Interview

Conversation about Conservation

In the following interview, director Marianne Doezema talks with Jennifer Cabral, graduate art history student at Williams College, about her recent project at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center (WACC), where she treated an important object from the museum's American collection under the supervision of Leslie Paisley, conservator of paper.

MD: As the Lenett Fellow at WACC this past year, you undertook an assessment and treatment of a collage that was created by the American artist who uses the name Jess. First, tell us about the fellowship you were awarded.

JC: Judith M. Lenett was a student in the graduate program in art history at Williams, which is based at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. She was very interested in American art and conservation, but sadly she died before she was able to complete the program. The fellowship was established in her memory by her husband and supports a yearlong project to do art historical research and conservation on a work of American art at WACC, under the supervision of professional conservators.

MD: How did you decide to work on Jess' When My Ship Come Sin?

JC: My goal is to work in an art museum print room, so I had assumed my project would involve a work on paper. I became interested in collage in part because the conservation issues are so different than in other media. I issued a "plea" at a members' meeting at the Center asking the assembled museum representatives to inform me of works in their collections, preferably collages, that might be in need of treatment. It so happened that Wendy Watson, who was present representing the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, had brought the Jess collage with her to the Center that day. Leslie Paisley, head of the paper department at the Center, showed it to me and we agreed that it was an intriguing work and eventually decided that it would be the ideal focus for my internship.

MD: So, how did you begin?

JC: There are a number of preliminary investigative steps involved in the early stages, including research on the artist and examining the condition of the work, as well as other works of the same period by the artist. Since the goal of any conservation project is to maintain the integrity of the work of art and the artist's intentions behind it, a substantial part of the project involves gaining an understanding of the artist's work prior to making any decision about treatment. So, I contacted Odyssia Skouras at the Odyssia Gallery in New York City, where I had the opportunity to look at a number of other collages by Jess, several that had been made from cut-out magazine pages, much like this one.

MD: It is not a coincidence that Ms. Skouras, a Mount Holyoke alumna (class of 1954), donated this work to the museum's collection. We are extremely gratified that as a result of her generosity, Mount Holyoke has a very fine example of Jess' work.

JC: By the way, Jess didn't refer to these objects as collages. He preferred the word "paste-ups" because of the connotations it has of childhood scrapbook-making, pulling together remnants of debris that would ordinarily have been thrown away. The theme of salvaging things, salvaging the past, runs through his work. I felt that my conservation project was about a related process- breathing new life into an object that was in danger of fading from our cultural memory.

MD: What did you discover as a result of your research and your examination of the object?

JC: This collage suffered from what is called inherent vice, the materials used to put it together- in contrast to damage caused by improper handling or storage conditions. Basically, the paste-up is composed of over 30 black and white magazine clippings from the 1950s glued to a woodpulp paperboard. The adhesive that was used was so strong that the paper was buckling and in some cases the printing ink was lifted off. Additionally, areas had become discolored a rusty orange, a feature that has not been observed on other paste-ups of the mid-1950s.

MD: So, this work presented special challenges.

JC: Indeed. When analyzed by the conservation scientist at WACC, it was determined that Jess' adhesive was not a paste, but gum Arabic. As the adhesive was water soluble and the printing ink water sensitive, we were limited in the procedures we could undertake without endangering the integrity of the work. Our goal was to stabilize the object, prevent further deterioration, and make certain it could be exhibited and handled in the museum environment.

Within those parameters, Leslie and I developed a plan for treatment that wouldn't visibly alter the appearance of When My Ship Come Sin. We consolidated areas of medium loss to prevent further flaking of the ink. We treated the areas of paper that were separating from the paperboard support, fixing them to the surface with a paste that was compatible with the gum Arabic adhesive that had been used by the artist.

The orange stain I've referred to was puzzling to us because Jess was usually meticulous in his process of creating paste-ups. We concluded that he used an adhesive he assumed would dry clear. In fact, however, adhesive that was smeared on the surface has discolored and cracked. We applied a solution that penetrated the interstices of the cracked adhesive to rebind these areas.

MD: Did you remove the stain?

JC: No. Removing the discolored bits of adhesive would have resulted in loss of ink. Our treatment was limited to stabilizing these areas and preventing further deterioration.

MD: So, we have a stable work of art that can be handled safely and exhibited. Let's talk about the incredible image.

JC: It's an amazing kaleidoscope of imagery, with so much movement. I feel it has a machine-like quality, and the more you look at it the more you realize that the parts are interconnected. He said that his work is about all the possibilities that are suggested, that it's not up to him to decide which story predominates. He leaves it up to the viewer to go inside his world and come up with his or her own narrative.

MD: His title for this work is so fascinating. I missed the pun at first, misreading it as When My Ship Come Sin-and there is a ship in the upper right section.

JC: Notice that on the ship he has pasted a candle, indicative of time passing. The title refers metaphorically to the passage of time, and my conservation treatment addressed the issue of the passing time as it was affecting this work of art. It was quite satisfying to know that I had done something to preserve it.

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