Val
November 13th, 2006, 08:09 PM
A customer has brought in a 30x46 acrylic painting on paper, glued flat to a masonite-like board, edges exposed, and attached into a floater frame. The paper is bubbling in several places about the size of my hand and she wants it flattened out and glued back down.
She has had it since the '60's and it has just started doing this in the last couple of months. No major changes in its environment in 3 years, when they moved to this dry climate from southern California. It's loose in some places, glued tight in others, most of the bubbling is in the center, and the paper seems to have "stretched"out there.
I strongly advised a conservator, but she doesn't want to do this. It isn't monetarily valuable, but sentimentally so to her (she knew the artist), and I explained that that's just as important. She still doesn't want to go the conservator route. She wants me to "try to fix it". I also recommended possibly having it scanned and copied on canvas and re-framing that. She might be interested in that, if we can't fix the original.
It is only loose in spots, but tightly glued in others, so getting the entire thing off the board to re-mount isn't an option, the paper has torn where she tried to do it herself. Not sure what type glue was used, but it has yellowed (or was it that color originally? Or the acid in the wood turned it that color?).
Would this possibly be a type of glue that can be heat re-activated, as in putting it in a press on low heat, and being acrylic on paper could that damage it? Might it re-bubble?
I really don't want to do anything to it, outside of having a copy made and reframing that, but I told her I'd "do some research". So here I am, doing some research!
She has had it since the '60's and it has just started doing this in the last couple of months. No major changes in its environment in 3 years, when they moved to this dry climate from southern California. It's loose in some places, glued tight in others, most of the bubbling is in the center, and the paper seems to have "stretched"out there.
I strongly advised a conservator, but she doesn't want to do this. It isn't monetarily valuable, but sentimentally so to her (she knew the artist), and I explained that that's just as important. She still doesn't want to go the conservator route. She wants me to "try to fix it". I also recommended possibly having it scanned and copied on canvas and re-framing that. She might be interested in that, if we can't fix the original.
It is only loose in spots, but tightly glued in others, so getting the entire thing off the board to re-mount isn't an option, the paper has torn where she tried to do it herself. Not sure what type glue was used, but it has yellowed (or was it that color originally? Or the acid in the wood turned it that color?).
Would this possibly be a type of glue that can be heat re-activated, as in putting it in a press on low heat, and being acrylic on paper could that damage it? Might it re-bubble?
I really don't want to do anything to it, outside of having a copy made and reframing that, but I told her I'd "do some research". So here I am, doing some research!