Friend and Smithsonian Conservator Nora Lockshin wrote a lovely post on The Bigger Picture: Visual Archives and The Smithsonian about her research on artist Adelia Gates in response to my question on a watercolor I treated. At the end of her post she wrote about the serendipity of finding mention of a flower in Gates’s writings, and of that flower being present in the painting I worked on. Another layer of serendipity unfolded for me upon reading this – Adelia Gates found that flower by rock-climbing in Colorado. As the director of the American Alpine Club Library, which is the world’s largest resource on mountaineering and climbing, that full-circle pleases me no end.
Tag: Adelia Gates
Zen and the Art of Backing Removal
Peeling an acidic window mat away from the front of a very fragile watercolor may not sound like a fun way to spend a few hours to most people. To me, once I get beyond the fear of doing damage, it is extremely satisfying meditation.
At first, I pry about with different tools, feeling my way to find which scalpel, which knife will work the best with the very particular nature of the paper to be removed. Some move down to the artwork’s surface too quickly for safety. Others are not sharp enough, or are too sharp, or have to be held at the wrong angle. As I work, though, I find the combination and sequence of tools, the right angle, the best direction. I begin to feel as though I understand the way the fibers lay and how to move the tools to lift them with less effort. I enter a bit of a trance, a zone. There is trial and error and a narrowing of attention to the minute level of micron-thick layers of paper that become my world.
I have to remind myself not to get too comfortable – there is always a fragment of something stuck in the paper to block the way, a clump of glue that trips the knife and brings it close to piercing the soft paper of the artwork below, but a sense of right movement develops. It is akin to any other kind of sustained focus, like writing well, or the kind of running that is fast and light and free. I want to go forever. I become mind-less in the best zen sense.
My hand starts to cramp and my neck strained from keeping it at such an odd tilt, but I want to keep going, unwilling to let the learning go, knowing I’ll have to relearn the paper and the flow of the knife the next time I sit down to work on this project. I stop, clean up, and realize I am much calmer than when I first sat down – the reward of silent focus and one of the best parts of this job.
Beth Heller Conservation LLC 