The Creative Benefits of Taking Your Time—Q&A with Photographer Barbara Bosworth
"It takes time for the world to reveal itself to us." - Barbara Bosworth
"It takes time for the world to reveal itself to us." - Barbara Bosworth
Conservation treatment of King Caspar is almost finished. Having completed the structural portion of the treatment which included filling cracks, repairing broken elements, and stabilizing loose joints, I moved on to the aesthetic portion of the treatment. The goal of this part of the treatment was to unify the overall appearance by filling areas where the paint and/or gesso was lost to bring them to the same level as the surrounding surfaces.
My initial examination revealed that the sculpture of King Caspar was in poor condition. Many of the wooden joints were loose; some pieces were broken and missing. The paint and barniz chinesco surfaces were actively flaking and the sculpture was very grimy. In collaboration with curator Donna Pierce, I designed a treatment plan that will restore the structural stability of the sculpture so that it can be handled, studied, and displayed safely. We also decided to pursue aesthetic compensation so that it can be effectively understood as a devotional object.
One of the first steps of any conservation treatment is to closely examine the object, creating written and photographic records of its current state. Conservators do this using a variety of tools and methods. I started to examine King Caspar by looking closely under normal light. Then, I began to change the angle and intensity of light, eventually adding magnification (via a stereomicroscope). I also examined the sculpture under ultraviolet illumination to observe UV-induced fluorescence.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, administered by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, the Denver Art Museum is conserving an eighteenth-century Ecuadorian statue that is part of the DAM's Stapleton Collection of Latin American Colonial Art.
Courtney Murray, the Samuel H. Kress Fellow in Objects Conservation at the Denver Art Museum, is documenting her conservation treatment in a four-part series you can find here.
Meet King Caspar. This small polychrome wood sculpture dates to eighteenth-century Ecuador and is part of the renowned Stapleton Collection of Latin American Colonial Art at the Denver Art Museum. King Caspar is one of a set of six polychrome sculptures in the Stapleton Collection that together represent the three Magi and their horses. It is currently undergoing conservation treatment.
Lyrical, structured, bold, colorful, whimsical, meticulous, commemorative, and even “crazy," the quilts currently on display in First Glance/Second Look: Quilts from the Denver Art Museum Collection cover a staggering amount of design territory. Enticing the viewer’s eye to the back of the gallery is a striking grid of red and black interspersed with a rainbow of other colors.
She can be seen climbing around her taller-than-most-of-us sculptures barefoot and pedaling up Tour de France mountains in France. Artist Gail Folwell is on the move, like the subjects in her work.
Just installed at the Denver Art Museum is her new piece: In the Peloton. The bronze creation depicts cyclists maneuvering within a racing pod and is a bike tube's throw from where the USA Pro Cycling Challenge routes it's Denver stage. Down the hall at the DAM is her sculpture Tête à Tête, on the Reiman Bridge.
It is through monthly partnerships with artists that CelebrARTE really shines. It is exciting to me to be able to scour Denver’s creative community for the next maestro. As it turns out, this month’s artist, Leticia Tanguma, was hidden right under my nose–her other work is as a security guard for the DAM. You are probably familiar with her artwork. She has assisted her father on several projects, including murals at Denver International Airport. I asked her to tell us more about herself, her artwork, and her inspirations.
In part one of this series, we discussed assessing what needed to be done to conserve Big Sweep by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
The successful conservation of the sedan chair now on display in Court to Café relied on a collaborative approach with conservators providing expertise in the treatment of furniture, objects, paintings, and textiles. As presented in Part 1 of this blog, the leather, paintings, and textile components of the sedan chair all needed attention. The goal of the treatment was to stabilize and visually integrate these elements through minimal treatment and using stable and reversible conservation materials, as required by conservation ethics.
In August, a conservation project on the sculpture Big Sweep was completed. Big Sweep was designed by artists Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg, who worked closely with fabricator Carlson & Co. to realize the sculpture in its final form.