Treatments

Sometimes it is necessary to intrude on an object in order to preserve it for a few more years. Treatments can be enormously stressful, and should be undertaken with full awareness that future research may discover that the treatment actually harms items. Adding adhesives, consolidants, stitches, fills…all of these are another item that must degrade within the object. Old adhesives yellow or fail, consolidants can not be removed, leather dressings become acidic and attract dust - slowly conservators are learning that the best approach is a non-intrusive approach.

However, when the client, either institutional or private, needs something repaired, stabilized, cleaned or prepared for exhibit, it is the conservator who completes these treatments. Here we will highlight a few of the Northern States Conservation Center's treatments. Not all of the items here are glamorous. But then, neither are we.

Links to related information on other sites:

An interesting article on the reasearch involved in developing a specific treatment is:
GCI: Conservation of Painted Archaeological and Ethnographic Objects
http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/8_1/painted.html

How To Flatten Folded Or Rolled Paper Documents
http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/cpa/articles/paper/flatten.htm