In January of this year, there was a fire in the attic of the Courthouse. Black smoke and tiny bits of burning plastic flooded in to the mural room. The plastic embedded itself into parts of the paint and the smoke put a brown finish over the whole mural. To make things worse, the mural was never finished with a final varnish coat to seal the paints back in the 30's.!!!!
This makes for very delicate and tricky restoration work!!! View the complete story:http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=33285
This is a copy of the mural...
...............divided into 4 sections =4 walls. Enter... South Coast Fine Arts Conservation Center...
floor to ceiling scaffolding....
and multiple workers to clean, restore and stabilize the mural!!!
It is rare that one would ever get a chance to see restoration work done on this scale.
So, go up the stairs to the second floor.....................
Go in the door......
Look Up.........................................
It is like magic. They put a solution on the mural and then carefully blot off the smoke. It can go from a cloudy looking day to bright sunlight in a few blots!!
Santa Barbara artisan at work! There are so many art treasures to be seen. A Blog that tops a travel agent about the local world of Art! Thank you, Carla, for bringing this to our attention.
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