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Showing posts from December, 2017

Controlled Destruction

We don't often suggest (metaphorically) taking a work of art down to the studs, or in this case down to the substrate, but this 1904 Colorado Midland Railway advertisement was an exception. This post focuses on the preparation and stabilization of a very unusual project. Work after our gelatin process and temporarily mounted to a board.  While it might appear that the majority of this advertisement is intact, huge sections of the paper were completely rotten. You can see in the images below where the mold that was eating the paper is visible. Essentially, the majority of the black background was slowly flaking off. The white area is where the mold had eaten away at the ink and if you touched it the top layer of paper would flake off. Another example of an area where the paper was rotting away can be seen below. Almost all of the area above the figure is disintegrating due to the water damage.  In this area, not only was the top layer beginning to fall off, b