Jam update: the last of the strawberry and tangerine ( it tastes like caramelised marmalade, but slightly too caramelised) So tomorrow hopefully there will be a new jam. YAY!
Another normal day at the museum, friendly greetings to the security guards and then all of the staff, we are starting to perfect our Portuguese “good morning”…after three weeks!
We both set back to work on our pieces, Grace today has had a good day applying a layer of Paraloid B72 in Xylene 1:5 to the surface of her painting to create a layer in-between the original and her re-touching. She has also taken lots of very interesting raking light photographs to show the texture of the paint on the surface and researched into suitable paints for re-touching.
Grace applying a layer of Paraloid B72 in XyleneThe paining under raking light, showing the surface texture
My day today started off by sewing the tie on my apron back off as yesterday I pulled it off! I then looked at my previous retouching on the thumb and decided to leave it as it is for the moment, I think I might add a pale terracotta colour coat over the top, but at the moment I am now sure. I have also started to colour match the previous restorations fill around the base of the sculpture.
The new Milput thumb colour matched
I have also finished drilling the holes with a Dremmel for the armatures, in both the main sculpture and the hand. Yesterday one drill bit broke off within the hole and another was blunted by the hard ceramic body, even when I wetted it to make it softer the ceramic would not give way and allow for a deeper hole. But today I have succeeded after Manuel went and brought a new sharp drill bit!
Manuel has also come up with a mould removing solution, synthetic saliva! This is swabbed on with cotton wool to the surface and it removed the horrible black mould. Simple and effective. I am pleased now as it is starting to look like it did after I had originally cleaned it, lets hope for no more mould.
We have also been given another project to work on together, a large contemporary piece made from copper strips and rubber tubing. It forms a hammock shape and is around 5 meters long. It is going on loan to a museum in Rio and we have to clean and prepare it for exhibition as it has been in storage for five years.
These last few days have been so great for sweet food, Ana introduced us to peanut butter cubes, they are harder than normal jar peanut butter, but so very addictive and yummy! We are planning to bring lots home already. Then Pricilla brought in some super yummy chocolate Florentine type things, they are so good. I could eat them all day long, Brazilians certainly have a sweet tooth!
Yummmy Florentines, Thank you Pricilla!
We also met Daphne, how works for the Pinacoteca’s educational programme, we are going to visit her and her colleagues soon and see what they get up too, this also means we will get to know more about the special interactive pictures Grace mentioned yesterday.
Today has been horrible and just like England, we will hope for some sun this weekend. Last night was very cold and tonight Gustavo (our hostel owner) gave us another blanket each, so tonight we will be lovely a warm.
Me again! We’re up to date now that I”m writing about Tuesday!
Today we cracked on with a bit of restoration!
Issy’s adventures were more interesting than mine so I’ll start with those.
Issy carried on painted her retouching of the finger using watercolours. Due the changing appearance of the colours depending on the lighting conditions (that’s right conservation nerds- I’m talking about Metamerism!) and the fact that the hand is viewed from so many angles, she is still not happy with her result so far and will return to it tomorrow.
After she decided to take a break from colour matching, Issy moved onto using a drill to create holes in the arm and hand for the armature.This process was very difficult and time consuming. The terracotta is so hard to drill into that the drill attachment turned red with heat . One drill attachment broke inside the hand, while the main body burned and bent another drill bit.
Her drilling endeavours were successful in the end and the bamboo stick armature fits into the holes perfectly.
She will put some photos on here when she next has her camera handy!
My job today was to fill the hole at the top of the painting.
I experimented with different filling materials in a spare piece of wood.
The filling materials that I experimented with: (from left) Mastic, Modostuc and Succo Per Restauro.
I chose to use Modostuc, an acrylic based filling material which is similar to Polyfilla but is especially design for filling wood. All the materials would have been suitable but I chose not to use the conservation-specific synthetic filler, Mastic as it is no longer in production and the museum only has a small amount left. I chose not to use the gesso-based, Stucco Per Restauro as it was the most difficult to level. I protected the front and back of the painting using magic tape.
The hole during repair, protected using magic tape.Me filling the hole using a scalpel and Modostuc filler.
I also wanted to talk about a project at the Pinacoteca that we thought showed originality, innovativity and thoughtfulness. 16 of the most famous paintings in the museum’s collection were selected to be made into a tangible form so that it could experienced by visitors who could not see the paintings. The paintings are also used in workshops for school groups.
I also had to use tweezers and the x4 magnifying glasses to remove cotton wool fibres that had become stuck to the painting during the removal of the varnish. It is important that I remove all cotton wool fibres as I will coat the painting with a layer of Paraloid (more on that in the next few days!), which can cause them to darken and become more obvious over time.
An example of the type of cotton fibre stuck to the painting is highlighted in a red circle.
A 3D resin copy of one of the Pinacoteca’s most famous paintings “Caipira picando fumo” by Almeida Junior. The painting was one of 16 selected to be made in a tangible form so that it could experienced by the blind.
This particular resin object was undergoing treatment in the conservation studio. A crack was forming on the left hand side and was consolidated using Loctite adhesive. Loctite is the same very strong adhesive that Issy used to bond the broken necklace sculpture in the Jardem de Luz on our first day.
Weather is still pretty abysmal here. Hostel is quiet: Issy, Emmanuel, anonymous new lady, lovely Columbian lady who I have been talking to in (broken) Spanish, Mia, Mia’s friend and me. We had a proper conversation with a Uvaia regular we’ve long known as Tall Moustache for the fact that he is tall and has a moustache. He’s very friendly and introduced us to his flight attendant friend who was popping over while he is in Sao Paulo. He spoke about the many virtues of being a flight attendant- its sounds like a great job!
The days are a little topsy turvy because I had so much to write about for Sunday that I couldn’t finish it last night or the night before so here it is, right after Monday…
Sunday could have been a disaster. We had been planning to visit the Sao Bento monks singing Gregorian hymns at the Sao Bento Monastery at 10am. The great plan involved us leaving by 9.15am so of course we slept through all of our alarms and woke up at 9am disappointed and frantic inside a musty room surrounded by bags of dirty laundry from the day before. There are better ways to wake up.
When we were finally on our way to the tube at 10.05am we were considering writing off the weekend entirely when we decided to go to the MASP instead and turned our rubbish start to the day around!
Our quick overview of the gallery to save you trudging through Wikipedia:
The Sao Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) is a fantastic gallery, that was created in the late 1940s by two wealthy Brazilian business man who built up an incredible collection of European artworks from the 13th c. onwards. Thanks to the WWII chaos on our side of the Atlantic in this period, he managed to get pretty good deals on beautiful pieces by artists including Turner, Gainsborough, Van Gogh, Monet, Dali, and Degas.
The gallery is famous for its fantastic building on Avenida Paulista where it has been situated since 1968. Don’t close your mind to its brutalist structure until you know its story!
We thought it was just an amazing feat of engineering for the sake of being an amazing feat of engineering: a building created out of concrete and glass whose entire body is supported by two lateral beams, leaving 74 metres of open space on the ground floor.
MASP’s brutalist building designed by Lina Bo Bardi. I borrowed this photo from Wikipedia because it was better than mine!
Cool… but its a bit ugly? Think again! The man who donated the plot of land for the building’s location included specific instructions to keep the view of Downtown from Paulista Avenue clear and unobstructed by the building, making the creation of the art museum fairly difficult. 12 years later Bo Bardi’s design was completed and inaugurated by our Queen Elizabeth II herself in 1968!
The view of downtown from MASP! Trip Adviser lent me this photo because the view yesterday was a lot mistier and full of people.
The price to enter all the exhibitions and permanent collection of MASP for students is R$7 or £1.98! Brilliant! While are public collections are free to enter, the student price for a special exhibition is usually at least a few pounds. (The current student price to enter “The Portrait in Vienna Exhibition 1900” at the National Gallery, London is £5.50!)
The exhibitions at the moment include the Photo Biennial 2013, “Gods and Madonnas: The Art of Worship”, “Romanticism: The Art of Enthusiasm” and “Corpus e Restos”, a collection of prints by Lucien Freud. We were really impressed by the range of artworks and I could ramble on forever if I had the time but seeing as MASP’s policy’s have left our experience photoless, it wouldn’t be fair to bombard you with so many words. Instead I’ll give you some thoughts about each exhibition and steal some photos from the net!
Photo Biennial 2013: The first thing that we have to mention is how excited were to see the dynamic interior architecture of the Pinacoteca as a setting for a couple of pieces in a series of sixteen by photographer and ex pro skateboarder, Fabiano Rodriguez.
Self Portrait of Fabiano Rodriguez, taken in the Pinacoteca de Estado de Sao Paulo
We also liked Pedro David’s work, “Suffocation” about the native Brazilian trees that are trapped in the modern Eucalyptus fields. I thought that this series was beautiful, original and made us aware of an industry we had no idea about.
“Suffocation”, David Pedro.
“Gods and Madonnas: The Art of Worship”: This exhibition was an interesting mixture of objects and paintings, focused on the development of art in worship. I have to admit that neither of us spent to long in this exhibition because we have seen a lot of similar art in England, and because it was a little confusing to follow. Issy and I wandered off at this point so I can’t speak for her but my best part was having a look at the restorations on their Greek marble sculptures.
“Romanticism: The Art of Enthusiasm”: Issy was very surprised at the amount of European art in this exhibition. She had visited Monet’s garden at Giverny, lives close to where Constable lived and her family’s company built a village hall in a location near to the setting of one painting by Gainsborough. Although we were aware of Sao Paulo’s importance, we were not expecting to travel so far to see so many paintings that were more connected with us than Brazil. The exhibition has been going since 2010 and connects a 500 year span of art by the themes that developed the genre rather than just chronology i.e. Views from Afar, Landscapes, Portraits, etc.
I wandered around this exhibition listening to Warpaint, who make good music to get lost in colourful paintings to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOFxb0F2F2A
“Corpus e Restos”, a collection of prints by Lucien Freud:Yes, yes we took an eleven hour flight and saw a full exhibition by one of England’s most famous contemporary artists whose works are easily accessed in London. However, this particular exhibition included many pieces we had not previously seen and probably won’t ever again as they’re on load from Caracus, Venezuela and private collections in South America! Also, after seeing the 2012 exhibition of his paintings at the National Gallery and first learning about him through my sister Robina for his use of colour and texture, it was interesting to see an exhibition mainly concerned with his prints. The exhibition also included a selection of photos by Freud’s former assistant, David Dawson. The most famous of these, which most people who have taken an interest in Freud will have seen convey the artist with sitters such as Queen Elizabeth and David Hockney. We were most taken with the photos that we were not familiar with, including one showing a female model, who was sitting for Freud falling over and another of a reflection of Freud and a sitter with a half finished painting, “Female Admirer”, inside his studio.
After we had overdosed on art we had a beast of a lunch. All you can eat buffet? Yes please. I’d like to introduce the world to the idea of sun-dried tomatoes wrapped in aubergine! Also we tried Brazilian baked beans! Lovely jubbly! Issy was chuffed with the desserts and can put a photo of plate up when she’s here.
Free Walking Tour of Paulista Avenue
When we left the MASP we joined the free walking tour of Avenida Paulista, with Rafa, the same enthusiastic guide as last time. We really enjoyed it! My photos aren’t great because it was three hours long so ended up finishing in the dark but here are our highlights anyway!
Our summary of the world’s quickest overview of Brazil’s history: The main periods- Colonial (1500-1815), Imperial (1815-1889). Republic (1889 to present) and included the military dictatorship (1964-1985). Rafa also gave us information on the present government and Brazil’s financial history.
Just to be clear, I think the date that says 1815 should be that but I’m not 100% so I’m sorry if its incorrect! It was an interesting start to the tour nonetheless!
Graffiti Tunnel: There’s graffiti all over Sao Paulo. Some of it is beautiful artwork by internationally famous graffiti artists, some of it just shows you if an area is poorer, more run down and dangerous. The tunnel that was created underneath Paulista Avenue to reduce congestion is covered in decades worth of graffiti art.
Graffiti in the tunnel underneath Avenida Paulista.
The MASP: You already know how great we think this place is but Rafa took us again and told us the history, facts and figures that I gave you earlier.
The ticket office and Sunday market stalls on the ground floor of the MASP. I took this photo myself!
Intuitive fire escaping: Following a terrible fire in a skyscraper on Paulista Ave in the late 1980’s that left over ten people dead, Sao Paulo skyscrapers have to have clear fire evacuation plans. One option is to create bridges in between buildings that are only to be used in emergencies. This sounds sensible but its a strange sight to see for the first time.
Bridges between buildings that are used as fire escapes.
The History of the Matarazzo Family: We learned about the history of Francesco Matarazzo, an Italian who emigrated to Sao Paulo and built a business empire. He created a hospital that closed in the late 1980s/ early 1990s and has been left derelict. Brazilian laws classify the building as historical and therefore its structure cannot be torn down or changed, unfortunately for Matarazzo’s children who wanted to sell the land to a building company. Unable and unwilling to restore the building, they have left it empty. They employ a security company to watch the building but they never enter and it is probably now home to squatters (or ghosts according to Rafa) as the same shutters are always open.
The Old Hospital created by Matarazzo.
When a similar situation occurred a few years later with the Matarazzo children wanting to sell him empty mansion a couple of streets down, a bomb mysteriously went off in the building before it could be classed as a listed historical building. The land was then sold to a construction company who are now building a shopping centre.
The building site where the old Matarazzo mansion once stood.
The Fate of the Five Old Houses of Avenida Paulista: There are five old (pre 1920s) buildings left on the skyscraper filled Avenida Paulista. Due to the same building law that restricted the Matarazzo children from destroying their father’s buildings, these buildings cannot be torn down and have all succumb to different endings.
Building 1: Left derelict and has gone into ruin.
Building 2: Turned into a banking company. The beautiful garden full of grape trees that it was once famous for is now a car park and the building is Avenida Paulista’s annual Christmas grotto for children.
Building 3: A medical building concerned with vaccinations in particular.
Building 4: Became a McDonalds and then a bank.
Building 5: Became a museum that hosts poetry evenings and art exhibitions. The beautiful rose garden of the house is still as it was and open to the public. The happiest ending of the buildings.
1. Derelict3. A medical building concerned with vaccinations in particular.
5. A Museum
We really enjoyed both of the Free Walking Tours that we joined and would really recommend them! Thanks Rafa and Fe!
http://www.saopaulofreewalkingtour.com/
Wally’s not here but we are hidden somewhere in this crowd if you can spot us!
Today was the day when all washing dreams came true, after breakfast and strawberry jam and a short taxi ride we arrived at the laundrette. A friendly assistant helped us load 5 loads (!) into the machines and we watched them clean all of the last two weeks away. It was great, but took a long time and we missed a morning at the museum. But if we had not done our washing we would not have any clean clothes to wear for the rest of the week! Of course we checked with Teodora beforehand, who was absolutely fine with us doing this as I am not sure the museum would have not wanted the two English interns to turn up in dirty clothes for a week!
When we arrived back at the museum, everyone in the department was so very kind and all offered separately to wash our clothes in their machines for us, we can not thank them enough for their kindness and we will probably be taking them up on their kind offers.
Once all of the washing excitement had died down, we set back to work on our main projects.
Unfortunately though when I took off the cover of my sculpture it revealed this…
MOULD!
I think this has happened because of the water used within the organic agar, growing mould within the humid environment of Brazil and the labs, even though they are more controlled there is still a high humidity level that meant the water could evaporate properly.
So I tried a few things to remove the mould, a vacuum and soft toothbrush to remove the fluffy mould then a alcohol ethyl and water solution sprayed on and again brushed. This unfortunately did not remove the black mould on the surface, so tomorrow I am thinking of trying another layer of agar but using a solvent within it, one that Tatiana had recommended before to remove dirt and hopefully help to stop the mould growth.
Today I have also prepared the bamboo armatures to attach the hand with, by coating them in a layer of Paraloid B72 and Xilol 1:5 (or Xylene in English) to seal the sticks before they are put into the sculpture.
Grace today has carried on removing the retouching and discovered that there was more paint retouching than she originally thought, because of this she has stopped removing the existing retouches as they are not actually harming the painting. If she did remove all of the previous restoration, she would have to obviously retouch the missing areas, but she would not have enough original information to be able to recreate the image as it currently is.
The red circle indicates where there is a newspaper fragment
Another task Grace completed today was to remove a fragment of newspaper from the middle top of the painting. She used a scalpel to slowly peel it away from the surface.
For supper this evening we had mushroom pasta, that was very tasty. The hostel is quite tonight just us, one girl and Emanuel our French friend.
It is also pouring down with rain and thundering, it is like we have never left England!
Goodnight Brazil, Good morning England, I hope everyone at home has a superb Tuesday.
Sorry to everyone who checked the blog over the weekend, we didn’t blog because Saturday especially was a bit of a fail. We had a plan for the weekend to stay in Sao Paulo and visit lots of sites and also do the most important thing, our washing!
We started out positively and the hostel gave us directions to the nearest laundrette, there is apparently only 3 in the whole of Sao Paulo!! We thought it would take around 30/40 mins walk to get there, but how we were wrong, it took us 2 hours and 40 minuets to get there and even then we stopped and asked a police woman who hadn’t heard of it before and a lady in the street who spoke English directed us to it and when we finally found it….it was shut. Both of us took it well and just sighed, opposite the laundrette was a restaurant with two kind men who walked us to another one…that was shut and a dry cleaners anyway. So he pointed us into the direction of the taxis, we met a lovely Portuguese lady who went to the University of Warwick who now lives in Sao Paulo, who helped us direct the taxi driver in the direction of the hostel. The taxi driver was very kind, he didn’t speak English, but offered us beer and checked that the radio station was to our taste! It was also not very expensive to get back and very quick, so we regretted not getting a taxi there in the first place.
A positive note or two, on the way there we walked through Ibirapuera park and saw some of my favourite plants and also brought some super tasty crisps from this stall;
On the way home we did get to see the famous Bandeiras Monument from the taxi;
The Bandeiras Monument
Once back to the hostel, it was really busy as they were hosting a friends birthday party, so we dumped our dirty washing and went off in search of some food. First a beer and crisps at a bar around the corner then off to a very good pizza restaurant, this was most definitely the 30% success. I think this was the best pizza I have ever eaten! We love Sao Paulo pizza!
I am sorry to everyone (Christine especially) that this blog is about food and hygiene, it just seems to be our main topic of conversation and the Brazilian way!!
