Preventive Projects
Throughout my time at Brooklyn, I participated in preventive work as the opportunities arose. Preventive projects are described here which include box making, evaluation of emergency plans, and major dusting projects. Backing boards, while I consider preventive work, are on a separate page found here.
Box Construction
As part of typical museum conservator duties, I would often write condition reports for possible acquisitions. Vase 2 and Landscape 3 - both by Alex Katz - came to the lab for that purpose, along with others that were assigned to Camille Ferrer, our Mellon Fellow. Both of the paintings assigned to me were are small, on Masonite with no other auxiliary support, and neither were framed. Because of these material choices, these paintings were vulnerable to physical damage - especially along the edges of the Masonite. Once they were accessioned into the collection I could act on the recommendation given in my initial assessment and make custom housing for them. The outer design of the blue-board box was simple, with a fully removable lid and finished corners. The inside was a bit more complex. The bottom was lined with 1/4” Volara that had 2” x 4” cut-outs on either side of the painting to make removing it from the box easier. Since the boxes had added space around the paintings to allow easier handling, ethafoam blocks padded with Volara were added near the corners to keep the painting from shifting during handling of the boxes. Finishing touches were to add labeling to the lids, which included their accession numbers, orientation images for the more abstract ones, and warnings about mold remediation some had required.
Vase 2 and Landscape 3 in their custom boxes
Detail - Internal construction of box
Removing fluting to prepare for finished corners PC: Camille Ferrer
Finished corner of boxes
Handling Oversized Paintings
As a team, the paintings lab and art handlers, unrolled and re-rolled two oversized paintings in one day: Moods to Music by Robert Frederick Blum and Christmas Bells by Edwin Howland Blashfield. Moods to Music is 117 7/16” x 580 ½” and Christmas Bells is 180 ⅞” x 123 5/16”. Due to the oversized nature of these paintings, they had to be unrolled in the Beaux Arts Court on a day the museum was closed as the space is public during open hours. Poly was placed and taped down to prepare a clean safe surface. The purpose behind unrolling these paintings was two-fold: the documentation (written and photographic) of these paintings was lacking and the American curators had not seen them in person and had some questions. Once the curators saw their fill, the paintings lab split up in pairs to document each painting. Lauren and I focused on documenting Moods to Music, this resulted in a written condition report which Lauren and I collaborated on, and thorough photo documentation of any condition issues, including a large tear in the center of the painting. Since this painting is so long, we were unable to take a photo of its entirety. However, with some photoshop work, I was able to satisfactorily stitch a series of images taken on Lauren’s phone into one long image. While there may be some warping, and it can certainly not be used as official photography, it does capture the overall composition of the painting. With our images and documentation notes taken, it was time to re-roll the paintings. This required 5-7 people for each painting. The unrolling and re-rolling was thoroughly documented and I compiled a handling PDF that outlines what we did, to serve as handling instructions for Moods to Music.
Moods to Music by Robert Frederick Blum - Spliced image from multiple phone photos
Christmas Bells by Edwin Howland Blashfield
Unrolling Christmas Bells, PC: Collections Team
Moods to Music unrolled, PC: Collections Team
Dusting for a Storage Move
The Brooklyn Museum is developing new gallery space for their African Collection; they are doing this by converting a current storage space, 3O11, into a gallery. Because of this, there will be a huge storage move within the building. The paintings team took this chance to dust paintings and frames, clean glazing, consolidate frames, and flag any extra delicate paintings on the screens in 3O11. This rounded up to around 900 paintings and framed paper art works. Between four conservators and assistance from our collections maintainer, we knocked out all the dusting in three days. We used soft bristle hair brushes to dust the front of paintings, soft brushes and cosmetic sponges for gilt/ornate frames, microfiber cloths for modern sealed frames, and microfibers with 1:1 ethanol:DI water to wipe down glazing. We took note of what was done to each painting/framed work, and have added the information to TMS.
Environmental Monitoring
In March, I was responsible for writing up a summary of weekly environmental monitoring. Brooklyn Museum uses Lascar devices and the EasyCloud software to monitor gallery and storage environments. The interpretation and summary of the lascar data is then sent out to the entire conservation lab, the building architect, building engineers, registrars, and collection management. It was a great way to get a sense of the building, especially since I am almost always in the lab. Not all our gallery spaces are climate controlled, which gave me a chance to really compare how volatile the environment can be in non-regulated spaces compared to their climate control counterparts. It was also instructive to compare the outside weather and track events, such as First Saturdays, in the museum and tie them to irregularities in the readings. The museum has 50 Lascar devices running, which is the max limit on their EasyCloud plan. There are two old-school hygrometers in the lab that are changed weekly and included in the interpretations.
Screenshot of readings from a non-climate controlled space