This is an article on why the temperature needs to be kept at a certain level in museums and how to protect your art at home. I thought this was an interesting read and rather informative for protecting important art whether its a classical masterpiece or a kindergartner's painting. Here are some of the tips given to make your lives a little simpler because I know you all so excited about controlling the atmosphere.
- Temperature is important keep it at around 60-80 degrees Fahrenheit
- Humidity is icky and needs to be 55-65% so use an air conditioner and an humidifier to control that.
- Keep sunlight off you work! Poor things are like vampires and they like it dark the light causes colors and inks to fade and destroys the little things. so save the environment and you art turn the lights off when its not being looked and and keep the blinds closed.
- Art over the fire place is a huge mistake the smoke and heat is a insta killer.
- obviously don't put your art in a basement or and attic these are areas of drastic temp changes and are lethal as far as humidity and flooding issues may occur.
- The rest of the suggestions seemed kind of silly to me like installing water alert sensors and framing you work with contractor approved hardware so I didn't find it too important to list those on here.
I guess you just have to balance where/how you really want to display your work and how to keep it safe! This makes me think of the artwork inside the Egyptian tombs and the ancient caves (though public display did not seem to be of much importance in most cases) and how the condititions surrounding the works preserved them so well... even without a "water alert sensor". :) Times do change.
ReplyDeleteYeah like Mary Elizabeth said, we got really lucky with the tombs of the Egyptians. One of my best friends lost all of their painting from college in the flood this past may because she left them in the basement. It just goes to show you how expensive it can be to maintain a fine art collection, sometimes your electric bill would be really high. Space is another thing to consider, my friends simply didn't have any room left in the house. It would have cost alot of money to store them in a climate controlled environment somewhere else. I wonder if its hard in buildings like the Frist whose original design was something other than an art museum. It started out as a post office so humidity control is probably really far down the list of design requirements. Another issue I see in the preservation of art is at what point are you preserving it for the sake of preservation rather than looking at it? I know every now and then people with white gloves go into warehouses that are the perfect environment and are able to see these works of art up close, but are they just working so hard so more people can work hard to save it later? Obviously I am completely behind the preservation of art, but I do think at some point it goes too far.
ReplyDeleteI believe that art preservation is an extremely important thing. Like the egyptian art, sometimes it is the only way to know the stories of the past. Plus, I find it interesting to see how far art has come in terms of style, so it is important to preserve the pieces so the style changes can be admired. I like that you have listed many ways to preserve art. this has made me think twice about what i am doing with my art. for example, right now I have one of my painting from high school on the floor in my closet. now I know for a fact that that is not a good place for it to be. It is now on my priority list to take better care of my paintings.
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