Orphaned Objects

Realised a couple of days ago that this blog's been running for a year now and has reached a whopping dozen entries, whoopee! At the time of writing I'm knee deep in writing business plans, activity plans, interpretation and design reports and an awful lot of funding bids for my day job, but I've been fortunate enough to find time now and then to keep the family photos scanning project ticking over.  Rapidly approaching scan 10,000, it was very appropriately festive, though completely co-incidental, this week to reach Christmas 1987. To nicely round off the year then here is the author getting stuck in to some serious present opening. And wondering when we can change the wallpaper. Stay tuned for yet more intermittent blogging in 2022. In the meantime - Merry Christmas!

  ‘Chemical processes underlie many of the practices and techniques used in conservation. From environmental control in preventative conservation to practical conservation and restoration, chemical interactions take place between the object and the outside world. These interactions may be harmful or benign, and need to be understood in order that they be controlled’. (Introduction, Chemistry for Conservators IAP) Everything is going to fall apart. Entropy’s gonna git ya! At least, that often felt like the central theme of the ‘Chemistry for Conservators’ course I undertook in 2021. The good news is the course also tells you how to, like, stop that happening. As a Curator I’ve been fascinated with how objects are preserved (‘for future generations to enjoy’ is how that phrase usually ends when writing funding bids), which is just as well as looking after the precious things is kind of fundamental to the job. This art, which is actually a science, is called... Conservation. PAY ATT