| Author |
 Topic |
|
|
Roland Carn
Starting Member
United Kingdom
8 Posts |
 Posted - 24/03/2006 : 20:10:39
|
Ecology is the study of the biological environment in which we live.
In times past furniture makers, along with everyone else, were too busy getting on with living and running their busienss. They didn't worry about the energy and materials they were using as long as it workd and made a profit. Actually of course, they often didn't know what effect they were having on the world around them.
Today we find we can't get some of the materials that were used in the past and it is consequently difficult to recreate an authentic repair to say a finish or a broken part. The most obvious example is the extinction of the central American mahogany that we know as Honduras mahogany.
It seems to me that as restorers in the twenty-first century, we should be looking for conservation and restoration techniques that use the least energy and have the least impact on our biological environemnt, while still conserving the materials in the objects that we treat and restoring them to their practical use.
When I was training at college this view was given little if any consideration. We spent lots of welcome time giving at least lip-service to conservation ethics but none to ecology ethics.
Is it time to think again?
Roland Carn |
|
|
mbarrington
Administrator
United Kingdom
92 Posts |
Posted - 25/03/2006 : 23:09:47
|
I agree this is a good and interesting point. With respect to materials used in our work, for as long as we have the resources of the materials we need, the principle that we must use those appropriate to the objects' origins, must remain and the example of the use of say the so called 'Cuban' and Honduras Mahogany is possibly the most typical in our neck of the woods. Yes, you have to pay for it dearly either from 'breakers' or from new. The same goes for materials from endangered species. I suggest there may be two reasons why colleges tend not to cover the subject too closely: 1. They have not the funds to obtain the materials
2. Because of the contentious nature of ecological ideals these days.
I personally cannot accept the teaching on some conservation courses that the use of new material is more correct. Often it is stylistically and artistically flawed and it is in direct opposition to 'maintenance of object integrity'. We get a certain amount of correspondence from college students on this topic.
michael barrington conservation |
 |
|
|
Allan Gray
Starting Member
1 Posts |
Posted - 29/03/2006 : 00:23:01
|
| Often it is possible to take the material needed from the piece itself. For examlpe, a repair to a solid table top, take material from as near as possible to the site of damage (so as to match the grain), but from underneath the top. A bit like a skin or bone graft. Veneers can often be obtained in the same way. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
Is ecology elevant to the restorers workshop?
