Art + Work | Removing stains from a Japanese print

my name is madison brockman and i'm currently in the second year of an andrew w mellon fellowship in paper conservation this is a japanese print which is made with several colors of ink this object has quite a bit of discoloration almost like little freckle-like spots called foxing this is um quite a common occurrence with paper collections and sometimes can be very difficult to remove so that's what i'm gonna try and treat today after examination i can begin treatment and this usually starts with some light surface cleaning to get rid of any dust or debris that's settled on the surface of the print over time i'm treating this specific object by bathing it on the gel and gum slab rather than using a full immersion bath because the object is a little bit fragile this will be a good way of effectively cleaning especially that really tricky foxing staining while making sure that the object is physically safe to treat the foxing in this print i'm not just using plain water instead i'm using a targeted cleaning solution then i'm measuring out the components for here including sodium citrate to act as a buffer in chelator and calcium acetate which helps form the gel matrix of the gel and gum slab itself the gel and gum is a dry powder and is insoluble in water and must be cooked to solubilize or get it completely into liquid form this is very similar to cooking jello the gel is measured out and stirred into water then transferred to our large gel cooker so when the gel is boiling and fully solubilized it's ready it's poured into the mylar tray to set and it becomes rigid as it cools again just like jello for this specific tray the gel slab takes about half an hour to an hour to fully set up and cool as you can see it's completely clear with a very slight yellow tint and it's very flexible and a little bit jiggly and keep in mind this is 99 water in a solid form this piece of paper will act as a barrier but also let the water go through as it absorbs the water and passes it through to the art object before placing the print on the gel slab to bathe i lightly spray it out with filtered water to dampen and let the object fully expand i place the object on the gel slab and then cover it with holly tex a non-woven spun polyester material that's smooth and protects the object as i brush it down to ensure that it's made full contact with the gel slab this brush is a japanese smoothing brush used in traditional scroll mounting i brush everything flat then carefully peel off the holly texts from one corner so that the object can remain there for bathing the gel slab acts as a reservoir for a cleaning solution slowly releasing it into the paper but the pores of the gel matrix if you imagine a sponge almost help to draw the water sprayed on top down through the print through capillary force as well so you get kind of a two-way cleaning which is what makes this bathing method really effective while still being gentle after an hour i will remove the print and actually repeat this whole process using a gel slab made only with water not with any of the sodium citrate in it this will just ensure that the object is fully rinsed and we don't leave any citrate residues in the paper you

Channel: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Views: 13,964

Keywords: lacma, los angeles, art, museum, japanese art, traditional japanese printmaking asmr, museum asmr, art conservation, museum conservation asmr, art conservation documentary, asmr museum curator, asmr art restoration, watch art restoration, asmr museum restoration, degenerate art, art conservation cleaning, art conservation asmr

Id: Da_wXRSRzn8

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 25 2021