Not a bad day for Friday the 13th. I had a nice breakfast. Dash seemed in good spirits. Even the weather improved. You'd think with such an auspicious start, I might have done something amazing. Nope. It was Friday, after all. On Friday, I'm happy enough to just make it through the day.
Today, I had an appointment to take my damaged lithograph to the art conservator. I wonder how someone becomes an art conservator? It's a strange occupation. You learn intricate details about how paper and fiber behave and are somehow able to turn back time and make something old look new again with damaging it in the process. These people are often hired by museums to restore old maps and documents. In my case, I needed someone to take some art that has become wrinkled by humidity and make it flat again.
The whole process seems like a black art to me, but the conservator came highly recommended. I learned something during my visit today. Evidently the reason that my lithograph had become damaged has a lot to do with the way it was originally framed. Paper and even the metal frame itself naturally expand and contract over time. Art it supposed to be framed to allow the paper to breathe. The frame didn't allow this to happen. Evidently, the paper and the aluminum frame expanded at different rates, causing the paper to curl and wrinkle when it pushed against the edge of the frame. The whole process took decades, so it was very hard to notice at first. It didn't help that I bought the art in Seattle and it is now in Dallas. These are two very different climates.
The good news is that the Ellsworth Kelly can be restored to it's original condition. the bad news is that the restoration process is very slow, expensive, and when everything is finished, I will need a new and different type of frame. Oh, well. My bad. I never should have stored art in a storage warehouse for twenty years. I shouldn't have stored my guitars in the warehouse either. Three of the four guitars are fine, but one is in even worse shape than the damaged lithograph. The finish has cracked and some of the hardware has rusted.
The ironic thing is that I placed a lot of things in the warehouse because I was worried about humidity and water damage in the house. We have had water problems in the house for as long as I can remember. It questionable whether everything would have fared better if I'd left it at home. I guess I'll never know. A lot can happen in forty years. I guess it could have been worse. My sister's house burned down once and she lost a library of books she had spent a lifetime collecting.
The auction house in New York is already featuring one of my photos on their website. I guess this means they like it. Hopefully, it will do well at auction. It's weird that as objects continue to disappear from my life, absolutely nothing has changed. I don't miss these things. My life has been focused around dogs for many, many years. Dogs still matter. The art, model trains, and guitars seem like they were from a parallel universe that doesn't even exist anymore. I kind of wish I'd discovered this a long time ago.
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