Ceramic Repairs for Conservation

Perhaps the most boring title-line ever, but it was hard to work 'explosions' into a description of conservation.  Maybe a 'before' and 'after' scenario?

At any rate, here is the 'before':

It is a good time to explain the difference between conservation and restoration.  To abbreviate and keep things simple, conservation tries to keep things from falling apart more, to halt decay or just slow it down.  Restoration on the other hand, is to regain lost ground, to reverse the decay and bring things back to original condition AND functionality.

So, why conserve and not restore this piece?

Well, the function, as it is, is purely decorative.  This vase was a gift from my grandparents, an old, family piece, originally purchased in China sometime in the 1890's by a great (x3?) grandfather who was there as a metallurgical engineer to open mines.  Sorta makes me feel boring, like I need to go out a wrestle a python or something.  With that background on provenance, I was able to find out a bit more about the piece.  It is a Chinese version of an older Japanese style (China was making this during a brief period when China had opened its ports and Japan had dialed back production) and while it is lovely and somewhat unusual in its large size, it isn't super valuable.  That massive chip was an accident, over 100 years ago.

oops...

Ultimately, it would just be nice to have the chip filled in and it never has to function as anything other than an object for viewing.  I am a big believer that fixes should be minimal and reversible, being optimistic that someday a better fix may be possible and so you never what to do anything that commits you to irrevocable actions.  A restoration of this piece would mean getting filler put in that is as durable and tough as ceramic.  Yeah, so, that isn't reversible and it is overkill for something that just needs to sit there.  And the break is partially hidden by a lid, no less.  So, conservation it is!!!

I am going to do a patch of plaster and PVA, paint it, seal it, and apply metal leafing to finish.

This is for the initial patch, prior to any coloring or sealing:

1. Plaster of Paris
2. PVA
3. Distilled water...
           ...you could do tap, but I am a purist *ba-dum-ching* with restoration
4. Mixing containers
5. Sponge
6. Stirring utensil
7. Paper towels (always plan on mess)
8. Tarp (did I mention the mess?)
9. Mat-board or something to plaster-up for color matching samples later

This is not going to be an afternoon project.  Give yourself hour-long chunks of time to be available, from application to clean up on a plaster layer, and know that this might take you a few days.

Give your break surface a quick sponge down with the water, just to get rid of any surface filth.  While that is drying, mix up the plaster.

Though you could mix up the Plaster of Paris with just water alone, the addition of PVA makes the filler more sticky, less permeable to humidity and surface moisture (you don't want the plaster and color to smear later), and it is still totally reversible and removable.  The amounts of PVA, Plaster of Paris, and water will vary according to how concentrated your PVA is and humidity.

I eyeballed about 2x the amount of plaster I would need to fill in the break, added a healthful blorp of PVA, then added in water until it was a bit too runny (explanation coming).  Then,  I added back in small amounts of Plaster of Paris, ultimately edging towards very sticky... but still able to stand and not run... frosting.  Try to mix all the little clumps out, but you can cover those up later.  Not the end of the world, though, not ideal.

Now, consider your break.  Bid it, 'farewell.'

No regrets.  Always reversible.

You will not be able to patch a big break all in one go.  Besides the fact that a big clump of plaster will settle, slip, and possible fall, it will also contract as it dries.  You will almost certainly get cracks in large amounts of wet plaster from one application after it dries.  No biggie.  Just patch it with the next application.

This is the first coat:

It took about an hour to dry enough so that I could take a damp sponge to clean up the edges as they overlap with the ceramic vase at the break-line.  Remember, you want to fill the hole, not mushroom over it.  If the plaster TOTALLY dries before you try to clean it up with a sponge, it is much more work.  Hence, give yourself that hour window for application and clean up.

Keep building up those layers, keeping clean and shaping as you go, and try to get the fill just a touch below the glazing on the ceramic.  Since you are going to paint and seal this up, the seam will be less noticeable if you give room for the build up of the top coat.

When I get ready for the final, plaster coat and smoothing, I'll do something a bit different (stay tuned).  And then we will take care of the plaster coating on that mat board.  So... have fun and I hope you have a big tarp or are more graceful than I am.

The Old Man and the Coelacanth

Seattle is dangerous.

Okay, that is totally unfair BUT that is totally a Coelacanth attacking Seattle water-traffic.  For those of you playing at home, it is Koch's 1891 bird's eye of 'Seattle and Environs' (crickets??? seriously, historic print collecting is a pulse-pounding hobby).  The plastic Coelacanth is preparing to nom on the forerunner to the ferry pier.

Anyway, I am on a new crocheting venture involving said fish.  This one is to be donated for a fundraising auction.  I am thinking his (?) name shall be Hemingway and he (a 'she' Hemingway seems like a crime against nature and daiquiris)  will be locked in battle with a crab, aptly named 'Old Man.'  I am sure my high-school lit teacher is right chuffed.  Shout out to Mr. Dryer.

Now, refunds with receipts only...

Best ABC Book EVER

All this making of baby gifts reminds me of this book:

 

I happened upon this book by chance a while ago and it was just so unique, I had to buy it.  It is a lovely thing.  This book is the translation/reprint by Charles Plante of the alphabet book made for the young Alfred Bourdier de Beauregard by his uncle Arnaud.

No one is really sure who exactly uncle Arnaud was, but it is clear that he loved his nephew and went through a lot of work to make him this precious gift.  Incidentally, the nephew Alfred prized this gift all his life.

Just a ton of work: drawing, painting, then binding.  Besides the fact that it is a labor of love, it is such a great window into aristocratic French life post-Revolution.  Alfred's family managed to escape death and preserve wealth (though the Chateau de Beaumont de Beauregard was partially burned by peasant mobs) by living a secluded life in this lovely chateau, illustrated in the book.  Plus, there are all the other important pictures that seem to be in every alphabet book since the beginning of time.

You always gotta have a rainbow.

 

 

More info on this peach of a book:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780847830107-0

Que Sera, Seurat

I feel bad saying it, I'm sure that some people will suck in their breath over it, but I don't care for Georges Seurat's paintings.  Now, I adore his black and white drawings, but I really don't think very highly of his paintings.

This is the corner shot from the previous post on decorating and, if you look to the upper left, you will see a drawing.

This is a quick copy I did of a Seurat sketch for a study assignment in college.  It isn't the best photograph, shot through glass and edited to reduce glare, and it isn't the best copy (done in an hour starting at midnight in the tradition of art school homework).  Still, I admire the heck out of Seurat's drawings.  They are all moody, sensitive, emotive, and compositionally exquisite.

So why am I hating on his paintings?  Well, I would like to point out that I am not the only one to hate on them.  In fact, Renoir and Monet would not show with him and Pissarro, who initially supported the 'philosophy' that Seurat's work embodied, grew to dislike it.  The reasoning for this dislike is, simply put, his painting are not paintings.  At best, they are depictions with paint.  Just a misuse of the medium.  For a painter's painter, it is an insult to the craft (for what it is worth, I am not a painter's painter either).  I think Seurat made his pieces as paintings because he 'had to' for them to be 'finished' pieces of art in its most elevated form.  Honestly, if you get a bunch of 2D artists in a room, open up a few bottles of wine, fast-forward an hour or so, and it will be very clear that for them, painting (and only oil painting) is tiered above drawing, printmaking, and really just everything.  So I don't think that Seurat would have felt comfortable on a professional, Academically trained level, to have a finished masterpiece as anything but an oil painting.

I think this is too bad.  His work is all about the color relationships.  He coined it Chromoluminarism, also called Divisionism.  Pointillism is the technique he used to show the effects that these pure, little bits of color had when they were next to each other.  For Seurat, art was all about the connotative result of certain colors combined with the literal perceived color for the viewer.  His art was entirely wrapped up in the new ideas of human perception and budding color theory.  These contrasting dots of color would add up at a distance.  If you think about it, this should sound an awful lot like the applications of color in printmaking (of course, exactly like dot-matrix printing but that isn't of historical relevance).   But seriously, wouldn't it have made a killer print?

So you would think that Seurat would at least take advantage of his choice in mediums and capitalize on the characteristics of paint.  But no, the surface of his canvas is flat.  I admit, I pulled a Cameron Frye when I was in front of La Grande Jatte.  You know what?  There was no body to the paint, no lovely surface.  And that is what I personally don't like.  While I am neutral to the subject matter and stylized figures, the lifeless paint just reduces everything to an image.  It just seems like a missed opportunity.  There is something frustrating when you are looking at art which is all ideology.  I wonder if Seurat even had fun making them, or was it all just cerebral?  I think the soul is lost from his beautiful drawings.  It is crazy to think that these black and whites had less rules and structure thrust upon them than these paintings with their vivid colors.

But this is just my take.  I am sure others will disagree.  At the end of the day, Georges Seurat left a legacy and opened doors for new thinking.  I just hope he got some joy out of his work as he went.

Image notes:
The top sketch is my copy of Seurat's sketch of a nude model, done in conte.  The top painting is The Bathers at Asnieres, the next is a detail from Parade de Cirque, and the bottom painting is the famous Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.  All images are public domain in the US (US-1923).

Didn't get your fill on the fabulous, technicolor pit of color theory and Seurat?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Seurat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divisionism
There, now your mind should be reduced to putty... colorful, colorful putty.

King Rene's Book of Love

...Le Cueur d'Amours Espris, to be more precise.  I happened upon this book, a small run done as a critical edition/art re-print from the Library of Vienna in 1975, while perusing my local bookstore. Besides the fact that I am a sucker for illuminated manuscripts and a lover of lover of Medieval Lit., this manuscript is a true Outsider-Artist-Book.

King Rene, King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou, was never formally trained, but he did study briefly under Jan van Eyck and had a bunch of time to 'practice' during his long imprisonment in Dijon.  He made his Book of Love as a wedding present for his wife, Jeanne of Laval (freaking cute, right???), in about 1460.  It is in the tradition of the Court Romance.  For those of you who have read The Romance of the Rose *crickets*, then this is almost play by play.  Much like Guillaume de Lorris's and Jean de Meun's allegorical romance, King Rene has a maiden imprisoned by personified vices and conflicts and the knight of love comes and rescues her.  Yay!!

I just think that King Rene has surprising skill.  For someone with no real training, he is remarkably good.  I like this night scene especially:

He is working in egg tempera, which is a bit tricky to work with.  While it is water soluble initially, you cannot rework it once dry.  So he had to do it right the first time.  I have been privileged to handle quite a few illuminated manuscripts and Book of Hours and I really think that his work is as good as any of his more professional contemporaries in that genera.

Kind of raises the bar in wedding gifts.  That Crate and Barrel gift card is looking pretty weak right now...

Some more on Good King Rene:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_of_Anjou

Really bored?  How about some Courtly Romance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_romance

We were talking about Pigments, right?

I tend to get into anything that allows me to obsessively buy and collect things.  This is my favorite reason for making paints.  Sure, there are better reasons (quality control, cost, feeling of superiority), but just looking at a shelf full of color is like opening up a new box a crayons, every time you look at it.  I will do some paint making demos later, but for now, I think some background information on pigments would be helpful.  To begin with, everyone used to make their own paints.  Some pigments came from local minerals/organic materials and others were sourced in.  Depending on where you lived, there were variations in these 'earth' pigments.  This, combined with the natural light of your geographic location, really flavored the palette of an artist.  Eventually, these traditions built up into painting methods (bistre vs. grisaille...for the under paintings).  As time went on, these methods managed to influence the demand for certain pigments and ultimately, the development of synthetics.  Synthetic pigments can mean several different things.  Sometimes they are chemically identical, just lab made, and other times they are chemically different, with different properties (luminosity, lightfastness, opacity).  Generally, the reason for the later was because the original pigment was ridiculously toxic.  Of course, most pigments are heavy metals and should be treated as a small python; sure it is little and cute now... but keep around it for 20 years and it will eventually injure or kill you.  Those heavy metals build up in your liver and other filtering organs and eventually bad things will happen.  And that's not even talking about the carcinogenic pigments.  So please, handle with extreme care.

One of the more toxic pigments, Vermilion, is a great example of the evolution of pigments and the breadth of choices for the modern artist.  Originally, Vermilion was ground Cinnabar, HgS.  It is a Mercury compound and so it is crazy toxic.  So now, you can only really get 'Vermilion' or 'Vermilion Hue' and generally it is made with Cadmium (not too much of an improvement).  The funny thing about Vermilion, is that everyone made it a little differently in the past and these color choices are still influencing the modern formulations.  The more you grind down Cinnabar, the bright and orange it becomes (it also becomes more susceptible to fading).  It starts out kind of Rose Madder-y, and then it goes, well, Vermilion---French Vermilion anyway.


Most of our modern ideas on the 'correct' hue of a color stem from the French aesthetic of the color.  I am not really sure why, but I just think that bright colors are just better at attracting attention than their duller versions.  In general, French painting embraces very bright, vibrant, jewel tones (just check out any Impressionist piece), though it may be on top of a grisaille under-painting in older paintings (like a Fragonard).  Bearing this in mind, if you are buying pigments and paints from a French company (Sennelier being the main one), you are going to get much, much brighter versions of the same 'pigment' than you get from other makers.  Just look at this:

Two different examples of the 'same' pigments.  These are Sennelier's (L) and Sinopia's (R) versions of Green Chrome Oxide and Venetian Red Earth.  Crazy, right?


So I buy different colors from different companies.  I use Italian sources for my earthy colors (in bistre tradition), French for my jewel tones, and English/Japanese/American for things in between.

Be the obnoxious source of information on Vermilion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion
Be even more obnoxious with grisaille:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisaille
Now make them loath you with bistre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistre
Okay, woo them back with Fragonard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Honor%C3%A9_Fragonard
And everything is forgiven with Impresionists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism