Old Faithful

Of course, my first destination in Yellowstone was Old Faithful.  This photo of me and the Park's sign was taken by a friendly Chinese couple.  They were taking turns, making individual photographs of them and the sign, so I offered (via gestures?) to take one of them together.  They were super-cute and happy, and then took one of me with my camera (and also with their camera - their slideshow back home in China "And here is a random Caucasian girl who took a photo for us!").

I was very pleased, because they said almost every single Chinese word that I know.  Which is not many.  They counted off pressing the shutter, 'one, two, three,' and then thanked me afterwards.  The only other words I know that they didn't say were 'dumping' and 'little sister'.  Needless say, my Chinese is tailor-made to run a dumpling-eating contest.

A large sign at the Visitors Center posts the predicted geyser eruption time, plus or minus ten minutes.  I got there about 25 minutes before the predicted time, and so headed out to get a good spot on the large wooden boardwalk built a safe viewing distance from the action.

I was all lazy, and not very hungry, so I bought myself a pack of buffalo jerky at some general store place?  It seemed an appropriate snack/lunch for Wyoming, and I later wandered around geysers, standing in the sulfurous fumes to keep warm, eating buffalo jerky.

Go go go!  But alas (!) the drama is decreased due to a sullen grey sky.

A small crowd gathered to watch.  On the other side of me was a small family (dad, boy kid, smaller girl kid) from Wisconsin, and they were being so stereotypically Wisconsin, accent and doofus jokes the whole time.  I alternated between wanting to giggle at all their doofusing or punching them all to make them shut up.

Yellowstone, East Gate

Immediately in Yellowstone, like barely a couple yards.  Notice: minimal snow.

Heading into higher elevations.

Snow, through some very high pass.  I had doubted about the gate being closed, thinking all, "Whateves, I've driven several times on Interstate 81 through blizzards on the way to Canada."  This was a similar snow-situation, though I-81 is not on the edge of a mountain, which does add a bit more interest to the drive.  And instead of my trusty Green Car, I had some sort of weak-engined rental Dodge-thing.

To the right, you can kind of see the edge of the snow drift that needed to be cleared in order for cars to drive through.  It was Death-Star trench quality.

Buffalo Bill State Park

The day after Jen and Dan's wedding, everyone was invited to breakfast at the lodge.  Everyone.  There were about seventy-five people at the wedding, which is pretty impressive for what was essentially a destination wedding.  Of all the people I talked too, I only met two who actually lived in Wyoming.

Everyone lingered over breakfast.  Most people had plans to head into Yellowstone Park in the morning, but because of the snowstorm the East Gate of the Park hadn't yet opened.  (For anyone's reference, Yellowstone has a phone number you can call to check for road closures.)  Around 10:00 the East Gate opened, so people slowly started to trickle away from the mountains of breakfast foods.

The East Gate is the closest way into the Park from Cody, though it also includes a mountain pass that is easily snow-drifted.  The drive in is lovely though, and you pass through the Buffalo Bill State Park, which, in addition to the usual state park accouterments, includes several nice areas to pull a car over in order to safely use a photographing machine.

This is like a Chevy ad.  Or whatever kind of truck this is.

In Which I Return Briefly to Canada. Again.

At the very end of January I found myself headed back to Ottawa, Canada.  Again.

Happily, during this venture into the Great White North I did not end up with a broken car and a trashed computer hard drive.  It certainly was snowy though: there was a little blizzard during the middle of the week.  In case you're wondering - nobody cared.  They just went about their regular business.

 

I and my grad school classmate and fellow photo conservator Lisa stayed with the old roomies at the International House of Pancakes.  Where I took the opportunity of photographing this 'Cake of Angels' that somebody was about to bake.  The French/English boxes never fail to amaze.

Lisa was pretty entranced by the Ketchup flavored potato chips.

 

In all actuality, Lisa and I were in Ottawa to attend our second Winter Meeting of the Photographic Materials Group (PMG)of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).  Our first experience of the PMG Winter Meeting was two years ago, in Tucson, Arizona.

This time, no longer a student, Former Supervisor Greg and I gave a talk about the big treatment project I completed during my year in Canada, while I was working at the ThinkTank.

 

Because it was the big every-two-years photograph conservation conference, guess who else was in town, come all the way from Paris?


Hye-Sung!

Dürer! Me! Working!

Sometimes, at work, we just get totally awesome things. Last week we had two Dürer engravings. Two! Dürers! And I got to treat one!!!

When it comes to printmaking, German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) is The Man. Freakishly talented as a youngster, by his twenties he was noted across Europe for his mad printmaking skills, and since that time has been regarded as one of (if not the most) important artists of the Northern Renaissance.

Self Portrait, 1500 (painting, obviously)

Like most successful artists of the day, it would be highly unusual if he cut the woodblocks for the prints himself. Most likely he drew the images for his woodcuts and then had a lower-level somebody on his team actually cut them from the block.

My art history classes were years ago, and though one particular printmaking course hit Dürer really hard, I can't be certain if he made his own engraving plates... but I'm inclined to think yes, because he spent some quality time as some sort of apprentice to a goldsmith, which would have involved engraving metal.

The Four Riders of Apocalypse, 1497-98, (woodcut)

We had two engravings, belonging to a private client, which were in pretty good condition and needed only did minor treatments. How fabulous though, to spend two days six inches away from one of these! People would just drop by my bench to look at it. The photographer told me that she admired it for about ten minutes before shooting the before treatment photograph. Sometimes I just sat there and looked at it.

Dürer's works were revolutionary. And because prints are portable and so easily reproduced (compared to things like paintings), his influence was felt across Europe. You could roughly break the history of European printmaking into Before Dürer and After Dürer.

(Please note, these are examples of Dürer's work, not necessarily images of the ones we had in the lab).

Melancholia I, 1514

Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514

These last two match the tonality of the paper much better than the straight black-and-white images do. The paper is over 500 years old, so it's going to be yellow/brownish.

Adam and Eve, 1504

Saint Anthony at the City, 1513

A. S. Byatt at the Free Library!

I could go on and on about my love for the Free Library, which is encouraged by the fact that I live like 300 yards away from my nearest branch.

Until it reverted back to the fall/winter/spring schedule, Tuesday was Library Day (open until 8:00 pm). Now the late days are Monday and Wednesday, which clash with my new endeavor, Operation Fitness (a topic unto itself). So Library Day will have to become Saturday.

Anyway, to move away from my fondness for schedules, this past Tuesday was the first time I visited the Main Branch of the Free Library. I didn't visit for the books, so I have no idea what the reading rooms and stacks look like.

I was there because A. S. Byatt was in town! And I had a ticket!

One of the Free Librarians, one with a background in 19th century literature, conducted the interview/chat. It was pretty much fantastic. And I was (and still am) delighted with myself because they talked about books and made book-people jokes and I got them too! It was also good for observing the other audience members: if a writer was mentioned and somebody was pleased, that the writer was a favorite, they started clapping. The Brontes got some polite cheers. A person three rows ahead of me started clapping wildly when Emily Dickinson was mentioned. It was like I wandered into the world of Thursday Next. Which would have been totally awesome.

To dramatically switch topics, my first though upon seeing A. S. Byatt walk out onto the stage was that she looked just like Miss Emmer (high school librarian). At least, from the rear-middle of the auditorium, they were twins.

Apparently the Free Library turns these into Free Podcasts, so whenever this goes up I'll attempt to make a link of sorts.

Paintings at the PMA, and Prisons Too!

Mum had specifically requested that we pay a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. So we did. Though I insisted that we walk from my neighborhood up to the PMA, along the portion of the Schukyll River Trail that runs through Center City Philadelphia, along the eastern bank of the Schukyll River.

This was the last weekend for the big summer blockbuster 'Late Renoir' show. We had no interested in seeing the show. I knew the lines would be awful (observe below) and as Mum said, "Surely they'll still have one up in the regular galleries. They wouldn't have put all of them in the show." We were both right.

Downtown form the Art Museum steps. Check out that line! That's for general admission! Thank heavens we got there early - no wait for us!

After the usual PMA stuff, we headed over to the new Perelman Building annex to check out the special exhibit on the recent conservation of Thomas Eakin's "The Gross Clinic." The photo below was taken by NY Times staff, and features the painting, the senior paintings conservator, and the current Mellon Fellow. (fyi that paintings conservator is kind of a genius - he gave us a tour/lecture as part of our paintings block at school. Genius.) I'm kind of apathetic about the Times, but they did a nice article on the story behind the Gross Clinic project. Really though, come to Philly, see the painting and the excellent video about the project, and then we'll get cheesesteaks.

Then I made poor Mum go with me to the Eastern State Penitentiary. The Penitentiary was opened in 1829, abandoned in 1971, and reopened to tours in 1993. It is kept in a ruined state, with work being done to ensure that further destruction does not occur, not to bring it back to its original appearance.

The Penitentiary does what I understand to be a fantastic haunted house each fall. Doubting this would be something that Mum and I would like and figuring that it would probably be creepy enough in Ordinary Time, this seemed a good opportunity to check out it's peeling paint and crumbling plaster without having creepy costumed people leap out at us.

Harvard

I did not pay them. They paid me.

In Which I'm on (Internet) TV

Ages ago, before it was a thousand degrees and 150% relative humidity outside, a film crew came to the Conservation Centre. They were from the online arts and culture Ovation network, filming an episode of the travel show "The Scenic Route" in southeast Pennsylvania. And the show's theme was basically "fixing old stuff." Somehow, they found us - the CCAHA.

So, we know the tv crew is coming, and that they're going to profile one treatment project, probably in the paper section. I'm one of like twelve people in that section.

Projects are being doled out.

Supervisor Mary says, "Jess K. You're assigned Converse Accession Number Whatever."

I say, "Cool."

Supervisor Mary says, "PS. Hope you don't mind being on TV."

It ended up being a ridiculously long day in which I was asked the craziest conservation questions since my grad school interview. At certain times, I don't exactly know when, you'll be able to watch the show. Follow this link, it will tell you. I kind of never want to see it. Unless, of course, I'm totally awesome.

Host David took a number of casual snapshots after the filming. Keep in mind that this was at like 4:30 in the afternoon. We had all arrived early, and had all been told what colors we should not wear (white, black, red, patterns). We all ended up wearing green and purple. Like all forty of us.

I'm really very professional, I promise.

J-man and Tamara roll their eyes at David's skillz.

He was entranced by how we use dental tools for non-dental purposes.

These images and a brief blurb are from David's show-centric blog.

Twins Search

Twins! The National Gallery of Canada needs You(!) for a Damien Hirst installation in its big summer Pop Art show. You can be the art! And you don't even have to try! If you are a twin, sign up here!

I wish I was a twin so bad.

Damien Hirst
Daniel Oliver & Christopher Oliver (detail), 2009, household gloss paint on wall, chairs and twins, dimensions variable. Installation view: Tate Modern, London, 2009–2010. © Damien Hirst, courtesy Science Ltd., London. Photo: © Tate Photography