The Pinacoteca – Page 2 – Issy & Grace's Conservation Journey

Week begining 7th at the Pinacoteca

Isabelle Vaudrey / October 14, 2013October 16, 2013 / General, The Pinacoteca

Its been a busy week so we thought it was best to do sumaries of everything this week! Our Pinacoteca projects and life outside of the Pinacoteca! Our big update is that we moved into Valeria´s appartment on Monday! We went straight from the bus station into work on Monday afternoon- tired and smell but eager to conserve as ever 😉 Teodora drove Valeria, Issy and I back to Valeria´s. We felt like we were in some type of children´s film about orphans being adopted by a long lost relative. Lovely Aunty Val had made us loads of home made vegetable soup, washed and ironed all of our clothes and made us beautiful beds right out of a fairy tale book- all of which is exactly what you need after 17 hours on a coach and a weekend of mainly eating bread and crisps.

For Tuesday and Wednesday Valeria gave us packed lunches of rice and vegetable dishes that she had made herself along with salad and a bottle of dressing! We thought we would come back to England much tougher and more world weary but now we´re used to this cushy lifestyle I doubt it will happen!

We think that we have brought some type of bad luck to Valeria´s building as the following things have happened since out arrival:

1. Valeria dropped a glass.

2. On Wednesday night the man in control of the hot water turned it off to spite one of the other people in the building and it didn´t come back on until Thursday morning.

3. When it did come back on it was temperamental, which lead to Valeria forgetting to turn the hot tap on the shower off before she went to Russia on Thursday. We didn´t arrive back until 11pm on Thursday so the hot water must have been running for about 10 hours and had stained lots of Valeria´s photos, paintings and walls. We spent about an hour drying everything out!

In other news we went out to our favourite Brazilian bar, Veloso with our French friend Emmanuel who we met at Uvaia Hostel!

Everybody decided that Frida Baranek´s sculpture had been cleaned and polished to an appropriate level so Monday morning was our first Fridaless morning in a couple of weeks!

DSCN4568[1] — Frida Baranek is finished!

Isabelle :- This week I have been using water colours to retouch the old and new fills around the wrists, main body and base of the sculpture. I am sorry to say there is not much more to report about this!

IMGP0986 — Isabelle retouching her fills using water colours, while wearing a new Pinacoteca lab coat that took 8 months to arrive!

Agar Agar – Tatiana has also returned from her honey moon this week so I have been frantically quizzing her about agar agar.

She has taught me so much in just a few days; it is all very interesting!

Tatiana has been working on a piece that has just been laser scanned ready for casting in bronze. The sculpture is made from gesso and was very dirty all over; you could almost not tell it was white underneath!

This sculpture has been cleaned three ways, using a layer of normal agar agar 5% in water, then a layer of latex and Anjusil and finally a layer of 5% agar agar and 2% EDTA or Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. EDTA is an aminopolycarboxylic acid or a salt soap. Used with agar agar it helps absorb more dirt and give an even cleaner better finish. It does not change any of the physical properties of the agar agar and is made as you would do normally then add the EDTA after cooking; it only affects its cleaning abilities. The final results are fantastic, the piece is white all over, a big difference.

The Second layer of agar agar and EDTA, great results!

She has also taught me about using latex mixed with Anjusil. She learnt this technique while on a professional placement in Spain. Anjusil is an ammonia based product that does not seem to have any information about it online, Tatiana also has had trouble finding any information about this too and has worked out its properties by trial and error.

The agar agar has very different properties to the latex and absorbs more dirt; it penetrates into the material, removing not just the surface dirt but the layers beneath without damaging the surface or having to use any harsh chemicals or mechanical methods. Whereas the latex is very different, it is mixed with Anjusil and brushed onto the surface forming only a thin layer a couple of millimeters, or as thick as you can make it as it is a very thin mixture. The latex mix then will only remove surface dirt, this would be a good technique on some materials but when used to clean the majority of materials agar agar would still be more effective.

Grace: This week I carried on colour matching my fills! I am using Maimeri and Charbonnel oil paints diluted in Toluene.

On my first day of colour matching last week Manuel taught me the secret to good colour matching, which is- wait for it- building up layers! Yes, yes its the same when colour matching in ceramics or ethnography but its still a useful thing to bare in mind.

Teodora and Tatiana both gave me a new tip this week, which is more specific to this Project. I have to apply a layer of the adhesive Paraloid B72 diluted in Xylene (1:5) onto my colour matching in order to create the same shine and texture on my fills as the rest of the painting. I started to apply this layer of Paraloid B72 in Xylene this week and found that it could dissolve my colour matching quite easily. Teodora and Tatiana both suggested that I experiment with mixing this adhesive in with the paint and solvent to achieve a thicker consistency, the correct shine and to make the retouching more resistant to the layer of Paraloid B72 and Xylene that I would apply on top of it.

At the end of Friday I thought that I might be ready to apply a final protective layer to my painting but after consulting Manuel he asked me why I had not retouched the white area on the right hand side of the palm tree. I explained that I had thought it was paint as it had not been removed with the varnish and it had a similar texture to the surrounding areas. Manuel did not think that it made sense to apply this pale colour in such a dark area and said that it must be an abrasion that I should retouch.

DSCN4570[1] — Nearly finished colour matching and mysterious white/yellow section next to palm tree.

We had a look under the microscope and found a substance that looked like some type of adhesive or varnish. We tested removing it with a scalpel and found it to be soft and easy to remove without scratching the green paint underneath.

DSCN4569[1] — The white substance as seen underneath the microscope (x45 mag) The area in the top right has been removed using a scalpel and one is able to see that the green paint is unaffected.

We decided to remove all of this substance in the same manner.

DSCN4574[1] — Me removing the white/yellow substance using a scalpel and microscope.

DSCN4578[1] — The painting after the removal of the white/yellow substance

Manuel told me that now the larger fills had been retouched, the smaller areas of dirt and cracks stood out more and I should focus on retouching them in the following week.

This week we have also spent a morning working alongside Teodora, Henrique and Diego at the Estação , the other Pinacoteca, to prepare an exhibition for display. We had to label the back of a selection of frames with labels about the use of museum glass with anti-reflective and UV protection.

IMGP1005 — Grace sticking a label to the back of a frame with Diego.

Cleaning a current exhibition at the Estação do Pinacoteca:

Last but not least – food and hygiene.

Apart from Valeria´s amazing packed lunches and dinners while she has been here, she has also brought us a massive pile of food to eat while she is away on her hoildays……………..

IMGP1055 — Friday: Valeria left us wine, soup and lots of other goodies!

IMGP1060 — Saturday: Val style rice, aparagus, carrot, sweetcorn, French cheese for Issy and Tofu spread for Grace (both courtesy of lovely Val!), salad and Mango for dessert. She has spoiled us rotten!

IMGP1072 — We made two massive pans full of Brazilian style beans! Plain on the left, tomato on the right.

IMGP1073 — Trying to open the jar of palm that Valeria left for us! It was an impossible mission!

IMGP1074 — More Brazilian beans than you could shake a stick at! We both looked 8 months pregnant afterwards but it was worth it.

Shine, mould and paint.

Isabelle Vaudrey / October 2, 2013 / The Pinacoteca

This morning there was no new jam, but we have requested pineapple jam before we leave Uvaia hostel. Lets hope we can make one more final jam update really worth it!

Shine:

Today we requested the help of four macho men, Ana and both of us to turn the sculpture over so we can start to clean the other side. We were disappointed when we turned it as this side was very dirty and dull, so lots of more polishing! Grace also used the small vacuum to remove the dust before we polished the morning away.

Mould:

This afternoon when I went to get my sculpture I was greeted with another small layer of mould! This layer luckily was not very thick at all and was mostly just a white fluffy layer, but this is very annoying! So I swabbed off the layer with synthetic salvia which took quite a long time, then carried on re touching with watercolours and finally testing out some fill materials.

Paint:

Grace has been retouching her fills using Toluene and pigments.

Try and spot Grace's amazing colour matching... — Try and spot Grace’s amazing colour matching…

We unfortunately did not achieve that much today with our main projects because this afternoon Valeria gave a talk to Sao Paulo technical college about the conservation unit and what they do. Manuel gave a tour and small talk about the labs as well, we attended the talk and sat with our pieces and talked a little about them. But everyone there was really interested in the fact that we came from England and one of the tutors asked for the University’s contact details to be able to start a possible exchange! Which would be absolutely great!

Other news:

We are moving out of our hostel on Thursday, leaving our belongings at Valeria’s apartment and then going off for the weekend to Iguazu falls!! Very exciting!

More mould and filling!

Grace Victoria Osbourne / October 1, 2013October 10, 2013 / The Pinacoteca

We’re wondering if you really care about the jam or if you’re humouring us. We think its probably the latter but I’ll tell you anyway. We’re still eating the strawberry and its still pretty wonderful. We have four days left at Uvaia and then we’re moving to Valeria’s!We’re also trying to get away this weekend, preferably to Igacu Falls! We were debating how we would ever wake up without the Uvaia breakfast to look forward to but we bought some pineapple jam this afternoon that will definitely get us up next week!

We were working on the bronze sculpture again this morning. Issy was frustrated that she forgot her MP3 player (all she wanted was a cheesy pop soundtrack to brighten up her morning of polishing!) and we were both a little disappointed that the sculpture was not as shiney as we thought we had left it.

We were introduced to three men from “Fundicao Artistica No Brasil”, an organisation set up by the SESI-SP and SENAI-SP in order to save skills such as lost wax casting, which are becoming archaic. They were setting up equipment to conduct a 3D scan on a sculpture as a preliminary step to making a mould of it. They will be around for the next two weeks and we’re looking forward to learning more about their project.

Lunch fun. Chatted with Valeria, Yvi from the exhibition dept and Daphine from the educational dept.

Issy was dismayed to find a fresh batch of mould had appeared over the weekend. This new mould was different to before: there was less and this time it was green! Look forward to some photos of that tomorrow! Not one to be beaten by mould, Issy removed it with more synthetic saliva and hopefully it won’t return now. She spent the rest of the afternoon retouching the areas of loss on her sculpture.

This afternoon I continued to create more texture on my fills so that they will blend in with the paint strokes of my painting more. I then applied a separation layer of the adhesive Paraloid B72 dissolved in the solvent Xylene (1:5) over the fills and left it in the fume cupboard, ready for retouching tomorrow!

DSCN4379 — Me applying Paraloid B72 in Xylene 1:5 onto my fills as a seperation layer.

Tonight we gave up on the big healthy meals and ate two bags of crisps between us. I ate a lot of our new favourite peanut snack “Pacoquinhas” and Issy ate a load of biscuits.

We bought an orange to salvage our health and well beings but its still sitting lonely and uneaten on the table.

Lots of love to the UK! We have bought raisins and will soon make scones to unite you with Brazil!

Friday 27th – half way through our placement

Isabelle Vaudrey / September 28, 2013 / The Pinacoteca

Time is flying by, we can not believe how quickly our time here is going. Only three more weeks left on placement, then one further week when we travel a little bit, then back to England!

Our time at the museum is going to be split between cleaning the large bronze and rubber tube sculpture in the mornings and then working on our main projects in the afternoons.

This morning we carried on polishing up the heavily tarnish surface of the bronze strips. We are using metal polish on non-abrasive wipes then using a soft cloth to wipe away any residue. The results are great, very clean and shiny, but due to the size and shape it also quite hard to clean!

I think this is going to take quite a while to polish up completely, currently we are operating a random system of clean anywhere and then we will rotate the whole sculpture and repeat.

I had a bad moment when I first looked at the layer of agar agar I applied yesterday, as it had dried against the sculpture! I tried to peel it off and it started to remove some of the surface, I obviously stopped at once, but worked out that agar agar is made originally using water, so I wetted the agar, it softened it up and I was able to peel if off with out any more major problems. Phew!

The dried agar agar is shiny on the surface, you have to look really closely to see it.

I believe this has happened, not because of the mix or thickness I applied it. But because I put it in the fume cupboard, with extraction that sucked out all of the water from the agar, therefore drying it out! Even though the agar dried out so quickly it did remove some of the black mould that I was planning to remove originally, so it was a success!

I have also colour matched the areas where the agar removed the original surface

Colour matching and re-touching with watercolours

Grace has added texture to her fills using Modostuc, with a scalpel and a paint brush.

Teodora helped Grace with this, using a torch as raking light to show the texture of the original surface, a very clever simple trick!

And in other museum news, Grace went and got the coffee from the coffee ladies trolley…

…this a big deal because we can not speak Portuguese properly, so welcoming people when they buzz the door is quite tricky and the Brazilians love their coffee!

Tonight the hostel is busy, as always on a Friday, and currently outside our room there are two French men listening to the most random mix of music ever, from Led Zeppelin to Kanye West and also to make the French more stereotyped they are drinking red wine!

We have also made traditional Brazilian white beans tonight, they look good. I will make them for all my family and friends when I get home, I promise!

To Veloso for Mandioca Fritas, Coxinhas and Capirinhas!

Grace Victoria Osbourne / September 28, 2013October 10, 2013 / General, The Pinacoteca

Yesterday a day late!

Still no new jam!

I’m only going to do a little review of our work as Issy is writing up today’s blog at the same time and not too much has changed!

We started on a massive rubber and bronze sculpture by””Tenor, Sentimental, Album, Gala e Fatal” Frida Baranek. We have to clean it before it goes on display in Rio!

DSCN4255 — “Tenor, Sentimental, Album, Gala e Fatal” by Frida Baranek

DSCN4276 — Issy vacuuming the sculpture with a Luz Gonzaga smile

DSCN4280 — Me air compressing the sculpture to shift the dust out.

I carried out the larger fills on my painting using Modostuc. I will write more about the fills on Monday but leave you with a little picture of my painting at the end of the day!

DSCN4300 — My painting at the end of the day. My fills are nearly finished but need more texture adding. I also need to remove the excess filling material from the painting.

Issy stuck her hand on using Araldite. She also applied a new layer of Agar to try and remove the remaining stains of the mould. I have no pictures of these incidents so you will have to wait until her post in about five minutes! I do however have photos of her with her first Brazilian Sim card!

DSCN4289 — Issy and Ana with Issy’s first Brazilian phone call!

After work Priscila and Ana very kindly treated us to a night out at Veloso’s! A very popular bar famous for its Coxinhas (like fried chicken croquettes) and Capirinhas (Brazilian fruity cocktails that are usually made with the Brazilian spirit, Cachaca). Issy loved the Coxinhas and shared two plates with Ana and Priscila! Ana order me some Mandioca Fritas instead, which are chips made from a Brazilian root vegetable! They were lovely and dead filling!

We had some crazy cocktail combinations! Starfruit and Basil, Tangerine and Pimento, Caju, Three Citruses, Pomegranate and Lime, Jabuticaba and Mixed Berries…. Mmmm! England needs to up its cocktail game!

We had a nice Pinacoteca gossip! Everybody at work has been so lovely and welcoming! Priscila and Ana took us out for drinks, Teodora has invited us to the beach, Valeria has invited us to stay at her house, Manuel has invited us out for dinner and Diego is taking us dancing on Saturday! The none conservation staff have all started talking to us more! Its great meeting people here!

DSCN4303 — Mandioca Fritas, Coxinhas and Capirinhas

DSCN4305 — Priscila, Issy, Me and Ana at Veloso!

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