Gloucester, Mass. August 9, 2023.
Part 2. “NOTABLE”. “EXEMPLIFICATION”. “ARBITRATION”.
Three test patches are visible on the commemorative bronze plaque set into Tablet Rock. Along with surface patina aesthetic choices, test patches are left to cure or age to see their impact. When considering care and protection for public art, there is no singular approach. There is no other American commemorative tablet that’s so colossal, set into a glacial outcropping in this precise angle and manner, and susceptible to its surroundings and climate over this length of time. Hence the test patches.
Daedalus is a renowned sculpture conservation firm and will approach this work with respect.
Money was raised to address the plaque and patination (some had preference for a brown finish) Gloucester Daily Times, 2016, and then that project was paused. As far as I know, funds were not returned nor redirected for restoration of the city’s art deemed in distress. At the time William Taylor addressed the verdigris:
“As an antique dealer for decades who dealt many times with bronzes and patinas I completely agree that the tablet should not be restored. While I applaud…well-meaning and generous inclinations not only does natural oxidization form a protective surface it looks appropriate and should not be fiddled with. Restoration is too expensive and absolutely not necessary. Cleaning it would remove many decades of well acquired history.
William Taylor, letter to the editor, GDT
Restoration science about corrosion on bronze and copper vs. verdigris is fascinating. See Walker Hancock Comprehensive Plan 1958 related to patina. Some methods change. Some don’t.
Continue reading part one here .
Bronze tablet. Founders Plaque. Tablet Rock work 2023. Part 1 here
Good Morning Gloucester 