Today started much like the others, nothing new to report!When we arrived at the museum we were put straight into action and went to the stores to collect two sculptures we are going to clean and maybe repair if we have time. Grace joined in with this so she could learn about a technique and material that is not normally used in conservation in England.
We were given gloves that are so much better to the ones we are used to because they have more length in the wrist meaning that it is less likely to get chemicals on your hands, they give a little more protection. I am sure you can get them in England too, so I am now going to be on the look out for them!
- Wrist length gloves, such a great idea, stops chemicals getting in!
So our job is to clean two sculptures, with the help of the lovely Tatiana, with Agar Agar. We were very excited to work with this as Anna had last year and we do not use it in England. This is a 100% natural product made from seaweed, that is normally used in Japanese food and to make veggie jelly. It comes in powder form, then mixed with water and microwaved until it forms a smooth jelly like consistency.
After we completed a condition report about both sculptures we tested the agar agar on each of the sculptures. Unfortunately it did not work to remove the oil paint from past “repairs” from the first sculpture made from gesso and mounted on a wooden base (It will not let me upload a photograph of this one)
.Sculpture two, below, depicts a religious scene; this is made from terracotta with a papyrus wrap around the smaller figure. The whole sculpture has a big build up of dirt and dust on the surface, when we tested the cleaning power of the agar agar it worked fantastically leaving it clean and revealing the terracotta red colour.
Once we had tested the materials, we started up a production line with three beakers of agar agar all at different stages so we could keep on applying it to the surface.
I then also made some cling film underwear with Manuel to protect the papyrus…
And then we kept on thickly applying the agar agar until the sculpture was completely covered!
We left it to dry and will (hopefully) reveal the newly clean surface tomorrow!
Working agar agar was fun, safe and really very easy, I do not know why we don’t use it in England!? Lets hope the results tomorrow will be just as good or even better than the test.
It has been great to be working so hands on in the department only a few days into our placement, and we are sure it will carry on this way!
We also like Brazilian biscuits a lot, there is such a big selection here and we hope to try everyone we can during our 6 weeks here! My favourite so far are chocolate and strawberry ‘Trakinas” and Grace’s are the Brazilian version of a Oreo. Yum!
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