Bug Nests, Spiders, and Silverfish

The bug nest!

I don’t know where my parents stored the rolled nudes while I was growing up.  I have a feeling they were kept discreetly out of sight of curious children (that would be me and my sister) and their friends.  Wherever they were stored (basement, garage, or under bed), I’m afraid they suffered some indignities.

As Soyeon Choi, Senior Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, unrolled the first of the oversized artworks, she exclaimed, “Oh, a bug nest!”  Quickly, she used a natural rubber sponge to delicately brush off the little nest of cobwebs.  I asked her if there were any signs of active pest infestation and she said no.  These cobwebs could easily be decades old.

Later while unrolling more of the pieces at home, I discovered more cobwebs, as well as a few dead spiders and silverfish, buried within the rolls of artwork.  Fortunately, the pests appear to have done little damage to the paper.

CCAHA Senior Conservator Soyeon Choi
examining an oversized charcoal work
on paper.

But while these individual pests may be responsible for only minor damage, the rolled nudes as a whole could really benefit from a little loving care.  According to Soyeon, they exhibit surface dirt, foxing, acidic tape mends, and tears.  However, Soyeon assured me that a good paper conservator can address all these problems and make them look nearly as good as new.  Six decades of neglect can be largely reversed if the problems are properly and professionally addressed.


© 2011 Lee Price

Hurricanes and Insects

We have a 1938 pamphlet from Bell Telephone with amazing pictures of the 1938 hurricane that devastatingly swept across Long Island.  At that time, my grandfather lived in Riverhead and worked for the phone company.  He always remembered braving the hurricane to bring my mother home from the nearby grade school.  Meanwhile, fifteen miles away in Southampton, my other grandfather was watching slates blow off the roof of the grade school as he ran inside to tell the teachers to keep the children inside.  As he left, one of the teachers loaned him a hard hat to protect his head.

The pictures in this glossy pamphlet vividly depict the hurricane’s aftermath.  Massive trees are down, homes destroyed, and streets flooded.  Some of the pictures appear to have been taken immediately after the storm’s passing in that strange calm that always follows a hurricane.  Others show the phone company staff hard at work repairing the extensive damage.  My grandfather is one of the workers pictured on page four.

Rebecca Smyrl with the pamphlet.

But it isn’t the scenes of mass destruction that catch the eye of Rebecca Smyrl, Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.  “That looks like insect damage,” she says, pointing to a small network of losses near the tail spine corner.  She reassures me that it looks like old damage with no indications of recent activity.  I suggest that we could store it in plastic to protect it from future pests, but Rebecca says no.  She’d rather have the paper free to breathe in a paper box storage rather than sealed in plastic.

Insect damage along edges
of another pamphlet.

It’s often assumed that disaster planning at museums will be focused on the big disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and floods.  But it’s often the little things, like pest infestations, that can devastate a collection.  The pamphlet has survived in fairly good shape, yet it serves as a good reminder of the destructiveness of the natural world, from the microscopic damage of insects to the macroscopic power of a hurricane.

Special thanks to Rebecca Smyrl for her consultations during the past two weeks!

© 2011 Lee Price

The Enemies of Books

“The surest way to preserve your books in health is to treat them as you would your own children, who are sure to sicken if confined in an atmosphere which is impure, too hot, too cold, too damp, or too dry. It is just the same with the progeny of literature.”

                           William Blades

                           The Enemies of Books

In his classic work The Enemies of Books, William Blades (1824-1890) identifies nine arch-enemies of book collections.  Some aren’t really relevant to this blog, but others remain on the mark.

Here are the four that I'm especially conscious of as I consider the preservation of our family books:

Fire:  “There are many of the forces of Nature which tend to injure Books; but among them all not one has been half so destructive as Fire.”

Water:  “Next to Fire we must rank Water in its two forms, liquid and vapour, as the greatest destroyer of books.”

Dust and Neglect:  “Dust upon Books to any extent points to neglect, and neglect means more or less slow Decay.”

The Bookworm and Other Vermin:  “There are several kinds of caterpillar and grub, which eat into books, those with legs are the larvae of moths; those without legs, or rather with rudimentary legs, are grubs and turn to beetles.”

The following five enemies aren’t as serious concerns for me, at least when it comes to preserving our family books:

Ignorance and Bigotry:  There’s still plenty of these to go around, but let’s hope the books in our house are safe from them.

Drawing of open book by Art Price, circa 1949.

Gas and Heat:  Granted, heat is not good for books, but Blades’ major concern is with the fumes from the 1880s gas lights.

Bookbinders:  Malicious and/or incompe-tent bookbinders shave off margins when rebinding.

Collectors:  Namely the villains who cut books apart to sell the prints, woodcuts, and other artwork piecemeal.

Servants and Children:  “Children, with all their innocence, are often guilty of book-murder.”  So true…

© 2010 Lee Price