Thursday, February 11, 2010

One project that Kallie is working on is cleaning a collection of busts. After Caitlin tested a couple different treatment methods she settled on using a mixture of water and photo flo roughly a 4:1 ratio. Kallie has been using swabs and cotton pads to remove the mud covering the busts. This process is particularly time consuming due to all the small crevices in the sculptures. There are 7 busts and Kallie has completed one and is halfway finished with a second.

The busts were a part of The Old Taylor Distillery Company bourbon whisky promotion. For $5 you could buy a sculptured bust of an ingenious American. They belonged to Mrs. Gerolyn Banks, a teacher who used them as instructional tools in her classroom (incidentally, she didn’t drink alcohol). Kallie is working on Lewis Latimer who worked with Thomas Edison and developed an improved method for the production of carbon filaments in Edison’s light bulb. The ad for this particular bust can be found in Ebony, July 1967.

Other busts in the series include: Granville T. Woods who improved telegraph system for railroads; Garrett Morgan who invented the electric traffic signal; Benjamin Banneker was an astronomer, clockmaker, and surveyor who predicted eclipses; Norbert Rillieux improved sugar refining process; and Matthew Alexander Henson reached the North Pole with Admiral Peary in 1909. He was actually the first member of the team to set foot on the spot.