Kasia Maroney Conservation

I’ve been spending some recent days cleaning a group of nineteenth century casts of ancient classical reliefs. Some of the cleanings have been quite dramatic, but many have been more subtle. A few of the more subtle examples are written tablets this one is a record of a loan repayment and with these flat tablets, I’ve been really pleased by how much some minor chip restoration has resolved their surfaces. The goal with these casts is not to hide the fills 100%... just to help the damaged areas recede, so they’re not the first thing you see about the object. #plastercast #ancientgreek #tablet #historicalrecord #chiprepair #surfacecleaning #conservation #restoration #artcleaning #artconservation

Consultation at the HFJ Museum this morning. Wow do I miss this physical place... #impei #impeiarchitecture #museum #artconservation #Saturday #cornell

Yesterday, a friend posted about how interesting it would be to live every day twice, and spend that second time just paying more attention, noticing things more, absorbing the details better. So today I set about to try to do that to pretend that this is the second day, and really pay attention. It’s a wonderful challenge to be fully open like that. And so, walking by Ives Hall at Cornell, these caught my eye for the very first time this morning. There’s a lovely stain...ed glass window that features a nautilus symbol of beauty and natural order and the earthly manifestation of mathematic principles. And just a few feet away, there are other animal carvings over a door. Curiously, Ives Hall houses Cornell’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations. But my curiosity took hold, and I learned that it was also the original home of the school of Veterinary Medicine. Thanks for the inspiration, @robintilling. #details #payattention #nautilus #buildingart #limestonecarving #stainedglass #iveshall #cornell #veterinarymedicine #repurposedarchitecture #growth #expansion

Sometimes going up to the artwork makes more sense than bringing the artwork down. *** #flexibility #heights #scaffolding #cleaning #emptyclassroom #monday

A consultation at the Corning Museum of Glass today... Thanks to the conservation team and collections manager there for the welcome and the tour! I got to visit my favorite pieces, and get acquainted with some new gems. #cmog #corningmuseumofglass #artconservation #glassishalffull #museum #fieldtrippin

A sweet write-up about a project that kept me company for almost a year after it was finished, when Covid ground everything to a crawl. Thanks, Crandall Public Library, for trusting me with your treasure!

On my work table, waiting for proposals today. A dinosaur, a bat, and a nude walk into a bar... #dinosaur #bat #nude #polyresin #terracotta #plaster #contemporaryart #sculpture #sculpturerestoration #sculptureconservation #worklife #ilovemyjob

Completing a tableful of frames finishes out my year. Here’s to fixing SO MANY THINGS in 2021! #pictureframes #antiquepictureframe #framerepair #framerestoration #artconservation #newcalendar #yay2021 #letsfixeverything #imready #solong2020 #thanksforthelessons #butiwontmissyou

It’s been the kind of month that just keeps throwing one test after another at me challenges of patience, of communication, of logistics, of sanity. During such times, it’s particularly lovely when something comes together this easily and smoothly. I’ll miss the company of this Tony Paterson sculpture. It’s on its way home today, and I trust that it will be happily and safely unpacked and displayed soon. But whether it’s a fine art shipper, the USPS, or any delivery service ...in-between, there’s always a super uncomfortable moment when I have to relinquish control of an object. Even when I know it will be safe, there’s a split second when I just want to pull it back from the delivery person to whom I’m about to entrust it, and somehow keep it with me. I saw a thing today about how Capricorns like control. About how it’s our superpower and our downfall, and the moments when we sense it slipping are our biggest tests. I’m not an astrology person, but I’ve always loved the little picture that’s associated with the Capricorn. It’s so aesthetically and symbolically pleasing that a goat would have the tail of a sea monster. And both are totally me this month. So maybe I’ll at least consider that imagery as we bridge into 2021, and as I continue my eternal personal quest to balance control & spontaneity, and power & vulnerability. Happy New Year, friends. May something come together easily and smoothly for you! And let’s take inspiration where we can. #artconservation #artrestoration #ceramic #ceramicrepair #portraithead #shippingart #artshippers #capricorn #capricornrising #strivingforbalance #alsostrivingforperfection #controlfreak #always #sigh #newyearconsiderations

I gave Jesus a nose job today. Again. Every couple years, a Jesus arrives with a broken or missing nose. This particular one belongs to a man who told me its story. When he was a small boy, he lived next door to a kind old Irish woman, and every week, through her window, he would see her light a candle in this altar just as her priest arrived at the house to deliver her holy communion. The woman’s son gave it to him upon her death. Writing to me about this project, he sa...id, You never forget the people who were good and kind to you when you were growing up. People literally bring me their Jesuses. Though there have been spectacular exceptions, most of the time, they hold almost no financial value or what an economist would call real value. Mostly, the broken Jesuses are only precious to their owners. And their owners know it, so they unwrap them for me with great vulnerability, gauging my reaction as they do, and often feeling compelled to justify their attachment by telling me wonderful stories. And often, there’s a missing nose. This particular project reminded me of another I worked on when I was pregnant with my daughter. A small alabaster Jesus had arrived at my office on the UPS truck. His nose had been badly restored. A phone number was written on a card tucked inside the box, and when I called it, the owner of that disfigured Jesus seemed apologetic, telling me that the current nose was just too big, too prominent. I started that project the same day, and during the first steps of removing the offending nose, I felt my daughter kick in my belly for the first time. I quickly wrote my baby a poem. It’s the last photo in this set. I’m not a poet, so like most of those personal Jesus statues, it’s not terribly well-wrought, and it’s only precious to its owner. I offer it knowing that it doesn’t have any real value the same way people offer me their broken Jesuses. Also, my daughter’s name isn’t Helen. But I thought it might be, at the time. May your December be sweet, no matter your tradition. Take care of your things. Share your stories. There’s light all around. Happy holidays. #nosejob #personaljesus #nosejobbeforeandafter #personalaltar #artconservation

To me, the most interesting part of these Iroquois moccasins is their fine silk ribbon detail. A Seneca woman created them on a reservation in the middle of the 19th century. Why did she use European embroidered silk as an accent? I couldn’t help thinking about the moccasin maker as I repaired the leather and beadwork. During her time, she would have been required to metabolize a great deal of foreign cultural material into her life, and blend it with her own traditions. B...y the time she was born, this synthesis had become a way of life. Still, the choice of those ribbons is so interesting, isn’t it? Aging leather is fragile. When living tissue is separated from the organism that produced it, the decay process starts immediately. Leather tanning is an effort to slow that process down. This buckskin was torn from use, but it had been tanned beautifully, so the restorations were only structural. Each moccasin was repaired from the inside, by lining a small area around each tear with archival, non-woven fabric and BEVA film adhesive. After the torn edges were drawn together and supported with a backing lining, and the loose ends of the original beading threads were sandwiched into the BEVA layer to prevent further bead loss, the new threads were worked through the lining and buckskin from the inside, so replacement glass seed beads could be strung in place. (This project was on a tight schedule, because it needed to be completed for a museum exhibition opening, and there wasn’t time to order beads but of course my friend Laura Nelkin Designs happened to have just the right beads thanks Laura!) This treatment is finished and delivered, but I still wonder about those ribbons. The moccasin-maker has been on my mind. She was a detail person, like I am. And she went to work and got things done, too, even when the news was loud and she was distracted. No question that the maker was caught in the middle, as so many of us are so much of the time. But from that, she made something beautiful and graceful. That seems important. I’ll let her be my example as we head deeper into the winter. #buckskin #leather #beadwork #haudenosaunee #iroquois #artconservation

This is a Japanese porcelain Imari bowl with an applied metal rim. Removing that rim was a necessary but delicate procedure, and it revealed many hidden broken pieces of the underlying porcelain rim that had shifted under the metal band (second photo). The resin I most often use to fill chips and rebuild missing pieces is bright white. When replacing sections of solid-color ceramic, sometimes it works best to mix colored powder pigments into the white resin before it cures, ...rather than painting the new pieces afterward. Usually, a successful result requires a combination of both coloring the fills *and* toning their surfaces. The color work is frequently my favorite step of a repair. When you get it just right, laying down a perfectly matched color feels like magic. #imari #imariporcelain #porcelain #porcelainrepair #artconservation #ceramicrepair #colorwork #mohawkpowders #goldenpaints #milliput #milliputsuperfinewhite

Removing several decades of old, hardened, and stuck commercial paste polish from the grooves of fine metalwork feels a lot like dentistry. There’s something sooooo satisfying about it. #polishing #satisfaction #metalconservation #peacockfeathers #peacocks #deco #bronze #glass #shiny #mmmmm