Second Chance Nurse, by Richard Prince.
As part of the expanding line of services here at C-Monster.net, we are debuting a regular new feature called Ask the Art Nurse, which will be headlined by the extraordinary San Suzie (who has written on conservation issues on this blog in the past). A sculpture and architectural conservator with 20+ years of experience, San Suzie has restored everything from Civil War firearms to sculptures by Claes Oldenburg to John Lautner’s Chemosphere house to a steel mill’s worth of abstract public art works. As part of her daily grind, she regularly treats pieces that are battered, bug-eaten, cracked or poorly made to begin with.
To help all you genre-busting artiste-types avoid the latter category, she has kindly agreed to let C-Mon‘s readers pick her highly knowledgeable brain. So, if you are in the process of creating a piece, and you don’t know your polymers from your Pearoefoam or want to try welding beer cans or casting in lard, now would be the time to submit your technical questions – before some budget-strapped museum has to contend with your disintegrating piece of brilliance. If sculpture or installation isn’t your specialty, no worries. San Suzie will consult with her extensive cabal of conservator-colleauges, who can let you know what that coat of varnish will do to your oils.
E-mail all queries to suzie [at] c-monster [dot] net. (Do not leave them in the comments below.) San Suzie will choose the best questions and answer them, at periodic intervals, on the blog. If you so desire, your identity will be kept in the strictest confidence.
xox,
C.
