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Objects and Treatments

What’s the “tea” about Anoxia Treatments?

What’s the “tea” about Anoxia Treatments?

Posted on 9 March 2020 by Kate Dieringer

Photo courtesy of Kate Dieringer When I started an internship in San Francisco, California, I had no idea what to expect while working in a private conservation studio. One of […]

P.S. We love you

P.S. We love you

Posted on 14 February 2020 by Caitlin Jenkins

Cardiff students work with a wide variety of objects at the university lab, on placements or other volunteering opportunities. It's difficult to pick a favourite object - like choosing a […]

Tubey or not tubey, that is the question…

Tubey or not tubey, that is the question…

Posted on 5 February 2020 by Caitlin Jenkins

‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ (Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2) Every object has its own story to tell. Some stories are happy, some […]

If It Isn’t Broken, Don’t Fix It – A Critical Review of “New Kintsugi”, a Modern Take on a Traditional Repair Method.

If It Isn’t Broken, Don’t Fix It – A Critical Review of “New Kintsugi”, a Modern Take on a Traditional Repair Method.

Posted on 29 January 2020 by Cal James

After finding out about the technique of “Kintsugi”, an ancient Japanese technique of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold powder, I was intrigued. After some further research, including reading Shan-Ying […]

Mask on, Mask off: Masking Films from X-radiation

Mask on, Mask off: Masking Films from X-radiation

Posted on 8 January 2020 by Amber Bhatty

Photo by author So, I spent an hour and forty minutes X-raying my objects and developing the films. When they were finally dry, I laid them on the lightbox to […]

UV Huh! What is it good for?

UV Huh! What is it good for?

Posted on 4 January 2020 by Gabriella Cortes

Ultra-violet (UV) light. What’s the first thing that springs to mind when you think about it? Those blacklights used in forensic crime dramas to reveal hidden clues? That episode of […]

X-Rays Galore: Blackfriary Metal Finds

X-Rays Galore: Blackfriary Metal Finds

Posted on 3 January 2020 by Alice Blakely

Following excavations from 2010-2018, the Blackfriary metal finds travelled from Trim, Ireland to Cardiff University in January 2019 for conservation. I was assigned the objects at the beginning of this […]

Kintsugi: a Japanese traditional ceramic conservation skill

Kintsugi: a Japanese traditional ceramic conservation skill

Posted on 5 November 2019 by Shan-Ying Chen

Introduction Kintsugi, also called Kintsukuroi, is a set of traditional Japanese ceramic repairing skills that has been practiced for centuries. Archaeologists and historians have found that some excavated pottery in […]

Documenting the Dispatched: A Case Study on the Preservation of Two Welsh Plaster Cast Copies

Documenting the Dispatched: A Case Study on the Preservation of Two Welsh Plaster Cast Copies

Posted on 10 June 2019 by Alyssa Singh

A rough draft of a developing idea, artists use maquettes for structural planning, testing forms, and determining the feasibility of a finished statue. But what is to be done with […]

A tale of mystery mould and cautious culturing – part two

A tale of mystery mould and cautious culturing – part two

Posted on 30 April 2019 by Katherine List

If you missed the first part of my blog post, you can read it here. Treatment - Stage Two The brush vacuuming had removed much of the visible mould on […]