Novo: http://www.epa-prema.net
Resolution organization: https://www.resolutionphoto.org
History in Progress Uganda: http://www.hipuganda.org
To help Saving the Photographic Heritage: https://t160k.org/campaign/help-save-africas-photographic-heritage/
43rd Annual Meeting – Opening Session, May 14: "The Theory of Practice: Practical Philosophy, Cultures of Conservation and the Aesthetics of Change"
Hanna Höllig, the Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor at Bard Graduate Center, has been researching the ethical dilemmas in the preservation of contemporary art, focusing on the artwork of Nam June Paik. In tune with the conference’s theme of Practical Philosophy/Making Conservation Work, she highlighted the point that practice and experience build our theories, and through contemplating theory, we can enhance our practices. It is a co-dependent relationship that requires participation, communal self-reflection, and historical examination.
Nam June Paik
Single-channel video sculpture ; 6 monitors, 1 laserdisc, 1 laserdisc player
Collection of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (ZKM | Center for Art and Media)
http://zkm.de/en/artwork/canopus
Her central case study discussed the treatment of Paik’s Canopus (1990) in the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (ZKM | Center for Art and Media) collection. Unfortunately, Canopus had fallen from the wall during exhibition, severely damaging the television screens and the central hubcap. Höllig was responsible for designing the treatment, which served as a pointed example of the controversy surrounding material replacement in conservation. The television screens that had shattered were generically commercial components, so this substitution was considered acceptable. On the other hand, there were calligraphic inscriptions and a signature by Paik on the original hubcap. Höllig proposed to replace the hubcap with an exact substitute under the condition that the damaged original would be exhibited alongside the recreation, but this was not deemed an acceptable option by the curator. In exhibiting both the recreated piece and the original hubcap, it would have allowed visitors to experience a likeness of the original, but also the physicality of Canopus’ history with the art object as done by Paik’s making.
In teasing apart the two differing responses to the same type of proposal, Höllig is not just proposing an examination of conservation approaches to contemporary art, but this is about highlighting what artists, curators, and conservators identify as the essence of the work. What–and more importantly, how–do we assign these values? In refusing the hubcap replacement and/or the exhibition of the damaged original- precisely where is the essence violated? In any type of art or artifact, what components of replacement, refurbishment, regeneration, repair, etc. are appropriate, and what makes these decisions appropriate? In making alterations to an original piece to “return it to the original state” (or perhaps it should read “acceptable state”), are we approaching the essence or only the aesthetic?
Höllig also points to the concept of conservation as a contextual cultural practice. How do we know we are right, or rather, how conscious are we of the principles that guide us? Conservation is not simply about the physical, but also our connections with the experiences, people, and the content surrounding the things. In our work as conservators, we are in the business of addressing unwanted changes of objects. But, since changes are inevitable, what is our tolerance for it? What kind of change is palatable to our collective modern-day taste? I did not find her philosophical points to be a reprimand of what we do or don’t do as conservators but a call for an honest self-reflection on the influences connected to our treatment decisions. These questions seem to expedited and scrutinized in contemporary art because of the ephemeral and technologically-dependent nature that cannot be addressed by “traditional” methods alone, but these questions are true for any specialty, for any collection.
43rd AIC Annual Meeting – Book and Paper Session, May 15, "Preserving the Spirit Within: Bringing Twenty-Five Tibetan Initiation Cards into the 21st Century by Angela Campbell"
opaque watercolor on 25 paper cards
16 cm x 14.5 cm (each card)
Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection: 2000.282.1-.25
Angela Campbell, Assistant Conservator in the Department of Paper Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presented the research and treatment of a complete set of Himalayan initiation cards (tsakalis) in their collection. She focused on the condition, consolidation, and loss-compensation techniques done by herself, Rebecca Capua, and Yana van Dyke for this set. In conjunction with the treatments, there was a social media campaign to increase public outreach using this piece. For a great resource on the full treatment details, background, and purpose of these tsakalis, see the three posts available online through the Met blog:
- Eastern Religion Meets Western Science: Conserving Fifteenth-Century Tibetan Initiation Cards
by Angela Campbell, Assistant Conservator, Department of Paper Conservation - Filling In History: Conserving Fifteenth-Century Tibetan Initiation Cards, Continued
by Rebecca Capua, Assistant Conservator, Department of Paper Conservation - Evoking the Divine: Mental Purification Using a Tibetan Tsakali Mandala
by Kurt Behrendt, Associated Curator, Department of Asian Art
[includes translations and after treatment images of the rectos and versos of each of the cards]
I appreciated that Campbell addressed concerns of treatment consistency since the twenty-five cards were split among three conservators. Instead of having each conservator just do one treatment step for all the cards, each performed full treatments for 8 to 9 cards in the collection. Discussion was key, particularly in approaching the in-painting, and despite minor personal variations, a cohesive style was achieved.
Other rich questions that came up during the Q&A session focused more on the pre-treatment component of these cards. There was a question regarding the sacred nature impacting treatment decisions, which had only been brought up with the decision to maintain surface residues affiliated with handling. In conjunction with the sacred aspect, another question was raised about outreach and consultation with the surrounding Tibetan community in New York regarding the handling and treatment. While it was unclear if there was any contact before these cards reached the treatment stage, this comes back to a bigger question of who we perceive to be the actual stakeholders of the collections, particularly with cultural properties of living cultures.
43rd Annual Meeting – Book & Paper Session, May 15, "To Do or Not To Do: Two Examples of Decision Making of Digital In-filling for Asian Works of Art" by Hsin-Chen Tsai
Japanese and Chinese artworks, such as hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, folding screens and panels, have two components: the primary artwork and the mount. This talk focused on the treatment of the mounts for a folding screen entitled The Deities of the Tanni-sho by Munakata Shiko, and a hanging scroll entitled Standing Courtesan, by Keisai Eisen.
The current condition and the information carried by the mounting are balanced in making treatment decisions. When both the condition and the retained information are poor; more extensive treatment is carried out. This was the case for the folding screen. The original mounting paper was decorated using a Japanese fold-dying technique that created a repeating pattern that would be difficult to reproduce by hand. The author decided to make digital infills for this for three reasons: there was enough remaining original material for reference, the fills would not change the context and character, and it would be less time-consuming.
Here is a step-by-step of the process:
1. She took a digital image of an intact section of the mount.
2. She opened the image in PhotoShop and made adjustments to distortion, brightness, contrast, and color balance.
3. She printed onto a lined sheet of sekishu paper with an Epsum stylus Pro 4900 printer.
4. She matched the pattern with the losses and traced them over a light box.
5. After filling, there was some minor toning required.
For the scroll, Japanese paste paper had been used as the mount. It was an uda (clay-containing) paper with alum-gelatin sizing. It was hand-stamped in an irregular pattern and an uneven tone. The damage was typical of this kind of object: the mechanical action of rolling and unrolling led to horizontal damage and losses. Since the author was not able to guess exactly what the lost areas had looked like, she decided to infill using hand-toned paper without a decorative pattern.
43rd Annual Meeting – Painting Specialty Group, May 15, “The Treatment of Dr. William Hartigan by Gilbert Stuart or the Treatment of Gilbert Stuart by Dr. William Hartigan,” by Joanna Dunn
Joanna Dunn presented an engaging paper centered on the treatment, history, and analysis of a painting by Gilbert Stuart at the National Gallery of Art. I was particularly interested in hearing about this treatment in detail, having seen the portrait in the late stages of inpainting in the fall of 2014.
The work’s label tentatively proposes the identity of the sitter as Dr. William Hartigan(?), a doctor who apocryphally saved Stuart’s dominant arm after the artist sustained an injury. According to the narrative, after his recovery, Stuart painted the doctor’s portrait out of gratitude. Thereafter follows an entertaining history of the painting’s subsequent owners, ending with the work entering the collection of the National Gallery of Art in 1942.
During varnish and overpaint removal, an object resembling a large apothecary jar was partially revealed behind the sitter: the presence of the jar supports the identification of the subject as a man of medicine. This discovery prompted cross sectional analysis of paint samples from the work and sparked Dunn’s investigation into the nature of multiple copies after the painting. The analysis showed that the artist had partially painted over the apothecary jar, but it was unclear to what extent he would have intended the object to be completely hidden and whether its visibility would have been affected by past treatments or the increased translucency of the paint over time. Additional questions centered on whether the original format of the composition was oval or rectangular. The clues offered by three extant copies towards answering these lines of inquiry were unfortunately largely circumstantial.
In the end, the treatment needed to be completed, and Dunn chose the most logical and likely path in light of the gathered evidence: the apothecary jar was left partially visible, and the composition remained in an oval format. Given the number of options deliberated during the treatment of the portrait, this presentation fit most aptly within the theme of “Making Conservation Work.” The wordplay in the title of this talk and Dunn’s humorous tone when reflecting about the sheer number of factors to consider in carrying out this treatment complimented her content and underscored the oftentimes futility of efforts to determine an ideal or concrete solution in conservation.
43rd Annual Meeting – “Investigating Softening and Dripping Paints in Oil Paintings Made Between 1952 and 2007” by Ida Antonia Tank Bronken and Jaap J. Boon, May 14
Issues encountered during analysis and treatment of contemporary artworks by conservation scientists, conservators, and other professionals have been brought into the limelight during recent years. Both in the United States and throughout the world, contemporary art collections have introduced new concerns regarding the use of modern materials, artists’ intent, and so on. Even the modern use of materials such as oil paints have demonstrated conservation issues. During this presentation, Bronken described her team’s research into oil paintings (created after 1950) which have exhibited softening and dripping media. The team’s research was conducted on works produced by Jean-Paul Riopelle (Canadian, 1923-2002), Pierre Soulages (French, b. 1919), Georges Matthieu (French, 1921-2012), Paul-Émile Borduas (Canadian, 1905-1960), Frank Van Hemert (Dutch, b. 1956), Paul Walls (Irish, b. 1965), Jonathan Meese (German, b. 1970), and Tal R (Danish, b. 1967).
Softened paint shows decreased surface gloss in normal light and drip material fluoresces in ultraviolet light (sometimes misinterpreted as fluorescing varnish). Softening/dripping impasto and thickly applied paints are easier to identify, but analysis has demonstrated the presence of softening in thinner paint layers as well. Possible causes of this phenomenon are the use of semi-drying oils in recent decades and the development of fatty acids in paint. In their abstract, the authors mention: “There is ample evidence from a number of paints studied by mass spectrometry that the exudates are rich in polar fractions with triglycerides with moieties of mid-chain oxygen-functionalised stearic acids and azelaic acids . . . observations led to the hypothesis that exudation is caused by a loss or absence of anchor sites for the acidic fractions that develop over time.”1
Lead II acetate and europium II acetate were tested by brush and gel application. These compounds treated the softening and dripping oil paint at the molecular level by penetrating into the sample to create carboxylates and forming a hard crust on the paint surface. Brush application was determined to be the most effective method. At this time, the only disadvantage appears to be the lack of reversibility.
About the Speakers
Ida Antonia Tank Bronken, Touring Exhibitions Coordinator, The National Museum, Norway
Bronken graduated from the University of Oslo with a Candidata Magisterii in Fine Art Conservation (2002) and a Masters in Conservation (2009). Bronken has been working for the Touring Exhibitions Department at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway since 2011. Her main interests are collection management and chemical change in modern paint. Bronken has cooperated with Boon since 2007 on different studies on softening and dripping paint, and has contributed to four papers since 2013 about dripping paint (currently at different stages of publication and review).2
Jaap J. Boon, JAAP Enterprise for Art Scientific Studies
Boon, PhD was trained in Geology and Chemistry at the Universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Delft Technical University (1978). He became Head of Molecular Physics at the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (1987) and Professor of Molecular Palaeobotany at the University of Amsterdam (1988). His first survey studies on painting materials and traditional paints were performed in 1991, which resulted in collaborative research with Tate Gallery London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Limburg Conservation Studio (SRAL) in Maastricht and EU supported development projects. His research focus changed gradually from identification of constituents towards chemical microscopy and spectroscopic imaging of pigments, binding media and their interactions in paintings. Boon was Professor of Analytical Mass Spectrometry in the University of Amsterdam (2003-2009) and is presently author/coauthor of about 400 research papers and supervised 33 PhD theses. Boon received the KNAW Gilles Holst Gold Medal for his innovative work at the cross roads of chemistry and physics in 2007.3
1 Bronken, I., & Boon J. J. (2015). Investigating Softening and Dripping Paints in Oil Paintings Made Between 1952 and 2007 [Abstract]. AIC Annual Meeting 2015 Abstracts, 81-82.
2 Bronken, I. (2015). Ida Bronken – AIC’s 43rd Annual Meeting [SCHED Speakers]. Retrieved from https://aics43rdannualmeeting2015.sched.org/speaker/ida_antonia_tank_bronken.1t1j0ku0
3 Boon, J. J. (2015). Jaap J. Boon – AIC’s 43rd Annual Meeting [SCHED Speakers]. Retrieved from https://aics43rdannualmeeting2015.sched.org/artist/boon1
43rd Annual Meeting – Book and Paper Session, May 16, “Unlocking the Secrets of Letterlocking to Reseal the Letters of John Donne and Other Early Modern Letter Writers", Jana Dambrogio
Jana Dambrogio, Thomas F. Peterson Conservator, MIT Libraries, presented the first of three sections in this talk – an introduction to the work she and others have been doing to discover letterlocking.
As letterlocking models were handed out to the audience, Jana began by defining letterlocking as “the folding and securing of any object so that it becomes its own sending device”. This is a 10,000 year tradition, Jana said, dating all the way from Mesopotamian clay tablets to Bitcoin.
Examples of letterlocking Jana showed included the letters of Tomaso di Livrieri at the Vatican secret archive and the letters of Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth used more than ten techniques in her letters, often with two techniques per letter.
Jana described how letters of this type have traditionally been viewed simply as two-dimensional objects. But as a result of this research conservators and scholars are beginning to look at them as 2D/3D hybrids, and they must be treated accordingly.
Jana and her colleagues have been constructing models of the locking techniques based on evidence in the original letters. Jana believes that making models of letterlocking techniques is helpful because they are both a learning tool and a teaching tool for discovering and sharing the patterns.
If the goal in conserving these letters is to preserve their past function conservators are faced with the decision of what to repair and what not to repair, and the question of how to preserve the evidence.
During her talk Jana highlighted recent collaboration such as with Nadine Akkerman of Leiden University in The Hague, with Daniel Starza Smith of The University of Oxford, and with Heather Wolfe of the Folger Shakespeare Library. See links to various demo videos, blogs and publications that have resulted from these collaborations at the end of this post.
Daniel Starza Smith spoke about applying letterlocking to literary history.
Normally scholars look only at the text they can see in letters. But now they are learning to look for folds, seals, and intentional damage – the damage that occurs as a result of opening a letter. These days Daniel asks himself ‘what other messages are there than just who the letter is from and to?’
He took us through some basic background on the development of the writing and sending of letters, from a manual for letter-writing, The English Secretary published in 1586 by scholar Angel Day, to the relatively modern invention of the commercially-produced paper envelope in the mid-19th century.
Daniel noted that the word “secretary” itself comes from the idea of secret keeping. A secretary is one entrusted with secrets, and literary scholars such as Daniel are occupied with revealing secrets and unpacking texts – now in a physical sense.
Delving into the letters of John Donne, Daniel revealed that Donne would use as many as four techniques in locking his letters. Why would you need four ways of locking? For various different purposes, including security and aesthetics. In fact there was even a class difference in the way letters were folded; your folding technique said something about you as a person. Some methods were simple and some were complicated – even “fantastically difficult” – and this reflected on your own sophistication and status.
Daniel concluded his talk with the following three main take-aways:
- Tiny bits of evidence are key in deciphering the folding/locking patterns, and these details are revealing about the history of communication.
- This research has the potential to reach further than just scholars
- The collection of Donne letters – from which much of this research has stemmed – numbers only thirty-eight. More data is needed, and this starts with conservators.
At the beginning of her portion of the talk Heather Wolfe emphasized three points that have come to light during this project.
- The importance of a three-way dialogue between curators, conservators, and scholars.
- This dialogue leads to discoveries, and informs decision making in conservation when considering whether or not to treat
- The need to standardize letterlocking vocabulary, referring to physical details. This is especially important in treatment documentation, and also for catalog searching.
In what Heather described as the “pre-envelope era” a letter was a single leaf that was transformed into a packet. Tearing was required in order to open the letter, and this is the damage we can see today that aids in reconstructing the locking patterns.
Communication with Jana was informative for interpretation of the collection at the Folger – Heather noted that the type of evidence in question tends to me more visible to conservators. For example, Heather no longer refers to the area bearing the address as the “address leaf” of the letter, but rather the address panel of the original packet. Heather went so far as to say that physical evidence such as the folds and intentional damage contains information critical to the interpretation of the letter itself.
She reiterated Jana’s remark that it is very difficult to imagine the folding and locking patterns without practice, and this is the reason they decided to make models.
In letters from the 16th-17th centuries there is evidence of hundreds of riffs on just a handful of basic techniques, such as the pleated letter genre, and the papered seal genre in which a strip is harvested from the letter itself to use as the locking mechanism. The many riffs tend to be associated with specific people.
Finally Heather took us on a whirlwind tour of these various letterlocking genres, but particularly highlighted the technique of binding a pleated letter with silk floss, first used by Queen Elizabeth I. Heather pointed out that while many letters would have been written in the hand of a secretary taking dictation, the nature of this technique suggests more intimacy. Letters of this type were usually written in the hand of the person composing the letter on high quality thin Italian paper.
Question and answer
Q: Have you seen any evidence of postal censors opening letters?
Heather said that she had not seen this specifically. But in the same vein she noted that a distinctive triangular-shaped 20th century Russian letter from the WWII front that was invented due to adhesive being forbidden.
Daniel pointed out that in the early modern period, people would sometimes employ a seal forger, in order to open and re-seal letters; he has seen some examples of this.
Q: Are you presenting these findings to archivists (specifically for the purpose of standardizing vocabulary? Where will you be publishing the vocabulary?
Heather said that the vocabulary is still in development, but that there are currently a lot of resources online, such as the MIT TechTV videos, the youtube letterlocking channel, and blogs. Heather has written in a recent British Library publication on pleated letters, and Jana has a forthcoming article.
Demo videos
Check out the video demos of letterlocking, hosted by MIT TechTV.
Blog posts etc:
A post by Heather and Jana at the Folger
Jana’s letterlocking website
Jana Dambrogio guest post on whatisaletter.wordpress.com
Publications:
‘Neatly sealed, with silk, and Spanish wax or otherwise’, a chapter by Heather Wolfe in the British Library’s In the Prayse of Writing
43rd Annual Meeting – Architecture Specialty Group – May 15, Concrete Actions to Extreme Risks: Conservation of Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage site in danger, IQUIQUE, Chile, Alicia Fernandez Boan
During the Architecture Specialty Group Session, Alicia Fernandez Boan focused on the conservation efforts and needs for two World Monument sites that represent the salt peter mining era in Chile.
The salt peter works are remains of human activity in the Atacama desert. Operation began as part of Peruvian territory in mid-19th century. They were declared world heritage sites in 2005. Humberstone and Santa Laura represent over 200 salt peter works that once existed. The Atacama desert has a temperature extremes from 0 deg c at night to 40 deg c midday, which takes it’s toll on the built environment. The cultural landscape is made up of the structures and surrounding site that is formed due to the accumulation of byproducts of the mining efforts.
At Humberstone, the structures and buildings of the community remain — church, school houses. Alternately, Santa Laura is representative of the industrial sectors found in saltpeter works. The materials are exposed to extreme weather. The structures are also exposed to salts and chemicals that were part of the production. There are dozens of rust colored structures. They include generalized corrosion and galvanized losses.
In order to maintain these sites, several factors must be considered. The conservation of urban sites requires establishment of commercial activity so that the site can be self-sufficient and sustainable. Therefore rehabilitation, recycling, controlled use, and the reoccupation of the territory is greatly needed. Use of these sites as museums documenting the industrial age of salt works is currently happening but more is needed. Rehabilitation, recycling, controlled use, the reoccupation of the territory works will be necessary for the long-term preservation of the sites.
From a conservation standpoint, the sites have conservations needs but they offer the possibility of a conservation field laboratory. This is a place where cleaning tests and environmental aging tests could offer substantial information to the preservation community. The sites offer the ability to study corrosion on a monumental scale under extreme weather conditions.
43rd Annual Meeting – Object Session, 16 May 2015, “Ivory: Recent Advances in its Identification and Stringent Regulation" by Stephanie Hornbeck
Stephanie Hornbeck wrapped up the morning OSG session with her talk, “Ivory: Recent Advances in its Identification and Stringent Regulation.” She set the stage by noting how international and U.S. laws were strengthened in 2014 to combat the rise in ivory trafficking, drawing the connection to conservators since we may be involved in the identification and sampling of ivory materials. It is important for us to be aware of the methods to identify ivory and of the new regulations that apply to it.
Stephanie presented some history about ivory and its use, including a detailed description on what ivory is and how it is formed. Stephanie carefully outlined the diagnostic features for identifying different types of ivory and included a host of images to illustrate her points along the way. Some excellent resources to help with this include Stephanie’s web article for the National Museum of African Art and the Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) website, including this page on identification. A point that Stephanie drove home is how critical it is to have comparative data when attempting to identify and unknown specimen. Photographs of morphological features and known reference material are essential tools to use. An additional aid is the use of UV light as a screening tool to classify the unknown as animal versus vegetal or synthetic. Animal ivories will fluoresce blue-white due to the presence of apatite, while other materials are likely to absorb or produce yellow or orange. Stephanie reminded the audience that the presence of Schreger lines is indicative of Proboscidean ivory, and the angle of the lines can help distinguish between mammoth and mastodon versus elephant. However, she also pointed out that the angle of the lines is variable depending on where along the tusk the lines are being examined. Beyond these visual tests, Stephanie also outlined analytical methods that require sampling. These included FTIR and DNA for identification, as well as isotope analysis, bomb-curve radiocarbon analysis, and the potential of measuring water ad/absorption as methods for possible dating.
From here, Stephanie shifted gears to talk about the ivory trade and new international, federal, and state regulations. She pointed out that the US is the second largest consumer of ivory behind China and that the ivory trade is often a cover for other illicit trade. Although ivory was already a highly regulated material since the 1976 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), these facts, along with the rapidly diminishing population levels of the elephant due to rampant poaching, have led to newer, tighter regulations. After an outline of the various laws and regulation that affect ivory, Stephanie explained that it is now illegal to buy or sell ivory of any age. Only well documented works that can prove a date of more than 100 years and ownership before 1977 can enter the US. The new requirements ask for species-specific identification and specific dating. These regulations are problematic because identifying and dating artifacts to those levels is difficult, if not impossible. The FWS has provided useful information on the new regulations here.
Because of time constraints, Stephanie was not able to fully delve into the implications for traveling exhibitions. She skipped over a case study in which documented ancient ivories owned by the Bolton Museum in Bolton, England were delayed at the Miami International Airport for four days in a tropical environment where climate controls were unknown. Following the new 2014 regulations, the local FWS agent wanted species specific identification of the ancient ivories, which was not readily proven in the existing documentation. That level of identification is also not possible to obtain without destructive analysis. Although ancient worked ivories should have been allowed as part of a traveling exhibition, and CITES permits were provided, the entry into the US was nevertheless delayed at great risk to cultural artifacts. For this reason, coupled with her long-standing research interest in ivory, Stephanie has joined a sub-committee to help develop an AIC position paper on the subject.
N.B. For information on the changes in regulations download: Hornbeck, S. 2016. “Ivory: identification and regulation of a precious material”. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. available via the AIC wiki.