Los Angeles-Art Conservation is usually considered a specialized practice that is held behind closed doors in museum elements or laboratories-not something that you would associate with pop-up events or community meetings. But after the devastating January forest fires ran out of southern California, that image gets an inspiring stir in free clinics for retaining art retention to help people save and repair the things they love.
These clinics are the result of a collaboration between the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture and a Grassroots group called group Art recovery from Los Angeles (Arla), which offers fire lighting sources for safety and preservation of repaired items via demonstration videos and other digital initiatives. In collaboration with heavy hosts such as Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the Getty, Plus the Conservation Association of Los Angeles (CALA), your neighborhood museum and Balboa Art Conservation Center, it is about getting the public die of the public die of the public-knowledge of the die-Knowing of the Public Knowledge of the Die-Het in the hands in the hands of the die-Het of the Hands of the Knowing Know to the hands of the Die-Het’s Public-Het in the hands of the Know-Know-Know-Know-Het of the Public Know-Know-Het of the Public Know-Know-Het of the Public Know-Know-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het-Het– eateries and the loss of the Eaton and Palaisades Fires.
If a LA -based curator who is a member of Cala and has repeatedly worked on Brandwell over the years, this effort feels like a major shift for our hypertechnical, exclusive, even mysterious profession. But as Textile curator Laleña Vellanoweth – An Arla Board Member who serves as Conservation and Collections Manager for the Department of Arts and Culture, and Played a Central Role in Organizing the Clinics – Explained to the Event, The Point is to flip condt expers[ing] A free source to help communities to save what makes sense for them at a time when they are told to throw things away. ”
South California is uniquely positioned to lead this kind of work. It is not only a region where curators have to regularly prepare for and deal with the aftermath of natural disasters – it is also the home of a dense concentration of us. Florida and the Gulf Coast regularly deal with hurricanes, and New York and Washington, DC, have at least as deep a pool of experts; But only LA has both the threats and the curator networks to respond with these solutions.
During the second clinic, which took place on 27 April on the terrace of Moca’s Geffen Contemporary, there were more than 140 people present-many of hard-struck neighborhoods such as Altadena and Pacific Palisades-Op search for help.
The objects they brought were just as varied as the people themselves: not only paintings and sculptures, but silverware, family photos, children’s books, jewelry and even loved scarves and jackets. They were, as Arla Board chairman and preventive curator Margalit Schindler told me during the event: “Those small but meaningful remains of houses that are damaged there or no longer.”
In the clinic, items were allocated for the first time a color-coded ticket based on their material type paintings, paper, textiles, objects of objectists for a further look. Conservators assessed whether a simple soot cleaning would be sufficient or whether more involved repairs were needed. Then came the cleaning stations: Hepa vacuum cleaners, brushes, special sponges and careful, practiced hands.
Designed to be interactive and educational, the experience stimulated demonstrations and explanations in approachable terms. Why use bamboo chips instead of metal picks to remove glass that are melted on bronze? When is a mesh screen used when vacuuming works on paper? How do turquoise beads change color in high heat and does that become part of the permanent story of an object? These kinds of questions opened the door to deeper conversations – and enabled people to continue the work at home.
Participants left with a cleaning set and instructions and recommendations for safe handling with potentially toxic materials. “Now that more things are coming out about the toxic materials that are on things in non-burning zones, [a clinic like this] Is important to ensure that we do things safely, “said Mina Nguyen, resident of Pasadena.
The transparency encouraged by these clinics is important in a field that requires years of study at graduate level, with demanding requirements in both art and science. But if objects curator Jen Kim, an Arla board member and co-founder of your neighborhood museum, explained by telephone: “Many of us are now about transparency and not about gatekeeper. I feel comfortable to share ‘the secrets of the field’, but also know that we cannot overwhelm people with too much information.”
Although it may seem like a lot to take in a stressful time, many people present felt the opposite. Time and again I heard the participants at the April event describe the experience as grounding and cathartic – the opportunity to take care of their artworks when so many other aspects of repairing or rebuilding their homes were entangled in bureaucratic bureaucracy.
“I feel emotional,” told paintings curator Linnaea Saunders during the event. Saunders, whose studio is in Altadena, saw the clinic as an uplifting counterpoint for the destruction around her neighborhood.
The size of the loss of the participants of the clinic was often indicated by what they brought – paintings, textiles and working on paper only survive if a house was not completely destroyed. Yet the overall energy in the MOCA clinic was warm and uplifting. People laughed, asked questions and shared stories. The event was not just about repairing broken objects; The point was to reclaim them – find new meaning in what was salvaged, and weaving those pieces in a constant story of resilience and renewal.
“We go to museums and hear about paintings that are being restored, but we never thought that we would have had anything that we had,” said Sharon Laubach and Andrew Mishkin, scientists who work on the Mars Rover in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and brought lover of sculptures from their Altadena. “We have a number of other pieces that we have restored from the fire, so we hope to take what we have learned here and also apply it.”
That sentiment catches the larger image of the clinics, the third from which will be held on June 14 in the Getty Center. Targeted in the community, the events show that conservation is not only for invaluable artworks – it is for the photos on your wall, the chain of your grandmother, the first drawing of a child.
More than that, these efforts show the role of preservation when healing individuals and entire communities. They rebuild connections between people, memories and places at a time when Los Angeles is confronted with both increasing environmental challenges and the destruction by government violence and threats of deportation to so many of our members of the community. These clinics serve as a memory that in a city that is defined by reinvestment, passed our ties, and even the most vulnerable things can find a new life.
