[CPProt.net] Restorer advises on maintaining, keeping art

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Restorer advises on maintaining, keeping art

Expert is restoring six Francis Davis paintings 

Almost two years ago, Rebecca Smith bought a 1984 Keith Haring painting on
eBay from a Florida man who claimed to have found it at a flea market. Smith
was a fan of Haring's work, and her husband, Damon Stuebner, met Haring's
parents in Pennsylvania while working as a CNN affiliate.
The work - a red dog standing on a green field, barking at two UFOs floating
in a light-orange sky - showed up in Juneau without a frame. For months,
it's been dangling from a nail in the wall, above Stuebner's laundry.

Sunday afternoon, Smith and Stuebner brought the painting to McPhetres Hall,
where Denver painting conservator Carmen Bria, owner of the Western Center
for the Conservation of Fine Arts, led a free, four-hour presentation on
restorative techniques.

Bria, one of the few painting restoration experts working in the West, has
been coming to Alaska since 1979. The WCCFA is in the process of restoring
six antique Frances Davis paintings from Holy Trinity Church.

The crowd of two dozen brought in 12 paintings Sunday for Bria to examine.
The Haring work stood out. Most were landscapes or classical portraits.

"I'm pretty sure it's authentic," Smith said of the Haring work. "I mainly
wanted to know what I needed to do in terms of framing it. I just want to
make sure that I preserve it properly."

Dixie Hood brought a painting of a sailboat that her mother, Sylvia,
completed in Connecticut in 1948. Flakes of paint had chipped off, exposing
the wood beneath. The varnish had yellowed and blended in spots into the
blue background, creating a green haze. A nail jutted from the inner-right
side of the frame, threatening to scrape away more of the scene.

"To make sure it's not going to lose more paint, the most important thing is
to improve the structure, the stability," Bria said.

Juneau artist Pua Maunu wanted advice on a landscape painting that had been
hanging in Northern Light Church. The piece was covered with mysterious
chalk marks that turned out to be a hidden purple layer. The work had
evidently been stored behind a Coke machine, leaving it with horizontal
scrapes.

Susie and Ron Seator wanted advice on a Sidney Laurence work which seemed to
radiate with a Fred-Machteanz-like ultramarine glow. Bria, who has restored
more than 300 Laurence works, believed it to be a photomechanical
reproduction which had faded and lost its yellows and reds.

Another Juneau artist, Dorinda Skains, brought in a few of the paintings she
salvaged from the August 2004 fire that destroyed downtown's Skinner
Building. Her gallery was destroyed. "Five Yellow Apples" was left with a
layer of soot and grime. Bria suggested a few cleaning methods.

"When I say clean, I'm not talking about a sponge or a Brillo pad," he said.
"We're talking about removing dirt, removing grime, removing varnish and old
retouching.

"Paintings can be so different," he said. "If a painting is more than 40
years old, it's going to have some loss. Most of all, we want to stabilize
these works so they'll last for a long, long time and hopefully forever."

Bria and the WCCFA have started cleaning two of the six Davis paintings. The
restoration project is estimated to cost between $23,000 and $27,000 -
approximately $16,000 to $17,000 of which has been raised so far. A dinner
and arts auction is planned for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, at McPhetres
Hall to help raise more money. 
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