Project 365: Picture 53

The long walk up the staircase from Cowell Ranch Beach in Half Moon Bay, California. Lots of steps for my little niece. (And my mom managed to put her left foot directly in front of her right leg, which is why that looks weird.)

Taken 6 March 2010

Project 365: Picture 52

The sunlight at the Bonneville Salt Flats was amazing last Friday.

Taken 5 March 2010

Project 365: Picture 51

Bonneville Salt Flats in early spring. Not enough to keep my brother out of the water.

Taken 5 March 2010

Book Conservation: Week 2

Tonight we learned how to mend tears in paper. It was totally freaky and I was scared out of my mind to try it. But it's really cool because using tissue (not the nasal kind, but the mending kind) actually works! I had to fix this giant rip in the paper. It was my first attempt; I think it turned out pretty good. If I hate it, rubbing alcohol will take it right off. (This is why conservators don't use PVA because PVA is not reversible.)

And then I tried the Japanese paper. We got two kinds; a really thin kind and a slightly thicker kind. See?

The adhesive that seems to work best is wheat paste, which you have to mix up from powder and ends up looking like jello before you dilute it with water. How much dilution? Well, that depends on the thickness of the paper you're mending and the paper you're using to fix the torn paper, and you also have to consider the color of the paper (most Japanese paper tends to be unbleached with a natural color). But the good news is, if you don't like how it turns out, just add water and the Japanese paper comes right off.

Observe photos below: tear before mending, tear during drying, tear after drying (and before trimming the edge).

I'm still deciding if I like this look and if I should use thicker wheat paste, thicker Japanese paper, etc.

We watched this really old movie about how Japanese paper is made. It can take months to finish the process, depending on how much paper is made. Do you want to know why Japanese paper costs so much? Well, it's made from a plant that has to be steamed, have its bark peeled off, soaked in water overnight, mixed with soda ash, boiled, left overnight again, washed out to remove chemicals, left in water exposed to sunlight, cleansed again, observed for bark particles in water, observed for bark particles out of water, beaten to loose fibers, soaked in water to break up fibers again, flattened into paper, pressed, pressed again, dried, and hand cut into sizes. There you go.

And yes. I am the only person in the class who is taking pictures to document this workshop. Do I care? No.

Book Conservation: Week 1

Last week I started a book conservation workshop at the University of Utah Book Arts Program. It runs for five weeks. Last week I was given two books to fix during the course of the workshop, and when I got them, I realized I was scared to death. Luckily I don't have to give them back so if I screw up, nobody will really know. This is nothing like trying to repair hymnbooks.

I took some before pictures so I can compare the books when they are finished. Both spines are not in good shape. The text block on the brown one is completely removed from its cover, which is also in horrible shape. Both of these came from the U of U special collections library and our teacher got them for free for student practice. The green book is from the early 1920s; the brown book is older than that but I can't tell because the cover page is gone. I tried to research who Milo is (the guy who owned the book) and his mother & dad (they have one of those "this book belongs to" tags), but who knows. If anyone has any ideas for family history research besides FamilySearch.org, this could be a fun little mystery to solve.

Last week we learned how to remove tape from paper rips. You know, taking the tape off when some good-hearted soul thought they were fixing the book by taping the rip back together. I get to use these funky tweezer things and a special heat iron and/or alcohol...alcohol takes tape residue right off. Unfortunately it can also take off the text from the paper, but apparently there's a way to put it back on. We'll learn how to actually fix rips in paper AND fix the pulled-off-the-tape text in class tonight.

Dear World: Computer Questions

If you can solve this problem I will pay you in admiration and respect...

But does anyone have any idea why, on a Mac computer, my PDFs are downloading as .pdf.exe files? I'm using Adobe Creative Suite 4 (on a Mac with completely updated software) to create these files.

Also, when two PDFs are placed next to each other and have the exact same code, why does one open in the browser but the other downloads straight to my computer?

Stumble: Divine

Here's a great alternative to Dreamweaver (unfortunately for Windows only). If you have Photoshop and Wordpress, and you want to create your own templates for Wordpress, download Divine to covert it for you. Divine is absolutely free too! Well, it might cost more in the future, so download it now and try it out.