Friday, January 2, 2009 I like to wear these magnifying glasses to demonstrate how fashion forward we are at the University of Iowa Conservation Lab. Aside from being extremely attractive they are actually quite helpful in situations like this one. The infamous gourd drum which took roughly 40 hours to complete has hair attached aroundContinue reading “Up Close and Personal”
Category Archives: Object conservation
Cleaning Gourd Drum
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 This gourd drum, an artifact from the African American Museum is a dried and hollowed gourd, the top has been sliced away to create an opening which has leather stretched across it. Two sticks intersect inside the gourd with the ends protruding from the sides, through the leather as you canContinue reading “Cleaning Gourd Drum”
Making A Difference With Baskets
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 The African American Museum has a collection of baskets that were sent to us after being damaged in the flood. In September we were sent to the Campbell Center in Mt. Carroll, IL for training in cleaning and preserving these baskets. This is an example of one of the baskets I cleaned. This particularContinue reading “Making A Difference With Baskets”
LP Cover Prototype Developed
Thursday, October 30, 2008 After much discussion we finally decided on a structure for rehousing the records. Gary suggested a three flap structure so I came up with a prototype for the LPs and the 45s. The LP prototype was sent out to be manufactured for us. The structure has a T shape, the middleContinue reading “LP Cover Prototype Developed”
Buttons, Buttons, Who’s Got the Buttons
Friday, October 17, 2008 This small metal box is full of buttons of all shapes and sizes that are from Mason’s Dry Cleaners that was owned by Elmer Smith Jr. in Cedar Rapids. These buttons, and the box they are housed in, were painstakingly cleaned by one of our volunteers, Diana Henry. She sorted theContinue reading “Buttons, Buttons, Who’s Got the Buttons”
Sandals Almost as Good as New
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 These Sandals are one of two pairs from the African American Museum. They were both caked with mud and sludge. We chose to clean these sandals because they were in better condition than the other pair, which had some warping and cracking. For these I used a PVOH sponge to do an initial cleaning and thenContinue reading “Sandals Almost as Good as New”
Ghosting on 78s
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 While cleaning the records for the Czech Slovak museum, we noticed that upon drying, some of the 78s had some residual “ghosting”. We tried a second wash but we couldn’t diminish the staining. We took a couple of the 78s over to the Audio Visual department to do a test runContinue reading “Ghosting on 78s”
Feather Fans
Friday, October 10, 2008 Three feather and wicker fans were salvaged from the African American Museum, all three were moldy and covered with a thick layer of muck. We knew they would take a very long time to clean so as part of the museum’s triage we were told to save two of the three.Continue reading “Feather Fans”
Basket Cleaning
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 We march on with cleaning baskets. This consumes most of my time at the lab now, as we are trying to finish cleaning the baskets before November 11th. I think we might cut it close. Sometimes it is difficult to know when to stop, as it seems there is always moreContinue reading “Basket Cleaning”
George Washington Carver Woven Mat Cleaned
Monday, October 6, 2008 Among the artifacts from the African American Museum were two mats woven by George Washington Carver. The mat pictured was cleaned in about 15 hours by myself using saliva and swabs. I began work on the other but it was so fragile and brittle that I decided to send it toContinue reading “George Washington Carver Woven Mat Cleaned”