 Sarah Spafford-Ricci works on the John Leman mural at the Saskatchewan Legislature Building. |
The Art of Conservation
by Matt Barron
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It was a parchment over two centuries old and bearing the signature of George Washington, yet it looked like a place mat in some diner. The document, laminated at one point in its life, presumably to protect it from aging, ran yellow and cloudy under the plastic.
Before Washington became the United States’ first president, he was the modern-day equivalent of a real-estate agent, and had signed this contract for the purchase of land. But those at the museum in Loudoun, Virginia, in whose collection the indenture parchment now sits, didn’t yet know the details of this contract, since the yellow clouding left it unreadable.
In 1999, the parchment found its way to Sarah Spafford-Ricci and Tara Fraser at their lab in South Surrey, B.C. In an attempt to dissolve the adhesive that had worked itself into the paper, the parchment was immersed in a container of solvent. The restoration proved a success, though, as Fraser later says, “That was one we held our breath over.” After all, unrestored, the parchment was only worth $50; but, successfully restored, it was worth over $40,000.
 Tara Fraser inpaints or touches-up the Leman mural. |
This project is just one of many that Spafford-Ricci and Fraser have tackled over the last decade. As conservators, the pair restores and preserves not only art, but also historical and cultural artifacts, the spectrum of which is astonishing. They have restored everything from a Group of Seven painting and a wax replica of Liberace’s hands to 4,000 Canadian nautical plans and 30,000 maps of historical Seattle. Situated somewhere in that spectrum is an unusual National Gallery of Canada art piece: a black Trans- Am with the Book of Revelations beautifully scrawled all over it.
Of course, what unites these disparate objects is the deterioration they face, sometimes through neglect or damage, but mostly through simple aging. Conservators attempt to slow down this inexorable process as much as possible. “We specialize in preservation, in making our cultural history last as long as possible,” says Spafford-Ricci.
Spafford-Ricci discovered art conservation while working at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in 1984, just after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan. Soon thereafter, she enrolled in the art conservation program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, the first Saskatchewanian to do so.
Around the same time, Fraser was working in an art gallery frame store. One day, she accidentally broke an intricate glass-encased photo. Not knowing who fixed such things, Fraser soon discovered art conservation herself.
 Wax casts of Liberace hands owned by Liberace Museum before conservation. |
A couple of years later, Fraser met Spafford-Ricci at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, where Spafford-Ricci worked as conservator. The two kept in touch and in 1997, decided to enter private practice together.
They now run the second largest art conservation company in Canada, Fraser/Spafford Ricci Art and Archival Conservation Inc. (FSR). Their expansive conservation lab in South Surrey, with its artist easels and fume hoods, looks like a cross between art studio and chemistry lab. This is hardly surprising since the profession of conservation, as Spafford-Ricci says, requires the mind of a chemist and the hand of an artist.
The right chemical or cleaning solution must be found – or concocted – and paintings often need to be touched up in a way that will do justice to the creator of a work of art or the history behind a document. Sometimes it can take a long time to find the right treatment. For example, it took FSR a year and the testing of around 150 solutions to finally restore a Tibetan Thangka, a kind of cultural painting. Once found, though, the treatment took only 15 minutes.
Sometimes, the right chemical is literally at your fingertips – that is, saliva. Because of its low toxicity, saliva is a solution much in use by conservators. In 2005, FSR restored the John Leman mural Before the White Men Came, which has hung in the Rotunda of the Saskatchewan Legislative building for 73 years. Before restoration, however, thick layers of dirt covered it, and saliva turned out to be the best cleaner.“We tested every fancy chemical because we wanted to use something quite fancy,” Spafford-Ricci jokes. Conservators carefully rolled swabs soaked in saliva over all 480 square feet of its canvas, a process that required the better part of 221 hours and over a million swabs.
 Wax casts of Liberace hands owned by Liberace Museum after conservation. |
Sustaining yourself through such treatments, Spafford-Ricci says, is easy, as long as there are other conservators to help. “To be a conservator you have to be okay with methodical work. You just have to have that personal trait where you see those small progressions and you’re really pleased with them.”
But since the best restoration just might be the prevention of avoidable deterioration, FSR spends half of its time advising museums and cultural and government institutions on ways to preserve collections. FSR has worked with the International Monetary Fund to assess and help prevent the threat posed to documents, historical coins, and bills by the light, temperature, and humidity found in its Washington, D.C. building. They’ve done the same for the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, pouring over Mr.Showmanship’s arcane collection of pianos, sheet music, and clothing, including the famous 200-pound “King Neptune” costume.
FSR also advised those involved with the 2005 Saskatchewan Centennial mural, painted by Métis artist Roger Jerome and featuring a pastoral Northern Saskatchewan scene. The mural now hangs directly across the legislative building from the Leman mural. Prior to its restoration, the Leman held only 50 per cent of its original quality, partly because of the water damage it had suffered from being mounted against the wall.
“We don’t want what happened to that mural to happen to the Leman,” says Spafford-Ricci, adding that both she and Fraser remember seeing the Leman during class trips to the Legislature. She says during the next Centennial, “it should look very much the same as it does now.”
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The Politkovski (1910), by artist John Moss, owned by Bainbridge Island Historic Society, Bainbridge Island, Washington State, USA. |
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