Thursday, July 23, 2009

This Marriage Certificate arrived at the Conservation Lab tightly rolled in a tube. It was in two torn halves, somewhat soiled and quite tattered along the edges with some degree of loss particularly along the right margin.

The treatment that followed included a gentle humidification and flattening, followed by dry cleaning using Minter eraser crumbs and Absorbene sponge eraser. Kristin secured strategic bridge mends of tenjugo along the major tear to insure proper matching of scarfed edges, and then lined the entire certificate onto a medium-lightweight Korean handmade paper. The lining enforced an additional gentle flattening of the certificate and countered it’s tendency to curl.

Once the lining was dry and the certificate flat, Kristin createdcustom-tinted double layer/sandwich infills for areas of loss. A thicker more fibrous paper was used for the bulk of the infills (to echo the thickness of the certificate) and was thin sekishu-gampi was then adhere along the top of the infill (to echo the calendared sheen of the original paper). Custom color tinting was achieved post-mends, using acrylics and a “dry-swab” technique.

 

 

Text provided by Kristin A Baum.