Contracts and Crawfish

This chapter discusses the author's description of how the Floating Pool Lady from an ugly duckling turned into a swan as its body was sleek and resplendent in her deep-blue paint and her pavilion roof's red, yellow, gray, and orange. It cites the Sharp Communications, Inc., which the author hired to help generate media attention for the floating pool's arrival at the East River. It also highlights the author's experiences that point out changes in the way bureaucracy works or fails to work. The chapter elaborates the need to change the culture to give bureaucrats more of a say, let them own the project, and be rewarded for finding solutions instead of putting up obstacles. It talks about a vessel called the Lila, which is under the auspices of the Floating Hospital that was built in 1876 following the tenets of nineteenth-century Progressives.

Revealing Blue on the Northern Northwest Coast

The distinctive black, red and blue or green designs created by the Haida and Tlingit of the Northwest Coast of North America are iconographic of these cultures and recognized around the world. While almost every other aspect of Haida and Tlingit life has been studied and remarked for the past two hundred years, references to the significance of color, and the materials used to make color, have been rare—and, in the case of the traditional blue paint, consistently incorrect. Mistakenly attributed to copper oxides early in the ethnographic study of the Northwest Coast, subsequent scholars have persisted, without scientific verification, in claiming the traditional blue comes from copper oxides. As important and informative as the traditions of carving and weaving, if we are to provide a more comprehensive picture of the past, the use of color needs to be integrated with what we already know about the Haida and Tlingit cultures of the NW Coast, including the materials, tools, and methods of making and applying paint. The study of color use, and pigment and paint technology can provide new insights into the complex critical thinking and technical skills of individual artists, as well as the Haida and Tlingit cultures from which they came. The roles these artifacts played within their cultures can be revealed more comprehensively when we understand the significance of specific materials. Investigating the reasons for using specific colors such as blue, and the materials that make those colors, gives us new descriptive and interpretive information about daily life, sociopolitical standards, cultural practices, worldviews, and the cosmologies of the Haida and Tlingit. Identifying specific pigments can provide valuable information relating to provenance and authorship of artifacts and helps us identify sibling artifacts. We are better able to conserve the artifacts we hold according to the materials with which they are made if we have a full understanding of all those materials.

The Condition and Cleaning of Acrylic Emulsion Paintings

ABSTRACTCleaning acrylic emulsion paintings is challenging because of the material properties of the paint films, including their solubility. The goal of this work was to learn more about the effect of aqueous treatments on acrylic paints. Paint manufacturers were asked for their recommendations for cleaning these paintings and conservators were asked to comment on the damage observed in them and on the treatments applied. Responses showed that aqueous cleaning treatments are used, despite the associated risks, and that more technical information is needed about the effects of cleaning. The experimental section of this paper evaluated the changes in physical and mechanical properties of aged cobalt blue paint as a result of exposure to aqueous cleaning solutions. The results indicated that short immersions in these solutions caused a drop in most mechanical properties, but longer immersions did not; the drop after the short immersions was mostly due to the great increase in dimensional thickness of the paint films. Longer conservation treatment times are not being advocated.

Maya Blue Paint

It has been noted by many people who have had the privilege of exploring Mayan ruins that there is a stunning blue color that has been preserved amazing well for centuries. Considering the tropical jungle is quite a hostile environment, the tenacity of this “paint” is remarkable. It had been suggested that this “paint” was made by mixing indigo dye with clay, but this did not explain its special characteristics. Recent work by Miguel José-Yacamán at the National University of Mexico and colleagues has revealed what is special about this material, which is called Maya blue paint. They collected specimens in Mexico at archeologic sites known as Jaina Island and Palenque.