Meeting of June 10, 2021
News:
Jeremy Fogg reported that after all is said and done and with the recycling company waiving their $500 fee, we will net about $4000 from our electronics recycling fundraiser. Pretty impressive. Covers this year's scholarship, right?
Berwick Academy has offered us a room we can use for meetings if we wish to bring in our own food. We will decide on how we will proceed with our various options at the next Board meeting which is on June 21st. Mike Lassel will check on the status of the downtown inn and report on that at the meeting.
We viewed with our owns eyes the thrill of victory and the agony of the feet/seat as we watched the video proof of the veracity of the Harmon-Donhauser tandem bicycling challenge. They went 7 grueling miles. Oh, those stops and turns and uphills! Thank you to Cheryl Harmon for the videotaping. If you made a pledge, feel free to send it in to P.O. Box 11, South Berwick, ME 03903 in the name of the South Berwick - Eliot Rotary Club, or you can Venmo (see Jeremy about how to do that).
Mary Onken is off to the Olympic Trials in Eugene Oregon. She will organize the officials and make sure they do things right.
Presentation:
Jeremy Fogg hopes to follow up this PowerPoint presentation of his artistic magic with a Rotary After-Hours in late September. Here's what we saw this time.
In a 1750's barn in York you will find the place where painting conservation of mostly oil paintings happens. This was the John Sedgeley Homestead, but now it is also known as Anthony Moore Conservation. They use natural and supplemental lighting to discover what lurks beneath the surface of these important paintings. There are easels everywhere in the space. Most recently, thanks to his friendship with the family, he has found another Tarbell painting to restore. This one is an oil portrait of Timothy Dwight of Yale University. The conservation work depends on lots of photography to document every step of the preservation project. The artwork arrives at the studio, is logged in, and everything about it is documented and it is photographed extensively. Those paintings which were not previously restored before they clean them are easier to work with, as it is harder to reverse those already conserved, since practices and care while conserving have changed and are better now. Step one involves cleaning, performing structural work on the canvas and using ultraviolet and other lighting to see underlying restoration. Jeremy talked about Chinese ship captains because there are lots of Chinese works that come his way. The next step is to use medical grade solvents. They are careful about signatures placed on fake artwork (you can tell using black light). When in doubt, take the artwork out of its frame and you can learn a lot more by examining the original tacking edge. Jeremy recounted a story about a Corot painting with a very prominent signature, but, upon analysis, it was the real signature but merely highlighted by the next person who conserved the painting. Still, it was so prominent it seemed fake, so it needed to be solved by analysis. The last step in the conservation process is called "inpainting" which the crafters in the studio do after filling in any punctures or areas of loss. Many recent owners of valuable artwork are generally shocked to learn that their piece has already been restored once or twice. That is part of the reason that Jeremy's studio documents every step of the restoration process they perform. He showed us an example of a Maxfield Parrish project, a painting of a skier.
They have 7 employees. 6 do conservation. Jeremy goes to Boston every Thursday for his work, collecting and delivering projects. There is so much work they have to turn people away; they are so much in demand. There is a backlog of at least a year. Anthony Moore started the company about 30 years ago (he came from the U.K.) and bought the building and later the adjacent building. Jeremy has worked there for about 20 years and has owned it for the past 3 years. To do this type of work, you need a science/chemistry and arts background - not a typical combination. So when people come into the company they really need a lot of training. Although college programs in this field do exist, they do not provide enough practical experience while at college, so it's up to people in Jeremy's studio to continue to train their new hires. Jeremy noted that there are lots of steps after repainting the canvas, but we ran out of time. This is truly fascinating and very skilled work they do at Anthony Moore Conservation. Can't wait to see it live!