- You know, the conservation studio is a dynamic and adaptable, flexible space, and the conservators who work in them must also be adaptable and be able to pivot to using new techniques or materials, things like this Japanese paper.

But just like the field of medicine is highly specialized, so too is conservation.

And in my studio where I focus on paintings, the use of this paper, it's just a tool, a means to an end.

But for other conservators, this isn't just a tool.

This is the art.

And today, we're gonna go meet some of those paper conservators and see the magic they can perform on a simple piece of paper.

(stirring dramatic music) I'm Julian Baumgartner.

As a fine art conservator over the past two decades working to preserve artworks, I've been fortunate enough to meet and work with some of the most talented, driven, and interesting people in the arts.

And now, I want to take you into their worlds to meet them, hear their stories, and share their passions.

So join me as we go "Behind the Canvas."

(warm instrumental music) Being based in Chicago offers numerous advantages.

And for today's adventure, one of those benefits is that I don't have to travel far to visit one of the best paper conservation companies I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

The Graphic Conservation Company specializing in the highest quality conservation and restoration of all works on paper since 1982 has conserved and restored countless rare and significant items for clients, museums, and other institutions.

It's a privilege to witness firsthand the techniques and processes used by these specialists to bring back to life the delicate and valuable works of art and history that have been entrusted to them.

Today, my journey begins with Kristin who offered to show me around the studio and discover how it's all done.

- The photos on the wall are facsimile reproductions of before treatment and then after treatment.

- [Julian] Is that the Emancipation?

- [Kristin] It is.

- The real one?

- Yes.

- You guys worked on the real Emancipation?

- We did.

Everything from valuable historic documents to passports, birth certificates, photographs.

- So the whole gamut of paper.

- Anything on paper.

- Interesting.

- Anything thats base is paper or parchment or vellum.

- Oh, wow.

- So even animal hides we can work on as well.

- Wow, that's interesting.

- I actually have an animal hide piece out here for you.

This is a really interesting piece.

It's a 16th-century document, we believe, written in Hebrew.

And it came to us from a client in California who is looking to have it flattened overall, restored, repaired, and then ultimately framed.

And we will be able to do all of that for her here.

- So you will be able to relax out all of these creases, address all of these wrinkles- - Yes.

- and remove some of the staining that's on here and effectively kind of bring it back to the way it was, the way it should be.

- We can certainly reduce all of these creases, flatten everything, and prepare it for framing and display.

- [Julian] Fortunately for us, we don't have to wait weeks or months to see the piece after conservation.

The animal hide parchment, once worn and creased, has been carefully flattened, revealing legible and beautiful work that had been hidden for so long.

Lines of texts that were once obscured by the creases of the page have now been uncovered, and the text stands prominently against a brighter parchment, no longer shrouded in the shadows.

The conservators have not only restored a valuable piece of history, but have also preserved it for future generations to appreciate.

All of this work was achieved by the team of dedicated conservators here in the studio.

And while this part of the tour was familiar to me and aligned with my ideals of a working paper conservation studio, I was about to have my expectations turned upside down just beyond this room.

- We have several large sinks that we can treat oversized pieces in this incredibly large sink for aqueous treatments.

And aqueous treatments can be applied to objects that can tolerate water.

We will use water to reduce stains, to strengthen the fibers in the paper.

- See, here I thought water was the enemy of paper.

Shows how little I know.

Now Kristin, what is all of this?

It just looks like garbage.

- Spitwads, doesn't it?

- Yeah, absolutely.

It's spitballs.

Right.

- (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

They are part of our paper pulp collection.

If we have a work that has losses or tears or requires filling, we can take these small balls of paper, rehydrate them with water, mix them in the blender and make a slurry.

And with that slurry, we can fill the losses.

- So this is kind of the raw material, the DNA of paper.

- Yeah.

- And you can build it better, stronger with this?

- Mm-hmm.

- Oh, that is so cool.

You guys built this library, but where did this stuff come from?

- Decades of collecting.

We have created an entire collection of different types of paper.

Everything from glassine to Japanese tissues to Western-made wove papers.

We actually have drawers and drawers of antique papers as well that we go to as a resource for fills.

- This is stuff that you just can't go out and buy.

- No, this lab has been growing since 1982, And we have been collecting these tools, these materials for decades now.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Julian] As I wandered through every part of the studio, the decades of experience, materials, and equipment that the Graphic Conservation Company has amassed were evident in every aspect of what they do.

It's an honor to see all of this and to explore their studio knowing that every decision, every layout, every aspect was built with purpose and intention.

It's hard to put into words just how fascinating and exciting this is to me.

It's like a budding chef being granted the opportunity to observe a top Michelin-starred restaurant at work.

But as exciting as all of this is, I know that the real beating heart of the studio lies with the people who work here, the fellow conservators in arms, and I can't wait to explore their work in detail.

- Christina here, she's working on a Japanese print right now.

- So what am I looking at here?

- So this is a Japanese woodblock print.

It's from the Edo period, about 1856.

This came to us, actually, adhered to a matte.

So this is the original matte.

- [Julian] Yeah, the image is on the matte.

- [Christina] Yeah.

- I'm guessing that's not supposed to happen.

- That's not supposed to happen.

So these are all improper framing materials that this has been next to.

We usually don't recommend any colored matte materials 'cause you can see they fade.

This probably has a high content of wood pulp material, which just accelerated the staining in the paper of this piece.

- [Julian] Interesting, and these marks down the center, I'm guessing, tape?

- Masking tape.

So they repaired this tear with masking tape and then they used the same masking tape to hinge the art, so there's an area here.

- And right there.

- And there.

- You're right.

- And you can see... - Right here and right here.

- Yeah, and if I flip the piece over, you'll see that masking tape still on the back.

And we really need to see the back.

We can tell so much more from what's going on.

In this case, the staining from the masking tape, the carrier itself, and then the adhesive has come through to the front.

- So this tape is really a terrible thing, I'm gathering.

And it can be corrected?

- Yes.

- How long would a piece like this receiving this type of treatment be here?

- So, the actual treatment part would probably take a couple weeks for us to complete.

This one is particularly difficult because we'll be doing aqueous treatments as well as solvent.

- So really, the complexity of the work guides how long it's gonna be here.

- Exactly, exactly.

- [Julian] Many artworks are unfortunately damaged by well-intentioned but misguided repairs.

However, with the skilled care of conservators like Christina, that damage can not only be reversed but the piece restored as well.

Over the course of several weeks of meticulous and painstaking work, she completely removed the tape residue and restored the artwork to its original glory.

Now the piece can be fully appreciated in all its splendor as the artist intended.

However, the restoration process does not end there.

The final piece underwent treatment to reduce overall staining and delicate in-painting to address the physical losses caused by the masking tape and tear, resulting in a remarkable transformation.

Well, this is a sorry looking piece of paper, Sharon.

- [Sharon] It's here 'cause it needs help.

- And you can help this.

- Yes, this is a build sheet from a Chevy Caprice, 1969.

And they would hide these in the engine, under the seats so this is why it looks this way.

A lot of surface dirt, and there's a perfect example.

- We just looked at a piece of fine art.

This is not fine art.

This wouldn't even really be considered art at all.

- To this individual, this is very important.

It goes with his antique car, and he restores antique cars so this is really, defines that piece, where it started.

- As a piece of cultural information, this may be more important to the owner than a print or something.

- Yeah, this is absolutely, I think, specific to that one car, the one guy that's owning it.

This is bug damage.

- So a bug got to this?

- Yep.

- Oh boy.

- It's a silverfish.

- And do bugs, do they like to eat paper?

- They do and they like particular colors, so they- - Oh, interesting.

- Sometimes you'll see that they've only eaten the yellow, or, why isn't the red touched?

- I'm guessing that has something to do with the pigments or- - Taste buds.

(both laughing) (soft upbeat music) - [Julian] Honestly, if I had found this damaged piece of paper, I probably would have thrown it away.

But seeing the incredible work that Sharon has done to bring it back to life is truly remarkable.

The document has been completely preserved, cleaned and flattened, making it legible once again.

It is now the perfect accompaniment to the client's vintage car.

And while the car may be the prize for the collector, the antiques of value in this studio are the tools and machinery, some dating back to the 1800s.

Pieces like gigantic presses that can flatten even the most stubborn creases.

But the suite of tools at Graphic Conservation are not all vintage.

Some are decidedly modern, like the encapsulator that they use to preserve artworks in their current state.

Each piece is encased in Mylar, an inert material that won't attack the artwork and is unaffected by the surrounding environment.

And the machine uses ultrasonic welding to seal the envelope, ensuring no further damage or degradation to the work.

This way, the work can be archived until it can be assessed for treatment or display.

- All right, Julian, so here we're looking at a baseball book from 1886, and we're seeing a lot of losses of the coating layer of the cover so what we are doing currently is going in and consolidating those areas.

- Consolidation makes sure that no further damage happens?

- Correct, it kind of solidifies the fibers, creates a nice even surface for us to do the in-painting and in the future, protects as well, so makes sure no handling will disrupt those fibers as well.

- I see.

- This client, he's been pretty conservative with his approach.

He wants some in-painting, but wants to keep that vintage aesthetic.

- Is there a guideline for when you would do a more involved conservation?

- We kind of separate things into two categories, structural treatment and cosmetic.

And we are very good about working with our clients on what they're kind of looking for.

We always recommend the structural 'cause that's what's important to keep the piece safe and handleable and usable still if that's the desired effect.

Like in-painting, fills with paper, that can be at their discretion, but we are definitely capable of taking it all the way.

Besides just the cover here, this book has a few other issues.

Got some really severe staining here from tape oxidation.

- Tape again, huh?

- Correct.

We've been going in with one of our stain reduction solutions to kind of reduce that area, so I could show you a little bit here.

- So you can reduce that, minimize its appearance, and I'm guessing that's not magic.

That's chemistry, right?

- Correct, yes.

And with this solution, the reduction really occurs when it's drying so we apply and then it's a very patient process 'cause you have to walk away, leave it.

And when you do come back, it is like magic because it's lighter, and some stains require more applications.

Others go pretty quickly as well.

- So really the lesson of today is that tape is evil, huh?

- Number one enemy.

(laughs) Don't put pressure-sensitive tape on anything.

- All right.

That's a good lesson to take away.

And for one final before and after, we can once again see the staining on the paper before it was treated with the solution by Devyn.

Over time, the solution was allowed to dry, and with multiple passes, a significant reduction in staining was achieved.

Similarly, on the cover of the book, we can see the cosmetic improvements that have been made, adhering to the client's wishes of maintaining the overall vintage aesthetic while greatly improving the object's quality.

It is this balance and respect for both the object and client that goes a long way to improve the overall appearance of the book.

So Devyn, this book is like 130 some odd years old.

Did you ever imagine yourself working on something this old?

- It is a very specific field.

I started out in nursing school, so I was very into chemistry.

I had that knowledge.

But something about working with people wasn't quite right and I had always had an interest in art and I found this field and it just was like, "Oh, this is the perfect combination, art and science."

And working on such historic items is a blessing just to be able to preserve them for the future for younger people than I am to enjoy it one day as well.

- Do you ever kind of think of these as like your patients and like your bedside manner?

- We joke about that all the time.

Conservators are like doctors and specialties.

Like, you're a painting doctor and we're paper doctors, you know?

- Well, I'd imagine that that's something that like, you could go to school for it, but are you ever really gonna learn in school what you can learn on the job in situ?

- You get a great basis in school of the field and preservation and the importance of certain aspects, but it's really the apprenticeship kind of job situation that I have here being an apprentice to these three conservators that I feel like my skills have just grown exponentially.

- [Julian] One of the mentors working here is Brian, who has been specializing in restoring contemporary art for over five years.

Luckily for me, or maybe not so luckily, he has promised to teach me some paper conservation techniques and give me the opportunity to see firsthand what it takes to achieve the incredible results they produce here at Graphic Conservation.

- This is something that we see quite often in late 19th century, earliest 20th century framing materials.

And this is a newspaper that was discovered on the back of the framing material.

- Is this important, this newspaper?

- [Brian] No, it is not.

- Whew, okay.

- Yeah, exactly.

- You're not gonna give me the Declaration?

- I am not.

I'm not going to give Declaration.

- Not on day one.

- We are going to show you a little bit of examples of what we do and the delicacy that is required to handle it.

- Okay, so this is kind of a good sampling of what you guys do kinda every day.

- Exactly.

- Kinda with your eyes closed and hands behind your back?

- Yeah, well, maybe not one hand behind the back.

- (laughs) Okay.

- [Brian] What we're gonna start with today is a blotter wash treatment.

- [Julian] Okay.

What's that?

- Basically what we have is we have the object on a piece of Reemay.

What we're going to be doing is we're going to spread this out and essentially the moisture's gonna pass through the paper and into the blotter material is underneath here, and this is a really pure paper.

There's no brighteners, no fillers.

It's what we use in paper conservation to leech out all those impurities.

- Gotcha.

- So you're gonna give it a whirl?

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Okay.

(laughs) - Whew, (laughs) I'm nervous.

I'll be honest with you.

- This is primed and ready for you so you're just gonna do a light mist over it.

(mist spraying) And just... Okay.

Now, you notice right away how the paper started darkening in circles.

- Yeah, it got really dark right here.

- Mm-hmm, that's a good example.

That tells you the paper's wetting up quite evenly throughout.

- Okay.

- Now you're already starting to see some degradation- - [Julian] What is this?

- moving off to the side, right?

That is evidence of some surface soil that was probably trapped and was not be able to remove through the actual dry cleaning process.

- [Julian] So that's like grime just- - [Brian] That's grime.

It's- - [Julian] hightailing it off the paper.

- Exactly, exactly.

Let's spray it one more time.

- [Julian] Okay.

- And keep it on.

And let it sit, and it's getting a little darker now.

And then, now you can start to see some of the yellow discoloration bleaching out of the sides.

And this is actually the acidity in the paper that is common with these particular newsprints because they're full of wood pulp.

- And wood pulp is highly acidic.

- It's very highly acidic, exactly.

And if we're talking pH levels of your concern, you're aware of, it's very low on the scale.

- Right.

- It's probably around a three or something like that, maybe even a two.

- And that's the main culprit for yellowing of paper?

- Correct.

- Gotcha, and so this paper would be low-quality paper with a high wood pulp content?

- Exactly.

True, exactly.

- Gotcha.

- Right now, it's using gravity and it's going through the sheet.

We're gonna use a blotter now and we're gonna blot the top of the sheet and that's gonna pull some of- - Pull it up.

- [Brian] So why don't you go ahead and take the blotter and- - Just do the blotter?

- Yes.

- Just this onto here?

- Yep, just that on there.

- Any particular way?

I mean... - I think that's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

- [Julian] Feeling my printmaking days here.

- [Brian] There you go.

- [Julian] Whoa!

- [Brian] So yeah, that's all that discoloration coming through the top.

- [Julian] Yeah.

- And you can probably do a little bit of... Yeah, just pat a little bit- - Okay.

- just to make sure you've soaked.

- Give it a little hand.

- [Brian] A little persuasion.

Yeah.

- You guys don't use a hammer to persuade things like that?

- No, no, no, no.

- Okay.

- Okay.

And now you can pull it off and see what happens.

- Just pull it off?

- Yep.

Oh, hm.

- Whoa!

- There you go.

- This came off of this.

- Yes, yes.

- And this is just grime and dirt.

- Yes, mostly just the acidity in the paper that's come off of it.

- And this is conservative?

- Yes, yes.

- Holy cow.

- Yeah.

- (sniffs) Well, smells like paper.

That is really cool.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- So could this treatment be done over and over again or?

- Correct.

Essentially, what we're looking for is we're looking to see, we're using each blotter treatment and gauging the discoloration factor and how it sort of lessens.

- I see.

So eventually, if you get a relatively clean blotter, you've reached the end of- - Exactly, that part of the treatment.

- That is really cool.

All right.

- And now we have all these other papers we have to do.

- [Julian] Oh, God.

Do I at least get a jacket or something?

- (laughs) Yeah.

- Like... - We'll see after the third or fourth one.

We'll get you a jacket.

- All right, all right.

- Let's try to do it dry.

- Okay.

- And see what happens.

But first, what I wanna do is I want you to have you tear some tissue paper.

Now, this is a white kozo paper.

- Oh, I know kozo.

I use washi kozo in my studio.

- Exactly, it's very soft, and we have various degrees of this we work with.

We have very thin Gampi papers.

We have, with heavier Ancora papers, which is very heavy for lining.

In this case, it's a really nice, a thin weight kozo we use for tear repairs.

- So you guys are using it productively.

I use it destructively as a facing material.

- True, right, exactly.

For consolidation, right?

- Yeah, for consolidation and temporary support.

- [Brian] What we want to do is we want to try to emulate this curve here.

- [Julian] Okay, so I gotta make this curve out of here.

- Exactly.

- Okay.

- [Brian] And so you start that here.

- I can't use like, an X-Acto to just cut it into the shape?

- No, we like to have the feathers of the fibers extend off the edges.

Essentially what that does is it holds onto the paper and it creates actually a little more stronger integrity into the tear repair.

- Right, right.

So a softer edge, more fidelity.

- More fidelity and it also leaves less impression.

So a lot of times, if you have a hard edge of paper, it will essentially telegraph through.

- Right.

I know that with edge linings or patches on canvases you, over time, you start to see a ghost.

- Exactly.

- Okay, so same- - Especially with your, sort of, all that varnishing you're doing.

That probably even becomes more visible, correct?

- Oh, it's terrible.

Right.

- [Brian] Let's see.

Let's place it and see how you did.

- Oh, redemption.

- Yeah, it's awesome.

So I decided to change this process.

I think it might be easier, only because I talked a little bit about doing it wet or dry, the treatment.

- Right, and dry 'cause it's easy so I don't... - Correct, but the problem about doing it dry is that you'll tend to end up cockling the area that you're actually applying the paste to, and there's a reason for that.

- What is that?

- So cockling happens because the paste is a little bit stronger right now than the actual paper.

It may cause creasing if we weighted it right away.

- Oh, I see.

So when you introduce this paste, even though it's the medicine, the medicine can hurt the patient?

- It won't necessarily hurt it.

It'll just make the step a little more difficult to work with.

- [Julian] Oh, I see.

- And you want to try to find the path of least resistance as possible.

- I like least resistance.

- Isn't that- - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- That's what you look for, exactly.

So what we're gonna do is we're going to mist this out again.

- Okay.

- Lightly.

- [Julian] All right.

- [Brian] That's good.

- [Julian] Oh, I see it there.

It goes dark.

- [Brian] And I wanted you to do, is I want you to spray the fragment out as well.

- [Julian] Okay.

Same thing.

- [Brian] Mm-hmm.

That's good.

Perfect.

- Okay.

- Get you a little- - Oh, that's cool.

I see like, the print on the back is slowing down the absorption of the water?

- Correct.

That's the ink layer behind it.

- Oh, so- - So it's acting kind of as a buffer, so it's not really allowing the water to pass through, but it'll eventually pass through over time.

What we're gonna do now is we want to place this onto that.

- Can I move it once it, or is this like one-shot?

- You can try moving it.

We'll see.

We'll see what it does.

Sometimes you get lucky.

(Julian sighs) - Hmm.

My heart is racing because I feel like at any moment, catastrophe.

Okay.

And then this, I think I have painted myself into a corner.

I am going at it from the wrong angle.

- [Brian] Yes.

- I think I have made a critical error.

(laughs) - [Brian] Yes.

(laughs) Yes, placement is everything.

- Great.

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please!

Mm... - [Brian] Fantastic.

- [Julian] Whew.

- So right now, at this stage, what we're gonna do is we're gonna do the repair.

- [Julian] Okay.

- And all of our repairs are done on the verso of the work.

So this is the verso.

- [Julian] Okay.

- The front of it is actually the title page for this newspaper.

- Oh, I see.

Right, okay.

- Yes, yeah.

What I have for you here is some of our adhesive we're gonna use.

- Okay.

- [Brian] And we're going to be pasting off our tissue, and we're gonna place it onto the tear.

- So I put the paste- - Right.

- onto here?

- Right, but you also want to look at the orientation of where you have it.

- Right.

- Correct?

So if you paste it off, at this stage, it's, they're opposite sides.

- It could be backwards.

- [Brian] Right, so you have to flip.

- So I gotta flip this guy.

- Exactly.

- Ay-yi-yi.

This is like, so much forethought.

- [Brian] Mm-hmm.

- Come on.

- Great.

So right now we're gonna paste off our tear repair.

- How much of this am I supposed to add?

- That's probably good right there.

Just a very little amount.

- Okay.

- And so you want to work from, essentially, the middle out.

Yes.

And so you're essentially wanting to wet that up as much as possible with the paste, so that's- - Fully saturate this kozo with the paste.

- [Brian] Mm-hmm.

- All right.

I have glued it to this glass.

- Okay, and now we're going to to pick up the wet tissue and we're going to place it onto the tear.

- Oh boy.

- [Brian] So you can either use the spatula or the tweezers.

I'll give you your option.

- Choose your own adventure that doesn't- - Yes.

(laughs) - There's no success for our hero here.

- Now, just keep in mind where the orientation of it's gonna be and where you're positioning yourself is going to be.

- All right, so I got to choreograph this a little bit.

I got to think about what I'm doing instead of just doing it.

- Yes.

- There's a life lesson there, I suppose.

Okay, and I got to put it on here.

- You got to put it on there.

- Oh man.

Oh... (laughs) So I... - You have to lift it up and place it again.

(Julian sighs) Hopefully, this would be the last time.

And like I said, you always have the one eye too on what else is going on in the paper.

- [Julian] Oh, great.

So I gotta be cognizant of the other thing that we started.

- Yes.

Just make sure things aren't getting too dry and- - [Julian] Okay.

- Perfect.

And so now's the real trick because we're gonna have to flip it to make sure we got, it's lined up properly in the front.

- [Julian] Okay.

- So we're going to place this on it.

- Okay.

- That's perfect.

And do a little bit of massaging just to make sure it's attached itself.

Okay, perfect.

Right.

So what we're going to be doing now is we're gonna be removing this Reemay.

- The top.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Okay.

All right.

I can do that.

- [Brian] Great.

- And so now what?

Now I just leave it?

- We're gonna let it air dry for a little bit and then we'll put under weight.

- Oh, okay.

And then come back and see how it fared, huh?

- [Brian] How it fares, exactly.

Yeah.

- Brian, I mean, thanks for humoring me.

Thanks for teaching me something and tolerating.

I really appreciate it, even if these were just organ donors.

- Well, for us, organ donors or not, we do treat everything with precision, and we spend a lot of time with it, so.

- [Julian] As I conclude my tour of the Graphic Conservation Company, I am filled with a sense of awe and inspiration for the incredible work that these conservators do.

The dedication and passion that they put into every restoration project is nothing short of remarkable.

Witnessing the before and after of the restoration process has been truly astonishing, and their care and passion is evident in the quality of their work.

Graphic Conservation can conserve and restore works that appear to be completely lost and give them a new lease on life.

I am honored to have had the opportunity to witness their work and to share in their passion for the preservation of our past.

As I leave the studio, I am reminded that experiences like these seldom happen for those who do not venture outside their own space, and I look forward to seeing where this newfound knowledge takes me in my own journey in the world of conservation.

(stirring dramatic music) (dramatic music fades)