Preserving a Family Collection: Rachel Wetzel

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Wedding Dress, Before and After

The treatments are finished! This is the final entry in a 12-part series on selected conservation treatments of artwork and photographs, as well as the final entry of "Preserving a Family Collection."

The subject is brides.

From the start, “Preserving a Family Collection” has been a supplemental blog to the main attraction, June and Art. The work of preservation is never an end in itself. Works are preserved in order to help us tell stories, to remember our past, and to continue to appreciate the work of our ancestors.

The story of June and Art culminates today with a bride, a groom, and a wedding. And these blogs end here today on September 1, 2011, the 60th anniversary of the marriage of June and Art.

My mother (June) loved brides and weddings. She drew several fashion illustrations of brides while studying at Traphagen School of Fashion from 1948 to 1950. Several years ago, I had the watercolor image of two brides cleaned, matted, and framed at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts. This year, I returned to the Center to ask them to treat this smaller pen-and-ink piece. It had been glued to a backing support and the image itself was covered by a transparent plastic overlay.

Thank you to Rachel Wetzel, Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, for her beautiful work conserving this lovely and meaningful item from our family collection! It provides a very fitting image to conclude this blog and to bid farewell to the story of the courtship of June and Art.

And thank you to the followers and readers of this blog, “Preserving a Family Collection.” Take care of your stories. And best wishes for your efforts to preserve your family collections.

Wedding dress drawing, before treatment.

Wedding dress drawing, after treatment.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Quick Sketches, Before and After

The treatments are finished! This is the ninth in a 12-part series on selected conservation treatments of artwork and photographs. "Preserving a Family Collection" concludes on September 1.

Surface cleaning a quick sketch by June Anderson.

My mother drew dozens of these quick sketches while attending Traphagen School of Fashion from 1948 to 1950. Some of them are sloppy but more than a handful are pretty great – on a par with the best of her finished pieces. My favorite is the one of the woman lying down, chin propped up on fists. From the start, I’ve thought that some of these sketches deserve to be conserved, matted, framed, and displayed.

Rachel Wetzel, Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, performed the treatments on these four pieces. She surface

Rachel Wetzel surface
cleaning a quick sketch.

cleaned them, working cautiously around the graphite artwork, before bathing them in a series of blotter washes, which significantly reduced the discoloration and acidity in the paper support.

Ultimately, I’d like to bring more of these sketches in for conservation treatment. As with much preservation, I need to view this as a long-term process. These four sketches are ready to share with the world, the rest I’ll put into long-term (and non-acidic) storage, and then plan to return for additional professional conservation treatments as money becomes available or as an occasional holiday splurge (for instance, a happy-birthday-to-me present).

Rachel endorses this long-term plan and strongly cautions against making any amateur attempts at home conservation treatment. “Don’t encourage do-it-yourselfers,” she said. “They can do a lot of damage.” And causing additional damage is the last thing that you want to do when working to preserve a family collection.