Art Conservation; Live Retouching

well good morning everybody it's a little bit before 9 a.m. here in Chicago it's a pretty sunny day and it doesn't feel like the world is ending I hope you guys all wherever you are have a little bit of perspective and are managing I know that some places it's really difficult and I'm hoping that maybe we can just get lost and a little retouching today kind of zone out for whatever that's worth I don't think we're gonna solve any of the world's problems but I don't know maybe just a couple minutes of not thinking about all of our immediate issues will be of some benefit so I'm just gonna give it a couple of minutes before I start and walk you guys through what I'm gonna be doing just let everybody get settled in I don't know if you need to get some popcorn or a drink or a martini depending on where you are or use the bathroom or something like that I will try to respond to as many of the comments as I can I'm seeing them they are just flying by so it's it may be really hard to see them I mean literally they're just whipping across my screen right now but I will do my best to explain what I'm doing and to answer questions that you guys have and we'll see how long this goes I have some other paintings that also need some retouching and if we burned through this really quickly I don't know maybe you guys can watch me clean up my studio or do some paper paper work or something else like that alright so this is a painting by the early American Hudson River School painter George Hetzel he was a kind of a proto Hudson River School painter and the Hudson River School were a bunch of artists living in New York who went up and down the Hudson River up north to upstate New York and painted kind of early American landscapes and started to help define an American painting style and motif that gained widespread praise all over the world and it was kind of the first one of the first times that Europeans who had great vistas and great landscapes and a great tradition of landscape painting recognized that America actually had something to offer they did a lot of beautiful tonal scenes a lot of working on light and atmosphere and sorry I'm I was just trying to turn on slow chat so I can actually see what you guys are doing and I guess it's already on but you guys are just going so fast um anyhow okay so this painting it's been cleaned the story with this painting is that the owners who were descendants of George Hetzel found a cache of paintings in a basement I believe and after a massive flood they were cleaning out the basement they found all these paintings and they were covered in mold and mildew and had tremendous amount of water damage and paint loss you guys are all telling me that slow chat is not on I am running this on my phone and I don't see another option for this let's see you know we're not gonna do any effects whatever we'll just I'll just figure it out make it work it's not the end of the world I'm a big boy I can configure this out anyhow so they found these paintings they were really in bad shape all of this was flaking so when I got this painting the paint was just popping right off of the canvas and I mean to say that it was in precarious state is an understatement I mean all of these areas around here were lifting up they look like potato chips and you could blow on the painting and all of this paint would just flake right off so a bunch of treatments were done to stabilize the painting to secure all of this loose paint back down and it was cleaned of course it was Reece Treach anyhow we're now at the last step which is the retouching process and all of these areas where you see white our areas where paint had been lost and this white is fill-in material and you can see there's still some excess around all of these little areas where I filled in and this time I'm going to remove this and so this is necessary because if you imagine this being the plane of the painting and this is the the paint and if there's a paint loss there'd be a little divot kind of like when a golfer hits and takes a piece of grass out and I could certainly retouch into that divot using my paint and the color would match but from the side from a raking light you know from an angle like this you would see all of those little divots and those divots would be problematic because they would look terrible and they would betray all of the hard work that's going into the painting conservation that's far so the fill and medium is applied and then I remove most of it using little cotton swabs and and and and water and some solvent and then the last part I have just a little of this residue I'm just taking a little cotton ball with some odorless mineral spirits and I'm just gonna go over the painting and this does a couple of things this will pick up any of that excess residue and also you can see that the painting is just getting much more vibrant right now and so this will simulate what the varnish is going to look like when I put it on and this is important because if you notice as I'm going over these areas with this little cotton swab the colors are getting richer they're getting denser or darker and that's those are the colors that I need to retouch too and if I don't do this and I do the retouching kind of according to a dry washed out painting when I apply the varnish all of that retouching is gonna look different gonna look wrong so to speak and then I'm gonna have to take it off and do it again which not the end of the world but if I can do it right the first time why not so no the dog is not here she is at home with the kids and the family because every time she seems to come to the studio she eats something that causes her to get sick or have to go to the vet maybe it's the end of my paint brush or and some garbage I mean she's a dog everything on the floor is his food to her and the conservation studio is probably not the best place for her to be eating the song that's at the beginning of my videos is one that I had composed by a friend it's just it's not really a song it's just a 10-second on musical intro just you know thematic can I clean painting b2 cleaned um you know a painting can be over cleaned but to clean is I mean it's kind of like can your face be too clean there's not really too clean there's clean and not clean certainly the painting can be over clean and that's a problem but to clean that really for this painting this technique that I'm going to be using for retouching is just fully integrated retouching I guess the Italians would call that mimetic as opposed to Trujillo or Theo which is kind of a little sketching or hash marks or something like that uncut gems was a great movie it gave me a lot of anxiety though but it was really good let's see this video stream will be on my youtube channel so if you guys miss it you can you can watch it later alright so what I'm going to do is I'm going to start getting going and this I'm gonna show you guys my palate I know this palette looks like a hot mess and looks like garbage but all of these paints are are retouching paints so they're fully reversible so all of this stuff even though it's all dry right now I can apply a little bit of solvent and medium and this is going to reactivate so I even though it looks like a hot mess this is a really great benefit because let's say I need to mix green I can just go here and I can start with greens that I already have mixed or a turquoise or blue or yellow or something like that so it allows me to kind of jumpstart I don't really have to start fresh on big paintings or really long projects I may start with a brand new palette just because it gives me kind of a clear head space and it also allows me to kind of control the colors that I'm using so that they're all within the within what the painting has yeah this is a relatively new palette it's when I started for a big project that will be upcoming on my youtube channel in maybe a month or so let's see okay so I guess I should just get down to it I'm not sure where I want to start usually like to start in somewhere that's kind of forgiving and easy and leave some of the more exciting and challenging things for the end when I've done a little bit more retouching but it's also like keratins like a carrot so like maybe this area is really exciting so I'll leave this to the end give myself something to look forward to and so I can get through this stuff which isn't all that exciting I do save my palettes you know I try to use them as long as I can at a certain point they've become really muddy and if you bear with me I'll show you one of those quite some time whoops sorry about that I am definitely gonna knock the easel or the camera several times so I'm gonna apologize in advance so this is an old palette that I have been using for a long time and you can see the difference I mean this is full of paint and I at this point it's just kind of not really usable anymore you can see the little wells where I can mix colors but you know I mean look at how whoops sorry again this is gonna happen a lot um you can see just how much paint is on this thing so I save it I don't know because I just don't want to throw it away um I don't know why but yeah this palette I can't really use this one anymore and yeah auctioning it off to you guys and these are crazy interesting story the first time I retouched a painting completely by myself a really big painting my father took the palette and he framed it with a little frame that he had lying around and he gave it to me kind of as a gift or just kind of like congratulations and I still have that um in my house and that was 20-some odd years ago all right so I'm gonna get started and the oldest painting every touched probably fourteen eighty that I just finished up just went back to the client my name my name is Julian Baumgartner so what kind of brushes do I use these are Princeton Summit 6100 are round brushes they are they're not anything fancy these fancy brushes is because I pretty much destroy them I mean I burn through them pretty quickly so these are all the different sizes of brushes these brown ones are natural hair brushes and I don't really like using them that much because they they disintegrate too quickly so these are the brushes when I get them new and after I have used them a lot you can see what they look like I mean pretty pretty shot all the points are gone I saved these because I can use them know if you drink every time I say um you guys aren't going to make it more than 15 or 20 minutes sorry um anyhow so these are the brushes after I've used them sometimes they last a week sometimes they last a month but they're not anything expensive and I've tried using expensive brushes and I just waste a lot of money my father was from Switzerland there you go and he emigrated to America so I do have Swiss and German roots but you know like everybody else some kind of a mutt I have family from all over the world ok so I guess I'm now procrastinating getting started um so let's let's get going let's see if I can I'm gonna try to mix colors on the palette so that you guys can see how I'm doing that and then I will switch I don't know we'll just figure it out so you see how I'm I can just reactivate that color that Brown is now soluble just with a little bit of solvent so it was dry a minute ago now it's soluble these paints that I'm using are made by an italian company called my mary and they're specifically designed for conservation and retouching and I have others designed by gamblin and golden but the biggest thing is that they don't contain oil so they won't oxidized and cross-linked and fully hardened like oil paints and the resin binder that's in them can be reactivated in the future with a solvent and then I can remove them if ever need be so I'm just going ahead to try to mix a brownish color for this area and I know I get you guys asked a lot of questions about how to mix colors and unfortunately there isn't any trick it's kind of like everything it's like baking or cooking not baking you know at first you're following you're trying to follow a recipe very deliberately and then you start realizing that you can just kind of feel your way through it and in my videos I've said a lot that retouching and color matching is kind of like how a dogs sense of smell works and at this point this is pretty much cliche for me and I should probably put on a t-shirt the dog smells both the hole and the parts at the same time so if you bake a cookie when you smell the cookie you smell cookie and what the dog smells is cookie but the dog also smells the flower that's been toasted this salt they smell the the burnt butter they smell the the chocolate all that kind of stuff so it the dog can smell the sum and the parts at the same time and for me as a conservator who's done a lot of retouching I can see a color as you know let's say this color right here it's brownish red right but what I see is a little burnt umber I see a little cadmium red a touch of white actually a little bit of blue because I there's a little bit of coolness to it and then I can mix it all together and once I have something that I think is gonna work I will try to go ahead and see how I see how fair so I'm just laying down some some initial brush strokes and this isn't necessarily the final I mean obviously you can see that that's not perfect so I'm going to go ahead and take a little bit of white and maybe a little bit of cadmium red yes this is titanium white for all of you guys who watch Bob and yes I watched Bob Ross when I was a little kid I think everybody did and when he's on I still watch him because he gives me all the feels just like he gives you guys all the feels there is a great podcast from outside magazine I think it's outside magazine where they did a whole episode on the magic of Bob Ross believe it or not I mean who would think outside magazine would do an episode on a painter but it was really fascinating because they they were drawn into it because he's a landscape painter and they're an outside outside adventure magazine but they kind of went down the rabbit hole and they they discover some really interesting things about Bob Ross and had some really cool philosophical kind of realization so I highly recommend its short I'm just really 25 minutes or something like that if you guys are at all interested look it up it's the outside magazine podcast I don't know where it is in their feed I don't remember how old it is but it was really interesting and I think you guys would all really enjoy it if you like Bob Ross if you like art if you like things do I make my own artwork you know I used to a lot but right now I have a young family I'm running a business I have all of this YouTube stuff and Instagram stuff I just you know bought and moved into this building so there's still projects to do I'm just kind of short on time I keep a sketchbook and at some point in my life when I have some free time I will start making my own artwork again you know making artwork for me has long transcended the space of wanting to sell it or you know have international acclaim or even show it it's kind of more of a Zen meditative process and also it's entertaining for me so I'll pick it up at some point you know the skill doesn't go away it'll always be there I just don't have time for it right now also kind of one of the things about working on art all day long and working with materials all day long there's this old cliche that the Cobblers kids never have shoes cobblers are that's what a person who makes shoes is sorry I trains going by anyhow um so the Cobblers kids never have shoes well the conservators walls are always blank I guess would be a good ism because I don't know I mean I'm doing this all day long I'm working with materials all day long some days when I get home all I want to do is not be around art I know that sounds kind of crazy but the there's a great chef in Chicago Grant Achatz he's the owner of Alinea and which is a Michelin rated molecular gastronomist Renault MEC restaurant wonderful restaurant and he was asked you know my your kids must have all the amazing food you know all this crazy cool stuff he says and we order a lot of cheese burgers and pizza I get it I mean you know you just kind of get burnt out doing all day long and then coming home and trying to do it holy cow I'd like to answer some of these questions but there's flying so bye I'm also looking at them on my iPhone so there's a lot less space let's see any out so as you can see I'm just kind of plotting along and and trying to use the color where I think it's gonna fit but as it the color changes I need to change it too so I'm adding a little bit of al-zarian carmine just kind of a red a really great dark broody red full of Ikea paintings no my house is not full of IKEA paintings it's it's mostly full of paintings that I traded for friends in art school and things that I have made my wife has made over the years we've bought a couple of small little things nothing expensive nothing fancy we're not we're not not big collectors or anything like that but you know the art that I like looking at is not necessarily the art that I want to live with in case in point I really like go as horrors of war but I don't think I'd want to see that first thing in the morning before I've had coffee some people do and that's that's totally cool but no not for me anyhow so I'm working on this kind of blueish brownish area and I'm trying to stay within that kind of color so that I don't have to remix I mean if obviously I jumped over here I'd have to make a whole new color and then I'd have to jump back here and make a new color and here make yeah I have watched faker fortune I really like that show I think some of it is really interesting I also think that like any TV show it is a reality show and so a lot of what appears on that show I suspect is fabricated for TV which doesn't mean that it's bad TV it's just TV so keep everything in you know keep all that in mind it's kind of like all those house flip shows where everybody starts crying on the reveal I sometimes think that they're told tears would be great at this moment feel free yeah super chat all that kind of stuff yes I'm I could do I'm on my phone so I'm not whatever we'll just make do with this this is the first one we'll figure it out and if it if it works it works if not we'll change it right there's this no problem we all have all day I have nothing to do here I'm at work and to that point I commute alone from my house to my work I work alone I am not accepting clients I have a vestibule where the mailman and UPS leave their packages so I'm not in contact with anybody other than my family and most of the day I am wearing PPE personal protective equipment respirators gloves and and all that kind of stuff so I'm I am doing as much as I can to isolate and keep myself and everyone around me protected by nature of being a conservator and kind of the work that I do I'm already kind of isolated so at this point I've done a little bit of work here and I just kind of want to take a check to see how see how it's looking so I'm gonna take that cotton ball again and I'm going to go over this area and this is what it will look like when it's varnished so that's first go around and I don't know if you guys can see I know how good the light is here but I need to do some adjustments so I do work on multiple pieces at a time any week I may be working on 10 to 15 pieces some of those will be completed within the week some of those are you know longer projects that take several weeks some take months but I try to keep a balanced schedule so that on any given day or any given week I'm not doing too much of one thing and that is I don't want to set up a schedule whereby next week I have 25 paintings that need a ton of retouching because it's just exhausting and it burns you out pretty quickly conversely even though I have two hot tables I don't want to have too many paintings I don't have like 15 paintings that need the hot table all day long because I just don't have the equipment to do that so I try to keep a balance and also keep myself interested and engaged you know different projects require different skill sets and different approaches and making sure that I'm not overdoing one thing like scraping you know like if I'm doing a painting that has a lot of scraping I am definitely only gonna do one of those I'm not gonna like put three of them on the schedule for one week because it would kill me it would make me go mad so that's how I keep a balanced schedule how long have I been doing this I have been doing this for let's see full-time let's see about twenty years and before that I was doing it for a couple of years kind of part-time learning apprentices oh my most did I ever consider another job I don't know that world famous artists or international playboy is a job I guess if I had to do it all over again I might consider being a furniture builder an architect or a carpenter I like designing things I think architecture would be really fun I think furniture building is a great balance between architecture design and craft and then carpentry is kind of like the purest of crafts I have a lot of respect for carpenters and contractors I think that that's a really fascinating world to be in and one that's full of problem solving and creativity and even though you guys you know even though people may not think that you know the plumber or the drywall hanger is creative you give it a shot and see just how hard it is to achieve a perfect product and how much creativity is required so anyways I have a tremendous respect for what is called the trades and my happiest place is when I am watching this old house reruns that that is whatever tinkles you guys get from watching my videos I get from watching this old house so that's a super favorite of mine big shout out to them I don't know I hope they hear that because a really really fantastic show and actually believe it or not I have cribbed several strategies or techniques or tips from from trades people and not just on TV from like norm Abrams Tommi Silva rich truth Rui Roger cook yes I know them all but also from the Tres people that I've met along the way who have worked on projects of mine you know these are people who come up with really creative inventive solutions to problems and that's really what being a craftsman is and art conservation is really kind of the same thing at its heart if you're a conservator your job is problem solving because no painting that comes into your studio is without problems every one of them has a problem and needs a solution and so it's your job to figure out that solution and sometimes those solutions are obvious or rote or predictable and that's a nice easy day but sometimes they are not sometimes they're complicated and they require you to use a technique that you've never used or introduce a new material or invent a technique or employ a material that was never used for conservation before and or you know in some cases build a piece of equipment or a tool to help you do something or appropriate a tool or a technique and that's really what what makes this job exciting is the unknowns the challenges yes there's the simple painting that just needs to be wiped off and cleaned is is certainly a nice is nice I guess but the ones that make you pause and say hold boy ok I got it ok this one I roll up my sleeves and really think about that one those are the ones I think that all conservators live for those are the ones that sustain us the heart of the project the more it demands of you the more skillet requires the more creativity and vent ofnews like and all that stuff let's see have I ever turned away a job you know my my barometer for doing work is can I make a positive impact on this painting can I effect a positive change and that is if the painting is a problem am I going to be able to satisfactorily work on this painting such that the client feels that they have received the best service and a product and outcome that meets their wants needs and expectations and sometimes that that isn't possible and I will say it is mostly not because of the painting paintings are are just objects they don't they don't have perspectives or wants and needs I guess it's mostly clients with unrealistic expectations and in those cases I you know it's delicate it's tricky to tell somebody that I don't think we're gonna be able to work together but I try to be as open and honest with them as possible because that's the best policy and you know I would rather turn somebody away and have them feel okay about it or at least that they understand why then take on a job that I know isn't going to be productive for either of us and then have a problem in the end you know it's kind of like if you see some poop on the ground you can do a lot to avoid it walking in it and then complaining that it's on your shoe I mean that's just your fault and you don't get any sympathy there's a terrible analogy I don't know I have little little kids so everything in my life now is poop how long did it take me to match color so well I'm still still learning you never stop right I mean there are days when I do retouching and I think I did a rock star job and I come back the next day and I think were you drinking or something what did you have one eye closed you know and that's you know just is what it is so Bob Ross paintings are almost all of them so it's interesting Bob Ross created for each painting that he did on the show he created three paintings there's there's one which is a sketch kind of like a a mock-up for him to follow and that you couldn't see it on the show but those were off-camera and so he would look at them so he kind of had a guide of what he wanted to do kind of like a cheat sheet then he created the one on camera and then he created after the show he would then recreate kind of a higher fidelity version of that painting so that he could have it photographed for a catalog and for promotional stuff the interesting thing is that all of the paintings save a very very few and we're talking like five are still held by the Bob Ross foundation he didn't sell them he gave some to some friends you know it's like the cameramen are the producers of the show but he kept almost all of them so there's like 600 paintings he made that they still own and it's crazy because like I don't know I mean I think frankly I think that if he put them up for auction or they were they were put up to sell I think that they would they would go in a minute I think a lot of people have really fond memories of the paintings I think they are a type of painting that is really pleasant and satisfying to a large percentage of people and I don't know if the art world so to speak feels the same way but yeah who cares yeah they're like in a warehouse in West Virginia good call oh I'm going to turn it off I do do a lot of chats are flying by um [Music] anyhow so I'm now I'm working on this area where there's a lot more loss and I'm just building up the paint this paint is not a hundred percent opaque or sometimes it can be mixed not opaque so I sometimes I have to layer sorry I gotta turn that off that's my stretcher manufacturer and he's probably calling to tell me that there's a problem or something like that anyway um it's just one thing that another another thing let's see our certain style it's easier to retouch than others oh yeah obviously um I would say that Abstract Expressionism is really really easy to retouch and and it's not because it's not a complex body of work but Abstract Expressionism has a lot of energy within the canvas and the paint and for lack of better word they're very busy and so when they're when the painting is really busy it's really easy to that the kind of the margin of error is broader you know if there is a tear through the face of a English Royals portrait sorry I don't hear a tear through the face of a really beautiful portrait not only is that like a really hard thing to retouch because it's it's the face but it's right where everybody's gonna look so it's really got to hit the mark not like this area that I'm retouching here much of this 1/4 inch of this is just going to be covered by the frame so this isn't it's not like that this isn't important but like all of this area is gonna get covered so it's certainly less high-stakes than right here which is kind of the focal point of the piece I'm trying to read these you guys are sending them so fast that it's really really hard if at any point oh sorry sorry I'm just yeah I've tried to enable slowmode I'm on my phone it can't I can't do it it you know it is what it is you know plus you guys are just rapid firing these things off I figured that if I talk long enough I'll probably answer most of your questions inadvertently and if not I will just do it again so the reason I started with this brown area and these edges and stuff like that is it's kind of forgiving and you know it's morning here I just started I'm not quite warmed up you know it's kind of like before you go play a game of basketball you just dribble around shoot around a little bit limber up kind of the same thing here I need to get familiar with this palette that this artist used I need to get familiar with how I'm operating today if I'm you know on point I hope I am if I'm you know just variables so starting off in the most important section of the painting which would probably be right here probably not a great thing I'm just gonna start off in an area that is a little bit more forgiving and then work my way over to that and see how that goes what got me into conservation boy yes I added all my videos I also shoot them all what got me into my into conservation you know I mean my father was a conservator and so when I was a little kid I spent you know sick days and and days off from school at his studio just kind of being a little kid you know playing and doodling and kind of stuff like that I was always into art I always made art both my parents were artists so it's kind of in our blood my grandfather was an architect my uncle is a jeweler my aunt is a writer and in radio I have a doctor in the family she's I guess the black sheep I'm just kidding so kind of art is something that I've always been surrounded by and so it never seemed like it wasn't a possibility for a I went to art school my parents were completely supportive they didn't think I was crazy in fact they thought that it was completely normal and so you know as I was in art school I started to work with my father a little bit partially because I found that some of the information and education I was getting in art school was lacking there was absolutely no there's really no education about materials and materials are so important in art making right I mean this is the stuff that you are using to make your art idea is really important but materials and technique is also really important and so I started spending more time with my father trying to learn about materials and techniques like how to stretch a canvas and how to prime it and you know how to varnish and all those kind of things that I wasn't wasn't learning in school and then as I spent more and more time with him I started to see the ins and outs of what a conservator does and I started to think that was really awesome I was always wary of the art world kind of writ large and the requirements to social network and kind of kind of do all that kind of stuff it just didn't seem like something I was well suited for or interested in but the art making I love making stuff I love working with my hands and so art conservation started to seem like something that would be really interesting and of course my father said yeah writ large is one of my favorite sayings I think my family hates the fact that I use it writ large any out so yeah that's kind of how I got into it no my wife is not in this business my kids are six and almost four with so many chats oldest repent oldest painting I just completed one from about 14 80 that's probably the oldest that I know of I've worked on some icons little small icons that may be older but you know with icons it's so hard to tell and tips for somebody who wants to become an art restorer art conservator well now there are many universities with programs to train conservators it's kind of become a very mainstream career and so there are many universities in Europe and in America that have degree programs so that's something that you would want to look into I know that the American Institute for conservation their website is cultural heritage org they have a page I think it's called how to become a conservator and they outline some of the ways that you can become a conservator guys I I'm on my phone I don't have the option to turn slow chat on if I could I would sorry it's a desktop only thing and my desktop is not portable it's a desktop just watch it later in in slo-mo you can read all the chats I mean half of them are the same question favorite artists all right favorite artists I adore Jasper Johns I adore John Singer Sargent I really like Motherwell I really like Franz Kline I really like Cecilia beaux Ralf Clarkson I guess I kind of fall my particular tastes fall into two categories absurdly romantic bows arts painting sergeant Robert RI Cecilia beaux Ralf Clarkson stuff where people just kind of painted super seductive portraits I love portraiture and then I like abstraction a lot I like pop art a lot modernist art a lot but you know it's kind of like your tastes are kind of like in art or kind of like your tastes in food it's like some days you feel like having a pasta some days you feel like sushi some days you feel like I don't know something else so some days I feel like I don't want to look at landscapes some days I only want to look at landscapes and that's one of the really interesting and great things about art is there's so much of it that you can kind of just choose a daily meal of art and expose yourself you know much like you wouldn't only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every single day there's nothing wrong with that why would you only look at one type of art just like you may you know like you're probably not gonna only listen to I don't know EDM or drill music all day long you might like to mix it up same thing with art and I think too many people are afraid of doing that of looking at art because it scares them or because they don't know how to think about it or process it which is kind of absurd because you inherently as a human being with eyes ears nose mouth senses all that kind of stuff who have lived a life or with living a life you have the tools built-in to understand art there's no secret code book for understanding a piece of artwork and if you and any of you who feel like you don't have those tools I would really really really recommend that you look at sister Wendy I'm sure you can see some of the videos on YouTube they're PBS sister when he was a nun who was an art historian who really broke down looking at art for people who didn't look at art and it was it was a kind of a revolutionary series because she was really kind of this unassuming little nun and she she opened up the world of art in a way that made a lot of sense to a lot of people so look at sister Wendy do I like ballet yeah I like most arts I don't know much about ballet so some of it probably flies over my head but I can certainly appreciate it what do I think about digital art you know here's my here's my feeling about art the best art effects within you a feeling or an emotion that you can't quite explain and that you can't quite achieve any other way the worst art does nothing for you it's completely banal it's completely disposable it doesn't it doesn't cause you to do anything doesn't give you any feels doesn't make you angry doesn't make you frustrate it doesn't make you happy sad or cry it just doesn't do anything to you that's bad art and so that's kind of how I feel about all mediums digital dance music whatever you know the goal is to feel right and if something makes you feel then it's achieved its its desired goal no after making you feel you want it to make you think because that's where it starts to get really interesting because you're gonna want to think why did it make me feel why did this painting make me feel sad okay well let's start take a look at it let's let's open that up yeah film is art of course TV is art too I mean look just about everything that's done deliberately with intent can be art not everything is great but it can be writing can be art you know street performance whatever anyways youtubers as art look again I'm not I'm not here to make that assessment there are plenty of smarter people who understand the are more than I do who can decide and tell you what is and isn't good art but like I said man if you like if you like cheeseburgers and somebody comes along and tells you that cheeseburgers are no good I mean I'm guessing that your response is gonna be something that I can't repeat on this stream and so why would you let anybody else tell you about the art that makes you feel something you know I mean my studio is filled with all sorts of artwork and one of the most interesting things that happens when people come into my studio is they they love to look around and they love to look at things and go oh my god that's terrible oh that's a awful piece of artwork or look at that schlock over there and it's funny because um I don't know I find it funny because they have no responsibility to like that artwork because it's not theirs you know I mean who cares conversely I don't really necessarily think they should be judging other people's artwork but we're judging what other people like but you know I guess we are in a very judgy time in the world we're live and let live isn't really the norm maybe that's what we need more of let's see what kind of music do I listen to I actually listen to a lot of National Public Radio here in Chicago we have an amazing station WBEZ that has really interesting programming and so I listen to a lot of that because it's interesting and it's kind of like food for my brain I listen to podcasts sometimes music sometimes I'll put music on it again it just kind of depends what mood I'm in you know slow Miles Davis ballads if it's one of those days or maybe I'll be listening to dub and reggae if I need something that's a little bit more upbeat and get me going and to be honest there are some days when I don't even turn the music on or the stereo on and I just I'm just so busy or in such a zone that you know it's like boom days done deadlines and flexibility yeah sometimes I do so I work with a lot of galleries and dealers and auction houses and people who are in the commerce end of the art world and those people definitely have deadlines and they are sometimes always shifting and changing so those I have to be conscious of I then have some clients who say I have no deadlines take it take as long as you need just do the work as you need to do it so obviously I try to balance things you know I don't want to have too many things that are under super deadlines because it's stressful but you know that's that's more of like a business question you know managing deadlines and things like that and and expectations about deadlines and to be honest that's something that nobody can teach you you really just have to learn it trial by fire I guess I'm very fortunate in that when I was working with my father I kind of learned all of that stuff the business aspect from somebody who was in the midst of running a business so it wasn't abstract or theory to me it was kind of like real life and that was really beneficial Wow let's see working with my father working for my father if any of you have ever worked with your family it is the best and worst job at the same time and I will just leave it at that and you can figure it out what does my family think about my youtube channel I don't know I think um I think my wife thinks it's funny and kind of silly I think my immediate family vacillates between oh this is really cool and you're a dork Julian I don't know Studio Tour yeah I'll be putting one together at some point what is too much retouching well that's an interesting question I mean you know since all of the the paints that I'm using are fully reversible I can wipe all of this retouching off and it's gone and it won't harm the painting so it's not a matter of saying that it's gonna damage the painting physically it may damage it may damage the integrity of the work but the goal for the conservator when they're doing retouching is to do the absolute minimum that is when I retouch this area here I just want to stay within the boundaries of this I don't I don't want to just kind of go like like this or you know get a you know a big ol fat brush and just kind of blend it in that's not appropriate just where the paint is missing do I put new paint on and you know there are people who do retouching who don't have that ethos I don't think they would be called conservators but anyhow yeah these paints drive really fast um they don't have any oil in them as I mentioned earlier so they they dry through solvent evaporation and not through cross-linking or oxidation or polymerization which are the processes that happen with oil paint so yeah and it's it's good because it allows me to work on the painting kind of fast but it is also somewhat problematic at times because you can't glaze you can't lay down transparent colors and you can't really build up because once I put a color down if I go back over it the new paint is going to reactivate the first layer of paint and it will probably pick it up so it is retouching is a very different mindset both conceptually and in terms of execution than painting and so it's it's not a matter of being a good painter makes you good retouch her in fact being a good painter may be counter to being a good retoucher and that's something that I had to learn because when I started I was not a good retoucher I was excessive I you know I didn't didn't understand the parameters in which I had to work and then over time oh man these those days when I would I would spend a whole day retouching and I'd give the painting my father for for approval and we'd go look at under their blacklight and then I'd see him take a convo with the solvent just wipe off all the all of my retouching and it would break my heart you know six hours of labor would just gone and he would say do it again yeah I would do it again and he would wipe it off again and he'd say do it again and man we got into fights um but the reason he was doing that is because it wasn't good and he was trying to implore me to be better to you know just to rise to the occasion to become a better retoucher a better conservator and that's why he started me there because all of that could be undone obviously cleaning paintings took a lot longer because you can't put back what you take off from a painting so if you take off too much of a painting you can't just wave a magic wand and put it back but if the retouching is lousy you you can you can wave a magic wand and it comes right off let's see I'm just trying to look at some of these questions has there ever been a painting that couldn't be fixed I mean yeah there are paintings that are too far gone it's tricky though because at some point there's almost always something that can be done to affect a positive change now is that positive change going to be enough for the client or is the cost of that positive change going to make economics well I mean that's something that I can't answer and to some degree I it's inappropriate for me to answer I can tell my client it's gonna cost X and this is what you can expect and then I can I can leave it to them to make those final decisions and I can point them to appraisers I can give get them second opinions but I don't have to make that kind of moral calculus which is good because I don't I don't want to have to make that you know it's hard I have seen people with paintings that are worth many many many times more than all of the things that I own in this world who argue and fight with me about very small sums of money and I have seen people with very very expensive paintings who refuse to invest any money into them to make them stable or or clean them and whatnot and then I have seen people with paintings that have absolutely no market value I mean paintings that that one on ebay wouldn't sell and they are willing to pour fantastic sums of money into them because they mean something to them and you know I'm not trying to say I'm not trying to get all Marie Kondo over here but if it brings you happiness if a piece of art if an object if a thing create it transforms you if it takes you someplace if it affects within you and emotion then it is valuable and there is a there is a compelling argument to preserve it now if you're doing it because it's an investment that's another story but you know I mean we spend our lives working to make money and what good is money aside from keeping us alive and sheltering and all that kind of stuff if you can't spend it to enrich your life any how do I need permission for my clients before filming yeah of course I I get permission from all my clients before I film any of the works but at this point I am I get more requests to film than not to film and I wish I could film everything but you know I just can't only one of me so now I've done most of this brown area I'm gonna start moving over to this this greenish area and then maybe I'll switch over to here I'm gonna move over to here because this is kind of a similar color and it's not too far of a reach to get from here to here whereas when I jump over here it's a whole different color so I have all the toilet paper all of it I am the sole reason that there is no toilet paper in America because I work alone and I hoard it come on have I ever done it he worked for free no I'm in business after all I will say this much there was and this is a good business lesson now here's here's a business lesson for everybody actually it's more of a life lesson I should be giving life lessons I had a client come in an older woman with a painting that needed a little bit of work just needed a little cleaning and I gave her the proposal and she came back and said you know I'm on fixed income I really can't afford this but this is really important to me this is something that is important in my life and I would really like to have it done is there any any movement could can you give me a break here and you know at that point I had two choices I could say yeah okay or I could say no come on this is a business and a story you can't go to a you know you can't go to McDonald's and say well I don't want to pay $3 for that can I have it for two so anyway i gave the woman a pretty big discount and pretty much did it for what she told me she could afford and i thought okay well that's my kismet for the year and we're for the week or the day whatever and i will you know if that's it's not a very big thing to do I mean there's certainly bigger ways to give back to the world and society and whatnot but I thought well it's just small thing I can do and it makes her happy so fine I'll do it and that was that I lost money on it because the time and labor was more than the more than the cost of the conservation sorry I'm trying to talk retouch and read at the same time and you know I thought that was that in a story fast forward to about a year so now I'm gonna I'm gonna switch over to this area so I'm gonna this is kind of a purplish bluish gray and I guess I'm gonna mix that color and let's see on my palate where I have a purplish bluish gray that I don't mind mixing it's a little brown so I'll do it right here this is kind of a grey and I'm gonna just reactivate this gray kind of as a base and then I can modify it so that it matches anyhow so fast forward about a year later and where's that let me get it on camera okay that's word about a year later and I get a call from a seminary in fact the one that I did that big st. Francis painting the video for and they wanted me to come up and look at hundreds of paintings they had in all states of disrepair and all that kind of stuff so I went up there and I looked at it and gave him some proposals and and I thought I was just bidding on on this job and I asked them when I would hear back about my bid and they said there's no bid you you're you've got the work and I said oh I mean thank you yes yes please but you guys aren't bidding this project out I'm just kind of curious I'm not trying to give away work but I'm you know I just like to know and and they said well are on our board of directors is mrs. so-and-so and she insisted that when we had this work done you were the one to do and she carries a lot of weight in this in this congregation well it turns out mrs. so-and-so is the little old lady who I did the painting for and lost money on it and it's just one of those life lessons about what goes around comes around and I lost a little bit of money on that painting I did for her but I was rewarded in spades by the massive job they were something like a hundred and some-odd paintings that needed conservation and you know maybe they would have gone with me one way or the other but the fact that this woman felt that I had done something for her that was was bigger than a painting you know she pushed and lobbied her congregation and so you know a moralist story man be nice to people be kind treat people well treat people fairly wear clean underwear hug your grandma and that goes to like online stuff too like you guys have no idea who is out there and online and I have received messages from people on Instagram YouTube email whatever who has said oh you know I saw your video or hey I saw how you responded to that semi controversial post you put up on Instagram and I'm the director of such from such Museum and I would like to have you work on such-and-such painting right so like I don't know just like think like everything you do he you are responsible for and think about like being judged on everything you do anyhow that's my life lesson for the day how many paintings have I done uh boy I've probably worked on I looked at my database at one point and I think I was somewhere there's a couple years ago around the eight or nine thousand eight hi eight thousands so I think at this point I might have crossed ten thousand maybe I don't know I'll have to go look at the database and and see again it's not a complete database but it gives me a good approximation of how many I've worked on this painting for all of you who are joining late or who don't know this is a kind of early Hudson River School painting by George Hetzel Hudson every school were a group of artists in New York upstate New York who painted American landscapes and kind of really beautiful works and they they were kind of the first artists to kind of grab the attention of the European artists and say boom we've got something to show you because of course the Europeans with a long tradition of art making and masters and this didn't think that this upstart little company had company upstart little country had anything to offer the art world and so they were really kind of skeptical of any American art also because early American art was very um naive and I'm not saying like that it was bad it was just that kind of like a style of art and so when the Hudson River School burst on the scene they kind of shot across the bow of the European artists and a lot of them trained in Europe and eventually went to Europe to paint and took some of the techniques home anyway really interesting stuff George Hetzel was one of the early Hudson River school painters and I think he was involved in founding some school or arts league or something I'm not 100% positive on that this is just a little little of his paintings this is obviously not a Grand Master piece have I ever ruined a painting the answer to that is one that I will answer but I will answer more thoroughly in a video that I am working on yes and no sorry that's all you're gonna get today and the reason I'm not going to answer it right now is because it's really complicated answer and I want to do justice by it and I think that me rambling on about it isn't gonna be as clear and concise as if I have a chance to sit down and think it out plan it out yeah so how is my quarantine going um well in Illinois in Chicago here we are on a shelter-in-place order which kind of means if you don't have to don't leave and we could still go pick up food from restaurants we can still go to the parks you can still go to work if you are if you work by yourself or if you are obviously an essential um business you know like health care providers and stuff like that since I commute by myself and since I work by myself I'm not really at risk I'm not taking any meeting with any clients and since parts of the world that used my service are not under quarantine and their economies have not shut down I still have work to do and I have work to get to them because their lives are as of yet undisrupted anyhow huh how did that messed up Jesus painting get so messed up all right I will talk about that I'm gonna talk about that in a video later so I will just this is my one comment that I will make on the aqui homo homo aqui I can't remember the name and the Cecilia Jimenez situation that painting had been deteriorating for years on the side of that church in her hometown and daily almost daily she went to the church and said please do something about this painting it is falling apart it is an important painting and they ignored her they just didn't do anything and so the painting continued to deteriorate and at some point she got fed up and she said fine if you aren't gonna do anything about this I will and that's where everything went wrong and of course it is her fault for trying to do something that she was grossly unqualified for but I would like to ask the question of the owners of the church if they are supposed to be the stewards of the artwork why did they let it fall into such disrepair why did they let it get to a state where a citizen thought that the only way to save it was to try herself and so yeah a lot of blame goes to Cecilia Mendez for for doing that but what about all the other people that let it get to that point now if we're taking names I'd like to have those people account for their lack of action anyhow hi Philippines how do I feel off fans visiting and that really my studio is a workspace and it's my studio and there's some liability and insurance issues so it's not really like an open to the tour kind of place um I know it breaks your heart to all of you who want to come here um let's see I get to work on new paintings yes sometimes I get to work on paintings that are very new that have conservation problems I know I mentioned yesterday in a post that it seems like all I ever do is work on really old paintings that's definitely not the case and I'm always on the lookout for different types of paintings that would make interesting videos it's you know it's just a matter of finding the right painting and finding one that is filmer ball works into my schedule all that kind of nitty-gritty stuff [Music] how does conservation affect the value of a painting well I mean let's take a look at this painting George Hetzel is a well-known painter his paintings do sell pretty well in the market and in its state what came in it was worth almost nothing I'll post a photo of it on my Instagram stream before and after after all this is done so when it came into the studio it was in such bad condition that the owner in fact said that he had spoken to some some people some dealers and they had said just throw it away there's just absolutely no value in the painting so now even with the all the work that I'm doing on the painting now it's going to restore and the restoration get it some of the value if not all of value back into the painting and that is you know if the painting is a complete loss before I work on it then the conservation and restoration will bring back the value now that's also all predicated on the conservation being restrained in accordance with modern practices and ethics and using archival and reversible materials so obviously if I took oil paint and repainted this sky that would not be good conservation and that would not add value to the painting but that I am using archival paints and varnishes and adhesives and materials that are reversible I'm not doing anything that's permanent so it can all be undone and that's kind of a high bar that's kind of like that the number one the number one thing so yes it will restore value and ultimately if the person who ends up buying this painting because I think it'll probably be sold decides well you know I didn't like I don't like baumgartner's work whatever the case may be I don't like his style I don't like his approach or I just don't like those materials that he is all of this stuff can be undone it's none of its permanent and and reversed is different than removable in my last video I talked a little bit about the difference between reversible and removable everything is removable I could take a sandblaster or a belt sander and remove stuff from the surface of this painting that doesn't mean that it's reversible reversible means that it was designed to be easily removed without running risk of damage and that's the big difference so these are reversible materials the chemists and conservators have worked in conjunction to design these materials so that if and when because this will painting will likely be conserved at some point in the future be it 20 years 50 years 200 years when it is conserved again it is paramount that the next conservator can easily remove any or all of the work that I've done so that they can have a chance at doing it themselves and they may not need to they may say this is fine there's just it just needs a light surface cleaning or it just needs to be retention Don the stretcher bar or whatever the case may be but if it has a new like I say it gets a tear in it they may need to undo my work to facilitate the next round of conservation and in that case that I am using reversible and archival materials hopefully their lives will be that much easier and they'll be able to look at my label and the report and say Oh piece of cake done it is teeny tiny painting Oh how was my brother my brother is very well thank you for asking he every once in a while I drag him into the studio to help me with a project that is either building something or moving something or lifting something something something something and he's not artistic but he is certainly handy and clever and I like him a lot and he and I work well together so when I was renovating my building this building here he helped me out quite a bit and always fun if you can work with your your siblings I highly recommend it again you will fight but there is almost nothing as rewarding as the synchronicity that comes with quietly working with somebody who is of your blood and the wavelength harmony that you kind of get on to yeah I'm gonna do a studio tour eventually I'm working on it maybe that's in the next couple months I'll get that together in the meantime you can see a virtual studio tour of my studio if you go onto my website there is a 3d walkthrough of the studio from this past summer where you can do it on your computer your phone or if you have a augmented reality thing you can do that Studios changed a little bit since then but it'll it kind of give you a basic layout and let you see into the studio is there any style I avoid like Chinese Japanese no there's not any style I avoid Japanese work on paper or silk is something that I'm not really suited to I don't work with paper I I work with paintings or painted objects or other objects on canvas so I would refer those to a paper conservator somebody who I I trust and would recommend because it's not my field of expertise and I wouldn't want to experiment or take on a project where I didn't feel qualified or able to do the work so I have a broad network of conservators around the country and in other fields who and dealers and galleries and appraisers and framers and art movers and art facilitators and museums and auction houses and that all those people in the business who I can refer if I feel like they are better suited to delivering a quality result to my clients that's part of taking care of your clients is understanding when you're not the right person for the job and pointing them to the right person so again this is just a little cotton ball with some odorless mineral spirits and I'm going over and you see right there where I had just retouched before I went over it it looked perfect don't look so perfect now the mineral spirits kind of allows me to see what the painting is going to look like after it's been varnished and so now I can go back in and re retouch that area and make it look better because it doesn't look right how do I do this and concentrate at the same time I don't know I it's hard it's like chewing gum and walking at the same time you know I don't know I mean you know to some degree some of this the retouching is automatic it's like part of my brain that I'm not conscious of like anything that you do long enough or have enough practice in it kind of runs autonomously the talking part is much harder for me trying to make sure I'm making sense and and I don't know delivering interesting perspectives or content see the talking part is hard man I can do the retouching part all day long talking that's a whole nother story I'm not me not good at talking what do I do to relax after work what do what else do I do besides work um like anything like any of you guys I'm sure we all kind of do similar stuff I I spend time with my family I watch TV I ride a bike a lot I ride my bike quite a lot and that kind of keeps me balanced and sustained a read I waste time on the Internet isn't that a hobby what do the tax tastes like they just taste metallic they just taste like metal which no it doesn't really yeah yeah my name is German my father was Swiss and Baumgardner means the keeper of the trees interestingly enough I lived for the majority of my life on orchards so there you go I don't know fate had a hand then I guess worst part I don't work on water collar watercolors because that's a paper conservators realm and I'm not a paper conservator I would refer those to a paper conservator and those paper conservators would refer paintings to me we've a nice little you know symbiotic relationship where I can help them I do where they can help me they do we keep each other happy we don't step on each other's toes we don't take each other's lunches so to speak and everybody lives a long and happy life and has a wonderful successful business the end let's see what do I think of my fans oh do I play video games no I haven't played a video game since grand theft auto like three hour gold and I there's not a video game person how many pieces my filming at one time two three kind of depends on piece how long should a conservation lasts as long as it can kind of depends I mean I would say that a good conservation you could get maybe two generations out of it before it might need to be addressed so I don't know is that like sixty eighty years maybe more I don't know kind of depends how about how the painting is kept Oh am i a Bears fan yeah you know I'm a Bears fan I'm a Cubs fan I'm a Bulls fan we're having a hard time right now in Chicago where we're paying the price for the Bulls are gonna be bad for another decade the Cubs I can't even talk about the Cubs and and the Bears I can't talk about the Bears um I like sports ball go Packers I'm sorry I'm sorry but if there was a way to unto to remove that comment I would sorry anyhow how many years of studying does it take to do this that's a really good question I mean how many years of studying does it take to do anything that's not really the question the question is how many years of practice does it take to be proficient and to be to be good and I think the answer to that is n plus one how about that what do I think of my fans I think you guys are amazing um I I think it's awesome I I think it's it's crazy and I some sometimes think it's a little weird but I think it's awesome you know working alone can be boring and one of the things that the social media has done for me is connect me with a fan base who is interested and engaged which keeps me interested and engaged sometimes the questions you guys asked seem like I get frustrated because I answer them a lot but you know in answering them and and forcing me to explain what I'm doing and talk about it it gives me time to think about what I'm doing and to think about how I'm doing and how I'm approaching and so you know all of all of that stuff is is what keeps me engaged on those days when I just don't want to be here it has also allowed me to connect with conservators all over the world who otherwise I probably would never know and talk about conservation and discuss materials techniques approaches and that and that's just I mean say what you will about the internet being a tunnel of lightning from Hell or a cesspool there are still some really good attributes about the way it allows us to connect and that is one of them favorite era for paintings oh I don't know as long as they're well built I don't really mind being in Chicago have I ever found any really good painting as a thrift store I'm not I don't really hunt for paintings it's not really something I do I have clients that have yeah I have clients that have found some really amazing paintings at thrift stores is conservation a good business to be in oh I don't know yeah I know I don't know um it's a hard business to be in it's not really a growth industry it's not like health care where more and more people need it and it's really hard to keep a business running so I don't know if it's a good business or not all right so now I'm gonna start working on some of this area some of the Blues I'm gonna avoid doing too much of the Reds because I want to save those for a little bit later so again this is that where I started that grayish color to retouch this area and I'm just gonna use the same area and modify it a little bit as I get into here because the color the artist used here was blended to here so naturally if I match this color I'm gonna use it to get to this color that makes sense kind of like making a master sauce in cooking I can I can kind of use what I've already made and and go from there what's the hardest part of my job hmm what is the hardest part of my job the business stuff is probably the least enjoyable you know if I didn't have to do that kind of stuff it would be and I could just focus on working it would be it'd be wonderful but of course if you if you don't focus on the business stuff you can't do the work so it kind of goes hand in hand do you ever get spooked out by being in the studio alone no I mean this is like my second home the most famous of artists I've conserved well I mean that's relative to who you think is famous I've worked on a John Singer Sargent a little Jackson Pollock a Alberta Nellie let's see a Modigliani um I don't know what a barb is Peter you're gonna have to explain to me if I had a opportunity to work on the Mona Lisa would I he'll know that painting is so fraught with political barrels and and minefields that I pity anybody who tries to work on it or is tasked with working on that painting you know I don't think it's any different than any other paintings it's paint on wood but you know it's the most famous painting in all of history and so there is no way that you could work on that painting and ever come through it unscarred you know and I'm generally trying to live my life with as little drama and drama as I can I know maybe I should delete the YouTube and the Instagram those seem to be fantastic sources of drama that turns into trauma I don't speak German or Swiss German or it's a Dutch it's the only time I ever really heard it was when I was getting in trouble for my father so I don't really have a positive association with sweat so Dutch it's also a really hard language to learn and pretty limited I used to speak French but that's that that has since faded quite a bit because I don't really use it on a daily basis I can read it a little bit better than I can speak it is it hard to satisfy clients um not necessarily I think like anything it's a matter of expectations before and by that I mean making sure the client understands what I can and cannot do what I will and will not do and then trying to understand their wants needs and expectations so that I can match what I'm doing as close as possible to what they want and need because of course that's the basis for all good relationships right communication and being on the same page because without that you nothing but trouble was gonna happen let's see I should do this more often yeah the funny thing is that so now I've been at this for nine an hour and a half if I wasn't talking to you guys I would have been done with this painting two or three times over I'm just going really slow because everybody's got nothing to do and I don't know normally I'm much faster at retouching than I am today but I'm talking and talking it makes my brain hurt and makes it hard for me to do two things at once do I want my children to follow this path no I want my children to change the world I want them to develop life-saving drugs to change our political system to make music or art that enriches people's lives or or do something you know better than than me but if they wanted to do this we'd have to have a discussion I'm gonna be streaming until I'm done with this so I don't know however however long have I ever lost my temper with a client No I generally try to keep myself under check and act like an adult and remember that whatever is going on in their world that I may not be privy to is probably having an effect on their behaviors that I'm finding problematic I've had to fire clients before which sounds crazy but you know sometimes there are clients so you just say look I don't think this relationship is working I guess break up with a client and say I think you would be better served with somebody else and I respect your opinions your whatever but I just don't think this is gonna be a relationship yeah I get clients all the time who send me pieces and they say this will be a video right and I have to tell them you know my filming schedule is booked up or you know no you know I'd love to make a video of every painting for every client but that's you know this is not possible toxic paint colors during restoration not really I mean I don't mix my own colors so I'm not like using toxic pigments there's plenty of solvents and things I use that are harmful health-wise but I try to take precautions where I can using PPE personal protective equipment respirators gloves that kind of stuff like anybody who works with chemicals petroleum chemicals and stuff like that you gotta just take precautions so that you you don't expose yourself let's see no I've never conserved a Bob Ross I wish I had and I went through that earlier I've worked out of Thomas Kincade painting or a quote unquote painting that was fun scraping or rubbing doable by anyone after a bit of training yeah I mean obviously you know you can learn this stuff everybody who does this learns it at some point and everybody who does this is bad at it in the beginning anybody who tells you otherwise is well you guys can figure it out I don't know how to activate donations it's not my thing I'm just trying to think of some of these that would be interesting questions for you guys to see how did I conserve a Polock look I'm in kind of the same as anything a Pollock is no different than this painting than a George Hetzel it's just a painting the name of the artist is impressive but the work that it needed was not it just was a little dirty and needed to be restricting maybe 20 by maybe 10 inches or so so it wasn't you know massive let's see is there an eco-friendly way to do conservation restoration that's interesting and there's a lot of discussion within the conservation world right now about sustainability in fact the American Institute for conservation sent out a massive survey to conservators about sustainability in within our work it yes but also know we still need to use petroleum solvents and petroleum products we can recycle them and I do I send used solvents off to a chemical recycler I tried to recycle as much of the plastics as I can on things like that but to some degree you know you got a you got to use what you got to use nerve-racking projects aah I don't know at this point I'm kind of not to say that I'm not fazed by things but you know I've been doing this quite a long time and I've seen a lot and I've worked on a lot I tell you the thing that makes me nervous is my clients sometimes the paintings almost never make me nervous but some clients are really high-strung or are just really demanding and that just kind of like throws your game off a little bit but again that's not really a conservation issue that's more of like a business issue and there are ways to manage that so that it doesn't become dominating how do you conserve paintings that can't be varnished well paintings with thick impasto and the impasto is the textural buildup of paint that's when it's thick and and chunky and really seductive those can be varnished that there is absolutely they can be varnished you just have to take care in removing excuse me you should have take care in how you approach them now there are paintings that cannot be varnished paintings that have mixed-media sometimes cannot be varnished you know if the painting has a photograph on it you can varnish over that photograph if the painting has charcoal on it you can't do that or if it's got objects attached to it may not be possible to varnish and in those cases it's mostly a measure of preventative conservation which is kind of a silly thing silly way of talking about it but it's it's about talking to the client about how they're going to treat the object how they're gonna care for the object in such a way that would limit the chances that it would be damaged that can be sometimes that's a question of where the piece is displayed sometimes that's a question of framing choices is it framed in a let's say a lexan or acrylic box to protect it from the outside world or you know just kind of trying to head off at the pass any of those problems that might occur with exposure to the elements or to the world writ large has anyone handed me a fake or stolen artwork oh man that's a tricky question and it's tricky because it is not a simple yes-or-no question so let me first preface this by saying I'm not an appraiser nor my an art historian or researcher so I don't often t'k eight artworks I I'm not that's not my role that's not my job that's not something that I have any interest in doing nor do I have any expertise in doing but as a conservator who is looked at and worked on thousands and thousands of paintings and who is attuned to the way that paintings are made and how materials age and kind of the whole Gestalt of the painting as object I have a unique perspective in that lots of clients come to me with paintings and they say I need your perspective I need your expertise on this take a look and what do you think tell me and in those cases what I do is I take a look painting and I make a column of pros and cons and I look at every aspect of the painting from the content of the work you know does this seem to fit the artists style does this seem to fit their their narrative style you know is the brushwork consistent all that kind of stuff and then I also look at the materials is are these materials consistent with what we know to be true of the artist that is is the they use this type of paint did they use this type of canvas and stretchers are the nails or tacks of the era that this painting is purported you know is the oxidation on the canvas congruous with a hundred year old painting or is there anything that that is you know weird and I'll make a big list of those and then I will deliver to the client that that list and I will say my conclusion is based on the sum of the parts based on everything that I have have looked at I would feel confident in the assumption that this is an authentic painting or based on the some of the evidence based on all of the parts that looked at I would not be comfortable making a conclusion that this painting is as it is purported to be and it's a really delicate way of saying I don't know but it doesn't feel right or I don't know but I can't you know I can't say no there's no nothing here that says hard no and then you know I leave it up to my clients to take it from there so have I ever it is a really long-winded answer to a really short question have I ever come across fakes yeah plenty I have come across pieces that had signatures added so that they looked like they were by a certain artist I have come across pieces that were comprehensive fabrications made to look like the artist and and those are really tricky situations because almost every single time without fail the person who is bringing me the painting believes the painting to be what it purports and that's a really tricky conversation to have with a client to tell them look this painting that you just bought is I I have serious doubts about its authenticity and you know that's it's like being the bearer of bad news it's terrible makes me feel lousy but I owe it to my clients and that's they pay me for that they want that they want me to tell them that kind of stuff you know I've worked with Interpol and I've worked with the FBI and stolen art registry on pieces in the past and uh you know it's tricky there's no easy way around it suffice to say I wish they were less of that because it's not part of the world that I the art world that I like but it happens if I ever discovered a work yeah absolutely I have I have I have assisted clients whoops drawn my brush and proving art works to be things that that they couldn't otherwise prove themselves on my website there's a little tab for research and I talked about just a couple of cases where I was part of the authentication process for a painting or something like that and that's like the greatest part of the job right not only to give a painting back to a client and say here it is all cleaned and blah blah blah but hey I found a signature and it turns out that this is a pretty important painting I mean talk about having a good day that's like you just feel like you're on cloud nine after that what's the most expensive piece I'll answer the question about the the signatures in a second what's the most expensive piece of work I've ever worked on I you know to be honest I don't necessarily know because they don't really care how much the pieces are worth it's it's a kind of a footnote to my job I have worked on a I did work on a Royal Lichtenstein painting that was valued at about fifteen million dollars I worked on a Thomas Hart Benton that was an eight or nine million dollar painting um but you know the value of the painting has no has almost no implication on the work that gets done and sometimes really valuable paintings this Lichtenstein just needed a light surface cleaning and it was done in like an afternoon you know just because it's expensive doesn't make it interesting it doesn't make it good art Velvet Elvis yeah I have I have seen some velvet paintings in the past and and I don't know I mean I don't know who's leaving it that isolation there okay so isolation layer and I've tried to talk about this in my videos and I'll talk about it now the the layer of varnish that I would put down before retouching serves two purposes sometimes two purposes not always the first and foremost would be if the painting is painted in a way or with material with paints that are going to change significantly enough after the varnish is applied that the retouching process would be more difficult and in that I mean I will put the the the first layer of varnish down so that I can see what the colors are going to look like then I'll do the retouching and then I'll do a final final varnishing that facilitates better color matching and all of that kind of stuff the other reason that I would put down an isolation layer is if the original paint layer is vulnerable to the solvents that are used in the retouching paint or to remove the retouching thing that is not all paint is created equal and not all artists paint in the same manner and so sometimes an artist will use a a product or a technique or something and that becomes fugitive or vulnerable and the use of solvents inside this paint that I'm using or the use of solvents to remove this paint would damage that paint layer then I would put down the isolation layer as a method of isolating the original from anything that I've added but it's not a universally needed needed thing it kind of just depends on on the piece and so you know I'll have to size up the painting and see see what's necessary now this painting was sorry this painting didn't need oh sorry just probably gave you all the vertical right there for a second this painting the paint layer itself the original paint was very stable wasn't fugitive isn't vulnerable to the solvents and the colors don't change that radically when it's varnished so I didn't feel like that was necessary for this painting now the next painting I do it maybe and so every painting gets taken as a unique a unique piece and a unique approach it's just there's kind of no universalism about about this insurance yeah I carry a ton of insurance I have insurance on my building in case somebody slips and falls I have insurance I have a specific conservation insurance policy which I know it sounds crazy but it's there it's kind of like doctors insurance malpractice and and all that kind of stuff and it's very expensive and I hate paying it because you know insurance you ain't nobody wants to pay insurance but you know best case you you waste a whole bunch of money over your career and you never have to use it you know but it's what it is is there a point at which there was something about like needing 80% retouching or something like that I mean yeah you know it's tricky I mean obviously if a painting comes in and it needs 80% of the painting retouch that's not really retouching anymore or conservation that's creation and I would generally tell the clients that's not really my role and that's not really something that I'm suited to and I would probably tell them you know at this point I think you should you should probably contact an artist and commissioned them to recreate recreate the painting partially because it would just be so expensive for them to have me do that kind of intricate recreation of a painting you know and also I'm not a painter I'm not an artist I'm a conservator and I'm not the one who's best suited to recreating the painting that's damaged let's see yeah I have clients who try to do work on their own paintings all the time and it's incredibly frustrating because they like my small children they they think that I'd I won't know if they lie to me you know like they'll bring it in and they'll say here's my painting I need it fixed and I say what happened to this what is going on here no nothing I'm like come on tell me the truth what happened here I don't know it's just it's just like this I don't know who broke the cookie jar said the kid with crumbs on their face and it's like come on fess up just own up and also own up and tell me what you did because that is gonna be an important piece of evidence that will help me determine what I need to do going forward but if you just kind of lie to me and you know like that makes my job harder and it also makes the relationship much more perilous I'm an artist and technician oh if I'm on a spectrum in between an artist and a technician that's a really great question I would say that I am NOT an artist at work I am a technician and a craftsman artists artists have a responsibility to the content and creating the content I don't do that I don't create I fix I fill in my employ but I don't have any editorial responsibility how's my dog she's fine she needs a haircut very badly but she's good why am I so content that's in that like the $10,000 the $64,000 life question I don't know I will say this much I am much more content and calm and patient when I'm at work doing something like this because there's a certain zen about it just getting lost in the the process of doing so I guess why adult coloring books are so popular right now because not having to think and just kind of executing is a very I don't want to use the word Zen again but a very meditative thing and getting lost in something transcending your own current station in life your own moment your own mishegoss that that's that's pretty awesome and so to some degree this job even in those moments when it's incredibly frustrating like scraping or retouching can be transcendent and that's really really nice clients delivering things back that they are unsatisfied with um I mean it's happened you know but again it is more an issue of miscommunication then bad work or the work not measuring up and by that I mean you know the client may have expected that I was gonna do something and I didn't communicate well enough that I wasn't or they may have expected that I was gonna do something or that I wasn't gonna do something I don't know you know I mean that's mostly just miscommunication and miscommunication can always be fixed that there's nothing that's just like a human thing right we we just got to work on that a lot of the questions you guys are asking I've already answered I mean I can keep answering them but I'm just trying to look for things that are novel um well as so many just came by have I ever been met with criticisms from other conservators I mean sure right I think that there's a whole universe of conservators who hate me out there for I don't know what reasons I mean just go go to read it I mean that maybe don't go to Reddit that's a terrible place and it's gonna make your day really lousy and rotten you know I will say this much and I've talked to plenty of other conservators about it we in this in our society in our world right now have entered a period where the prevailing way of existing is a zero-sum game and I'll get like kind of abstractly philosophical here for a hot second and you can tune out or whatever so zero-sum game zero-sum game is where in order for there to be a winner there must be a loser that by definition you cannot have by definition there cannot by definition for one to succeed one else has to fail and I think that that's really toxic and really problematic in our society as a whole and one thing that I found in working as a conservator for 20-some odd years is that conservators are and I say this knowing many conservatives who are amazing wonderful people but I think that there are many conservators who are very petty or very small and the idea that one person may be succeeding automatically for them means that they are failing and so in an effort to raise themselves they must lower others and I don't really think that that's a me problem I think that's a vey problem unfortunately everybody has a microphone or a megaphone now and everybody feels like their opinions need to be screamed from the rooftops and that can be really troubling and problematic I will say this much I have been doing this for a while and I have yet to receive any emails any phone calls or any direct communication from any conservators in the world who have who take issue with what I'm doing I don't go on reddit or Facebook to look for that stuff and my feeling is that you know my phone number is all over the web you know I answer questions on my Instagram if there's an issue that one takes with me I am here I am available and open and we can discuss it we can talk about it we can figure out what is the profit the problem is and we can hopefully come to a resolution but for those people who wish to take up a cause of trashing me or criticizing me anonymously or in a shielded forum or something like that I just don't have time in my life for that and I don't engage in it and I don't think it's healthy for me for for the people doing it and for the people on the sidelines Hootin and Hollerin anyhow just be kind watercolors can be conserved you need to speak to a paper conservator strangest stories of conservation I know that you kind of see them all there was one cool piece that I had and I think it's up on my Instagram way down deep in there I don't you'll never find it because Instagram is not doesn't make looking at the past easy I had a painting that came in I should hear two interesting ones one had a hole in the lower quadrant and of course my inclination was to tell the client well let's let's fix this right let's let's bridge it or rewiev it or I can't member what I proposed and they said no no no no no we do not want the hole fixed I said but you know it's it's problematic for the canvas and it also I mean you have a hole in your painting right dear Liza dear Liza I mean like let's fix it let's put the painting back together and they said no no no no no and they they wouldn't tell me anything more they just kept saying no and I I don't know that I'm gonna be able to work with you if if you if this is how this is gonna go and they said this painting that this painting was owned by our family a la Yeon's ago during the civil war and that hole is a bullet hole from the Confederate Army when they stormed I don't remember that details when they stormed the town were my Bella blah blah blah and my relatives were killed or something like that but the painting survived and that is more important to us than this being a painting this is an artifact of our family history and so I said oh I get it okay cool all right we can fix that I can fix the painting while preserving the whole and so we came up with a novel solution of maintaining the damage to the painting while making sure that it wouldn't perpetuate any more damage and that was that was a really cool fun project because it forced me to think outside of my standard processes for addressing those fairly rote problems I had another one where it was a painting that was in Germany during the war was owned by a Jewish family and there was in the center of the painting where the two two figures were cavorting so this week there was a massive tear puncture dent and it was the shape of a rifle but and that was where a stormtrooper had come in and smashed the painting and the owner explicitly did not want that fixed because it served as a remembrance of the trauma that their family had been through and it was important to them that that that damage be kept as a thumb in the nose of those who would tried to eliminate that family so not to get heavy but those were some really interesting projects because you know it how do you it's kind of like man walks into an emergency room with a knife stuck into his skull and says yeah but but keep a knife there cuz I want you know it's it's a good memory of a crazy night you know I was like oh you know it's like okay well we'll figure it out let's see I kind of just went off on some wild tangents what is the one of the most difficult things to learn as an apprentice conservator ooh there are so many difficult things to learn as a conservator restraint it's hard knowing when to pull back and stop is hard because we all want to continue to plow ahead and and we are taught you know no pain no gain you know but being able to identify step outside of yourself and say okay okay you know what I'm losing my focus I'm it's time to stop it's also sometimes hard to identify when you need to be more aggressive and say okay I'm gonna I gotta lean into this and really push it because that can be scary so limits I guess would be the hardest things to learn as a conservator I mean you know if you do 10,000 hours of retouching you will be good at retouching if you do 10,000 hours of scraping you will be good at scraping those are just mechanical skills that you can learn and you can refine and you can hone over your career but some of the the other ones about learning limits and learning how to push yourself or learning where and when and and being able to identify moments and indicators that you are starting to get tired or you know lose your focus those those are really really hard how do these bots know hello Netherlands what's the most difficult or challenging project I've had to work on um okay I have a really interesting and challenging one that I'm working on now yes I will be making a video of it one that I worked on many many years ago that was really difficult was a painting had come into the studio and it had been it was flaking it had been water damage so the entire painting was kind of falling off of the canvas all the paint look like little curled potato chips peeling off and at some point somebody had poured on the surface had had taken and put on the surface I'm sorry a piece of silk a very thin transparent piece of silk and then poured on top of that silk a good two millimeters or so worth of polyurethane dun dun dun I know it's like my least favorite word entire language and they did that to try to like encase the painting so that none of that paint would flake off but of course I mean that's just absolutely absurd and terrible and the client wanted me to fix it and also the polyurethane need yellow because that's what polyurethane does so not only was the painting was lots of loss and did the paint look terrible but it was really yellow and really the the problem in that case was that the paint layer the paint itself wasn't really bonded to the canvas anymore because of the water damage the original canvas was so kind of water damaged and deteriorated that it was soft and like powdery and it didn't really have any fidelity anymore so what I ended up doing was something called a paint film transfer and I've done a few of these in my career I did some with my father and I've done some on my own and paint film transfer is effectively like open heart transplant or heart transplant open heart it is the most extreme most risky most involved most difficult procedure that you can do and you only do it when you've run out of other options and a paint film transfer is where you are effectively removing the paint the gesso from the canvas or the wood and adhering it putting it onto a new support and I needed to do that because I couldn't remove the surface coating the silk and the polyurethane without first rehearing the paint back down to his support because if you remember it was so perilous and that that original canvas was so deteriorated if I tried to remove the polyurethane and that silk it would have just taken the original paint right up and that was an incredibly stressful incredibly time-consuming credible nerve-racking process and I had done I did that probably the year after my father passed away and so I was still kind of rattled by my father's passing and not having him there in the studio to bounce ideas off of and to you know just he was the master and you know I technically I knew what I was doing and I had done it before but it still felt really intense and really high stakes and the piece came out wonderful it was a total success but I I probably aged more during that conservation than any other time in my life that's how how how intense my days felt you know now looking back on it I have fond memories of it but at the time cheese that it feel heavy and kind of made me want to throw up every every moment of every day oh boy some advice for people who want to get into conservation you know my path was really unique so I'm not necessarily the best person to give you guys advice I will say this much conservation degree programs are pretty much open to anybody though have certain requirements some may require you to do an apprenticeship pre-program apprenticeship or internship I'm sorry you know some may have requirements about chemistry or art history and all that kind of stuff one thing that I have found interesting curious is that I I generally don't see and maybe I'm not looking hard enough so certainly that's a possibility I don't see studio arts as a requirement for many of these conservation programs and that strikes me is really interesting because I mean the ability to work with materials the ability to be comfortable using new techniques and new tools and new approaches is paramount I mean not a week goes by when I have to try something that I've never tried before and the education that you get in studio arts trying to understand the art making process and trying to learn how to make the art yourself how to take idea and materials and techniques and tools and and master all those in the same moment to produce something is so important and I feel like and I've and I have seen people I have seen the work I have talked to and seen work of conservators who don't have studio degrees or people who are learning conservation and and I can tell who doesn't have a studio arts background and it's kind of like saying I mean I've said before it's kind of like being a food critic and never having entered a kitchen before you know I mean you can be a critic but the understanding that you're gonna get is gonna be so much broader if you have tried making these dishes before or if you understand the difficulty in using that knife or that tool and so for conservators I don't know I and this is just a personal thing that I feel I think that if you want to be a conservator start with studio arts you can you can learn chemistry or you can learn the phone numbers and email addresses of chemists who will always be more proficient than you and by that I mean there's a there's a little anecdote and I don't know if it's 100% true but it serves the purpose of this story there was a point at which some at some point in iron Stein's life somebody asked him what the full theory of relativity was that not the equals mc-squared but like the long complicated one and he said and the person asks churn is it oh my god what do you mean you don't know and he laughed he said I can just go look it up and it's cute and whether or not it's a sound percent true who cares the point is um I do not have a degree in chemistry because chemistry is not my strong suit but I have a Rolodex or I have a phone phone full of numbers of chemists who are so much smarter than I could ever be and when I have a problem I just call them up and I say hey Tom hey Chris I have a chemistry question for you and in five minutes they've provided me the answer or they've told me what I need to know and so sometimes being good at a job is more about knowing where your limits are and knowing how to surround yourself with people who are better than you at that job right um I will never be an amazing chemist but I know where to find them and so that puts their entire arsenal of at my disposal right and that's just information but I I think I am really good at at technical practical execution working with tools and my hands and stuff like that so I can take whatever information I've been given synthesize it and then employ it very successfully anyhow how do i how do paintings get in and out of the studio like like literally how they do they get in and out the door um I think you mean like how do paintings come here people deliver them on their own arts facilitation companies our transportation companies pack them and bring them here FedEx UPS DHL yeah I mean those those those companies move more packages than anybody else and they do a fantastic job provided that you have packed the paintings well enough how has recording for YouTube changed how I operate on it hasn't changed how I do the work it just changes the pace and how I design my schedule because any project that I'm doing for filming is gonna take longer so I have to build that in to I have to build that in and and kind of work around that you know like may take twice as long to to do what biggest changes are all things I'm just kind of looking to see some of these yeah DHL exists in America so what what like updating my techniques and approaches and stuff like that so I I am a member of the AIC and I am a member of their forums and I subscribed to the Journal of the American Institute for conservation the getty conservation the canadian conservation news letters and this whole bunch of other conservation publications and I read those pretty much all the time I read those as if they are the Bible those are where the research conservators the ones who are working in universities or museums and who have access to millions of dollars of equipment and massive budgets and research staffs that's where they are pushing the bleeding edge of conservation and some of that stuff is just really really really interesting and some of it is really really boring but it is imperative that as a conservator you are up to date and reading and digesting all of that information because you you know somebody may come up with a new material a better varnish and one that you may want to try or may come up with an approach to a problem that has been stumping you or may cause you to you know they may come up with a replacement for a material that you've been using or something like that so kind of being up-to-date on that kind of stuff is is really important as a client ever asked me to redo work that somebody else has done oh yeah absolutely it's gonna have to say I'm getting a UPS delivery in about a minute or so so I'm gonna have to step away for just a hot second when he comes in so I can sign for it and then I will talk about having to take on projects that have been previously approached so give me one second I'm gonna I guess we don't have to sign for things anymore so that was that okay so working on paintings that have been worked on before from other conservators yeah I mean I have other concerns there have been instances where other conservators have contacted me and said you know I'm stuck I have a problem that I can't wrap my head around can we talk about it and that's awesome um because I learn a lot from that experience too and I take it as really a very humbling and cherished experience when somebody else asks for your expertise and I've done that to other conservators contacted them because they have a particular experience with a an artist or a material and said hey I'm stumped or can I pick your brain or hey I know you worked on this artist's paintings before you know can I pick your brain because I have one in the studio and the overwhelming overwhelming experience is always positive it's it's collaborative and helpful and is really rewarding and uplifting and it's kind of the best part of the job I have also had paintings from other conservators who have contacted me and said listen I'm in a pinch here I think I might be in over my head here's what I did here's what didn't work I I need a bailout and you know it's tricky because on one hand it's like being asked to clean up somebody else's mess right you're being asked to be Harvey Keitel and pulp fiction and clean up a messy car and it you know it it's like come on man you could have avoided this mess in the first place on the other hand it is also a sign of respect and so you have to keep your mouth shut you bite your tongue you treat the other person with respect because they are coming to you vulnerable and it is not your place to take advantage of that owner ability or to make them feel worse lord knows they probably feel bad as is and you just work through it and you'd be respectful and you take it as a big compliment that they asked you to clean up their mess now that said you you only get like it's a very limited number of times one that somebody can call me and say hey I'm in over my head I messed something up I need you to fix it the first time is like okay yeah we'll figure it out the second time now you're gonna get read the right act and you know there is no lesson in the second kick of a mule and if you go back to that mule to get the second kick I don't know I mean maybe you have to learn a really hard lesson oh man there was a question I really just wanted to shoot it was a as a client ever asked you I saw it and I didn't have time to read it well I was have to wait um as a client ever asked me to leave the damage on a painting is is that what it was yeah I just talked about um a couple pieces that the clients specifically wanted the damage left and not and not conserved but it's rare I mean most people want their artwork to look as good as possible if they want you know to shine to to be a high point in their homes or their their collections so most people don't really want their damage their pieces damaged Oh as somebody ever asked me to take something out of a painting or paint something underpinning yeah I've had people ask me to put moustaches on on figures within paintings because it reminded them of their grandfather or to paint out things you know I had had one woman brought me a picture of a nun and the numbers wearing a crucifix because nuns and woman said I but I I don't like religious I kind of iconography in my in my home so if you would just paint out that crucifix it's kind of like lady if you don't like if you don't like peanuts then don't order them on your banana split right like I don't know like if you don't like fish don't go to a sushi restaurant if you do if you don't like religious icons and don't buy a religious icon painting and I told her that respectfully that's something that I wasn't comfortable with doing and that I wouldn't be able to satisfy that request of hers and you know she got she was not very happy and just oh well then why am I paying you don't have to pay me you can find somebody else who will do that I just won't and ultimately she ended up having me do the work and I did not paint out the crucifix and the painting came out fine came out beautiful and um everything was fine do I have a go-to cathartic thing my high concentration work fired shotgun at a civic no I don't fire a shotgun at the Civic in the back what do I do to keep my balance with doing such hard and then I'll talk about what made me to start the YouTube channel I know that's been asked quite a bit and about how to yeah okay I I ride bikes a lot I raced my bicycle and so I do a lot of workouts and group bike riding not so much right now because of our current situation and that fact that's a great stress reliever it really keeps me balanced and grounded home projects you know renovating my house and and working on it is also really really cathartic there is something about doing hard physical labor that exhausts the body and frees up the mind that is very cathartic and very releasing and balancing and so well I don't think that my work here is particularly physically stressful it's probably more mentally taxing so perhaps that's why I am drawn to things like I don't know like bike racing where you mostly punish yourself for very little reward what what's the most annoying thing that stranger on the internet has told me to do about my job well anytime a stranger tells me how to do my job it's kind of annoying but I mean you know it's part of the it is part of the deal right you can't ask for attention without criticism so I just generally try to explain my opinions you know as polite of a way as I can and if they are insistent I just move on with my life and let them have their I don't know let them stew in whatever anger they're stewing in what bike do I have I have a couple but my primary bike is a Colnago c60 and that means nothing to most of you guys but to those of you who know bikes you'll you'll know I'm a cat - I don't race the track um it's more bike racing stuff would I ever make bike videos god no no no definitely not wristwatches I have a bunch of Victor Knox wristwatches long story they're not worth getting into but the great watches good timepieces I'd like to have more and but you know you know holding up story um I tried not to be shady with people on Instagram to be honest with you and when I do end up being shady or spill tea or something like that I really feel bad I mean I honestly do because I try really hard to make sure that my channel my page my feed what I am putting out there is wholesome is productive and gives back something to our world and I just don't feel like engaging in what would we do without the Tour de France Tour de Swift I don't feel like engaging in that kind of pettiness does anybody any favors so I really honestly feel lousy on any time I I lose my cool or or or shame anybody or something like that and I also it makes me feel really bad when my fans and followers do that to other people too and I get that you guys all want to like defend me and my work and all that kind of stuff and I I'm beyond grateful for that support but I don't know it I mean like imagine having like the whole internet dump on you all at once that's just gotta be really lousy feeling whether or not you deserve it I don't know it's not for us to judge so I always ask that people just refrain if somebody comes and is poppin off on my page I'll take care of it you know I'll smack the banhammer and and they'll be gone but I don't I don't really need other people to to chime in and start to tear down other people because honestly doesn't even feel good for for the person who's tearing down the other person I don't know kind of feels like maybe you're letting a you're swallowing some some poison just so that you can spit it back out and some of that poisons going to stay inside let's see what else yeah I got my 1 million play button I totally forgot to do anything about it I'll put something up on my Instagram about it or something yeah he's got really busy funny stories of clients and so there was this this client um those cases where sometimes the client doesn't know best this client so one is I'll tell you one is funny and one is a objectionable subject matter in a second and then why I started with YouTube okay okay this client had the long term client and um after my father passed away the client came in with some paintings and and was nervous though he said you know you know I've been coming to your father for 20 years before you were even born and I trusted him implicitly and you know I like you Julian but I'm just nervous and I'm kind of anxious and I hope you can understand I'm just not really yet comfortable with you and I said I mean thank you for sharing that I'm sure that that took a lot for you to I'm sure I'm sure it took a lot for you to say that to me and I respect that you would say that and that you would feel comfortable enough to say that to me and I said however you I have been working with my father for the past Oh eight or nine years in those eight or nine years he hasn't touched a single one of your paintings and so my assumption because you keep coming back is that the quality of work that I am delivering to you is satisfactory well of course he turned red in the face and was very embarrassed and I said listen this is a new world for me too we'll figure it out we just have to be open and communicate and honest with each other and we will figure it out and the relationship has blossomed ever since I had another client who repeatedly would tell me and my father never varnished my parenting sorry and the thing is is that he had family at his home you know he had young children and dogs and it was not a great environment for unvarnished paintings to be in because you know dog slobber and spit and kids do crazy things and so he came to me again after my father died and it was a theme here and he said you know and your father never varnished any paintings don't know okay fine whatever you want but we had always varnished his paintings because he didn't know better in that case and so I gave him a painting back with a completely flat varnish and he said now this this is what I'm talking about sometimes your father didn't know anything and he would always varnish my paintings and this is beautiful look at that completely flat not a drop of varnish on here this is a gorgeous oh this is a beautiful job you know there's a varnish on there buddy just like on every other one of your paintings and he laughed he said no no no that's not true and I showed him I said yeah we put the varnish on because you have brought us paintings in the past and said well you know my dog was jumping on the couch and his slobber got on the painting or you know my kid got this crayon and got on the painting and the reason those were so easy to conserve is because there was a varnish on them and and of course then he said well I still think they shouldn't be varnished but oK you've proved your point what else um let's see here let's restore signatures actually I'd sent you a question so I'm going to raise up the easel and ah all right let's move some stuff around and let's get whoa whoops okay lower it what are my goals for 2020 oh my god make it through 2020 that count as a goal I don't know six months ago I would have thought that was a given and pretty straightforward but it feels like feels like just maybe getting through this year will be an achievement for everybody um I would never write a book I'm not a good writer do my clients see my videos oh yeah absolutely they definitely see my videos and I have had several clients use the videos as part of the the pitch the sales pitch or something like that when they go to sell their works but mostly I think they just like it for the entertainment I mean there's something cool about seeing your piece being conserved and again I wish I could do every every piece make a video but it's just to consuming 2020 it's 2019 electric bugaloo okay I mean Yemen why not okay so here we have a signature and this is I'll actually talk about conservation for a second and instead of just rambling on about blah blah blah so part of this signature is potentially missing but I'm not gonna retouch it because it's not my job to do that and that is to say there is enough of this signature here that we know who the artist is we have the date we have the signature there's also some labels on the back so the provenance is not in question if I were to fill in the missing pieces of my signature if I were to add to this painting if I were to enhance the signature or complete it when this painting has looked at under black light that work would become visible and that would be a big problem for the owner because anybody is gonna look at that and say wait a minute why is that signature what's going on with that and even though the painting is authentic even though we have no doubt about who made the painting the fact that any doubt could even be cast upon the painting puts the whole provenance into question and it creates a problem for my clients when they go to sell it so I'm not going to enhance or fill in or strengthen this signature and that's a that is a very hard line I won't do it and in fact I don't know any conservator who would if a signature is skinned then partially removed so be it we don't tinker with signatures it is one of those areas that is a hard red line for me and maybe another conservator may say well you know we know it's George Hetzel so we can we can fill it in and we have pictures of his signature in fact I have several of his paintings here so I could copy it I'm not gonna do that and it's one of those cases where I'd rather be safe than sorry and so I'm just gonna touch up the little areas of missing paint where the white is and whatever was here before if there was something it's gone now it was lost I'm not gonna try to put it back I don't want to create a situation when my client has to start explaining things and where a potential buyer gets nervous or can kick the tires so to speak and create problems for my client so that's how I feel about signatures I don't touch them I don't mess with them it's just not nothing to be gained in that situation all right it's a couple little more spots and then I think I think we may be done let's see Oh YouTube questions sorry sorry you've been asking a billion times you've been very patient sorry what made me start the YouTube channel um you know the first video I did was the conservation of the william merritt chase painting and you can tell it's the first one because it's pretty low res it's um it's old it's the first one on my my feed and it's got a different kind of feel to it william merritt chase is a painter who I've long admired and this is a really grand painting and I thought it would be really cool to make a video and preserve the conservation for posterity also to show people what it is I do you know I had a lot of friends who would say well what is it you do I say are conservative thing what is that that sounds that sounds fake that's not a thing it's not a real job said yeah no I mean this is what I do and explain it and they look at me and say no no no still not a job and so I thought well maybe I can just say go to my YouTube and you'll see what I do so I hired a videographer to come in and film the video as I was directing it and we edited it and did edited it it up and I put it up and kind of the rest is history as they say I got a lot of requests on that video for a narration and so I did one and then people started saying more MORE and you know you feed the beasts um this is a real job yes it is a real job uh let's see um I really don't see racist art or offensive or all that much I think I don't know maybe it exists maybe there are people who are deliberately making hateful art but the I guess what would make it a little bit more complicated is that if it's made with in the art world it may be a parody or maybe a commentary so it gets a little tricky but you know I don't really see things that are offensive [Music] you know let's see so let's take a look at this painting oh I have to lower it down have I restored anything my father's art yeah actually I have which is kind of cool because it came in a couple of a couple of times it's come in from people who my father didn't do the work for so it's like like it's been sold bought all that kind of things and that's not that's kind of cool there's a nice synchronicity or circle of life kind of thing I actually did see one painting that I conserved on Antiques Roadshow ones which really cool because I was just watching it you know just just watching it and it popped up and I was like huh it looks real no way oh my god and they turned it around and there was the little label we we my father and I had put on and of course I had to call my father oh my god turn on PBS you'll never believe this oh that was before all the Instagram in the YouTube and stuff like that so that was like the closest brush of Fame and that was really cool so I guess I mean the retouching is is all complete it took what it's just an 160 161 minutes to do probably 30 minutes worth of retouching but you know that wasn't the point of this so I guess that's that's about it for this piece I will definitely post it before and after of this video that I will post a before and after photo of this painting on my Instagram so that you guys can see what it looked like when it came into the studio and I I don't I guess that's it I don't really have anything else to show you guys right right now I will put this stream up on my youtube channel so that you guys can rewatch it and really have all the glory and and all the funny lols and all that kind of stuff and it seems like you guys enjoyed this so maybe next time all right here we'll do this a so maybe next time um we will do one I will do of the cleaning process and set up the tripod so that you guys can see how a painting is cleaned in real time maybe I'll do another live stream retouching this seemed pretty fun my voice is a little hoarse right now but I have enjoyed it thank you for coming and hanging out with me and listening to me ramble on and all that kind of stuff I hope you guys have a wonderful lovely rest of your day or evening or whatever the case is I love you all very much thank you for coming and being part of my job in my life and I hope all of you guys take care of yourselves and that's about it anyhow see you guys

Channel: Baumgartner Restoration

Views: 1,231,179

Rating: 4.8835793 out of 5

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Id: k4X5PI2Up8Q

Length: 163min 51sec (9831 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 25 2020