moving into new space 0

[pemart1966]

On 2017-04-12 at 11:35 AM, Drewsky said:

Honestly, get a high quality copy made, frame that and keep the original in a portfolio. Light kills inks, and your white page will tan if you don't do all the expensive stuff. Also, Never put art on an exterior wall if you live in shifting climates. The change temp could worpe the page or cause moisture damage. It's your piece, but putting an original out is a risk imo.

Sage advice   

[pemart1966]

19 hours ago, *paull* said:

Have you tested the UV glass and your acid-free mattes?  And have you tested it after time passes?  Museums do.

I don't care how you store art that you own.  However, materials stated to be acid-free or packaging states that museums use it doesn't make it so.

More sage advice...

[ESeffinga]

2 hours ago, Drewsky said:

 In that time I have bought 4 or 5 pages that were brown, one as brown as cardboard. How do you suppose they got that way?

Probably a rhetorical question but...

1. There was no such thing as acid free materials in popular circulation prior to the early 80s (if my memory isn't for total mess), and the general populace didn't really start to become aware of them until late 80s.

In the 90s more artists started paying attention to their materials. And the manufacturers of the standard art boards  and much of the materials used in comics creation became more aware of their longevity, based on what they were seeing from the old material. So a lot of more modern art uses acid-free creative substrates. And as old photographic repro techniques were phased out, so too were many of the chemicals and adhesives employed by those production techniques.

2. Smoking was everywhere. Everybody smoked. Dad, Mom, the kids. Men had various smoking outlets, from cigarettes and cigars, pipes, etc. Nuns blew smoke rings.

3. UV. It's true that modern UV blocking films don't block everything that will protect a given work (and anyone that thinks it does, needs to do some reading/testing), but modern windows, UV framing glass, etc. do help.

4. Not all framed exposures are created equal. All light can have SOME effect on a piece of art. The degree of which is directly proportional to where it hangs, the amount of light in a room, the placement of that room to the sun and it's angle. The kinds of artificial lighting used in the room in evening hours and that exposure. Then there's the manufacture of the windows, the way the piece is framed. What wall of the room it's on, etc. and so on.

The point being, it all depends. How old is the art in question. How was it made and with what tools? Depending on what the answers are, certain concessions may have to be made. If you want art from the 40s on your wall, you might have to pick a better spot for that, or buy it understanding it may not be a good wall contender, just like a marker drawing, or a watercolor painting.

You can double-bag a marker drawing and put it in a folder, in a acid free photo box, in a bigger acid free archival box, in a fireproof safe elevated in your dark closet, and none of that will stop the solvents in that marker drawing from migrating (causing all kinds of weirdness) if the wrong markers were used. And by wrong markers, I mean just about all of them. It just depends on how long you think such a drawing should last.

I once had several drawings in a portfolio, where the markers bled out a super bright yellow halo all around the drawing portion, and eventually impregnated into the mylar, so when the art was removed, you could see a ghost of the art on the mylar. And these were black "permanent" markers from the late 90s, where the manufacturers were trying to improve the quality. Older pens were worse. I don't buy marker based pieces if I can help it.

On the flip side, I've got some watercolor paintings, which are just about the worst thing in the world for fading, and they've been framed and on my walls for over 20 years now. If they've even faded a little, I'd be hard pressed to tell. The difference is, I've been able to see them every single day for those 20 years. If I popped them out and discovered that they had faded in some discernible way, would I trade 20 years of happily looking at those pieces for 20 years of them staying super color perfect in my closet, where I only saw them 3 or 5 times a year, while instead looking at a lackluster color copy in a frame? Yeah, I'm gonna say no to that.

But there are things I don't do. I don't hang photos on a wall that gets full sun during the day. I close blinds in rooms that I'm not currently in, where there is art. My wife and I have art in pretty much every room, including the hall bathroom. The stuff that is more sensitive ends up in the hall with no windows, or downstairs in our half basement. If any of the comic pages have yellowed at all, it's so very slight I really honestly can't tell. And we've had art of all kinds on the walls for 25 years now. I occasionally reframe things. Never noticed any issues.

I'd never do something like say, those lovely logo overlays or text bubbles on mylar that seem to be all the rage these days for covers that lack the original components. At least not if I planned on framing the piece. Why not? Because the light that hits the piece is not going to get behind those overlays. There's a very real chance of shadowing taking place. So what might seem to be an almost imperceptible darkening of the paper, or fading of colors on a painting when the whole piece is exposed, become "shadows" on the art when the overlays are lifted up. I've seen it happen to other folk's pieces before.

Maybe it helps that my wife operated a series of frame shops for about 7 years and was archival museum trained. But I'm willing to say it might just come down to thinking about what we were doing and using a bit of common sense than anything.

I'm as big of a proponent as anyone about being a custodian rather than a user and owner of OA. But that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed.

Just my .02¢

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by ESeffinga
typos. duh.

[*paull*]

1 hour ago, comicwiz said:

Exposure to light, direct or indirect, is more likely to introduce issues of ink fading. I'm an advocate of using archival materials, but art/illo board is just as prone to yellowing pertaining to the extent and presence of adhesives used for paste-ups on a page. I'm also an advocate of leaving art as is, but am congnisant to the possibility that there will come a time where some pages won't be holding up to age very well.  At such time, the only practical conservationist means to eliminate factors such as the presence of adhesives causing paper degradation would be migrating all paste-ups to an overlay.

I agree with this.  As much as I'd like to display original art, light is the enemy.  Cheaper prints, no problem.  Photographs, illustrations, lithographs, etc., they stay in the dark.

[tada_nori]

18 hours ago, *paull* said:

You stated, "Seriously though, i'd rather have my art safely behind museum glass than rubbing up on some polypropylene plastic sleeve. That's not how fine art is archived."

you win!

[BCarter27]

4 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Because the light that hits the piece is not going to get behind those overlays. There's a very real chance of shadowing taking place.

I can't believe I never thought of this, but yep.

[comicwiz]

6 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

I'd never do something like say, those lovely logo overlays or text bubbles on mylar that seem to be all the rage these days for covers that lack the original components. At least not if I planned on framing the piece. Why not? Because the light that hits the piece is not going to get behind those overlays. There's a very real chance of shadowing taking place. So what might seem to be an almost imperceptible darkening of the paper, or fading of colors on a painting when the whole piece is exposed, become "shadows" on the art when the overlays are lifted up. I've seen it happen to other folk's pieces before.

This is a fair warning. However migrating paste-ups to overlays as an overall conservationist strategy is pointless if you don't remove the original adhesives/glue. Such "removal" or "cleaning" will unquestionably leave some contrasting areas of the page where adhesives were once present. UV blocking overlays could also be useful if the intention is to display the piece.