Sidewalk Studio Looks Behind the Scenes

There’s a lot of work that goes into curating and maintaining an art collection like that of the Yale Art Gallery, located at 1111 Chapel St., and usually, the public only gets to see the finished product. But on Thursday, the gallery offered a glimpse behind the curtain to see some of the conservation work that goes into taking care of its artwork in a Sidewalk Studio workshop.

Sidewalk Studio is a pop-up workshop for passersby on Chapel Street that started in 2015 when Molleen Theodore, curator of programs for the Yale Art Gallery, noticed somebody sheltering from the summer heat at the bus stop in front of the building. She let him know that the gallery had air conditioning, and was free to the public. That was when she realized that a lot of people in New Haven didn’t know that. So she started Sidewalk Studio to raise awareness of the Yale Art Gallery’s presence, and that it was free and open to the public.

“So many people walk down Chapel Street past the gallery and don’t realize you can go inside,” said Theodore. Sidewalk Studio not only lets them know, it also ​“teaches people an artistic practice, and gets them working with their hands.”

On Thursday, the workshop was led by Antonia Mappin, a fellow in the conservation department, Jasmine Keegan, a pre-program intern in the conservation department, and Jen Mikes, the assistant objects conservator.

“We’re going to be introducing the public to conservation and letting them try their hand at a few conservation techniques,” said Mappin. ​“For some people, it will be their first introduction to the work conservators do and a sort of behind the scenes look at what happens in the museum.”

Lots of people don’t know what goes into conservation; some don’t know what it is. Mappin, Keegan, and Mikes wanted to change that, and highlight conservation as an important aspect of gallery work. ​“It’s a really fulfilling career,” said Mappin.

The three conservators set up three different stations to allow passersby some conservation practice, and it wasn’t long before groups of people flocked to see what was going on. Each station had a reproduction of an image from the gallery, printed on canvas and made intentionally dirty so that attendees could work on cleaning them.

Mikes had a canvas reproduction of a shadow puppet, originally made of rawhide and painted. Mappin had a reproduction of the famous Hokusai print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Keegan had a reproduction of the painting Child with Dog by Suzanne Phocas, made to look like a painting with a varnish.

First, Mikes taught her audience to make cotton swabs by wrapping cotton around a toothpick-like piece of wood. Attendees could also choose to use makeup sponges. She directed them to dip their chosen implement in water, squeeze most of the excess out, and dab at the reproduction.

“We like to clean along with the lines,” said Mikes, demonstrating. ​“We like to feather our edges really well” — meaning to make a gentle transition to the edges.

Sometimes, the conservators have to use a substance stronger than water, but for this workshop, the reproductions had been treated with a water-based dirt that came off without too much trouble.

“We’re illustrating this with water but essentially what we normally do is analyze what’s on the surface and figure out what will remove it,” said Mappin. ​“Not everything comes out with water.”

Mappin also showed her audience a poster that compared a regular photograph of a piece of art with another taken under UV light, explaining how the latter helped conservators identify unclean parts of the previous restorations that were difficult to see with the naked eye.

“A lot of the work we do is invisible,” Mappin said.

Even people within the art world might not realize or appreciate the amount of work that conservators do. Chris Chew used to work in graphic design for the Yale Art Gallery, but he didn’t interact much with the conservators, and so he found the workshop to be the perfect place to learn about their work.

“I learned a lot about the types of techniques they use to clean objects,” he said.

Mikes showed him a pocket microscope, and let him try it out on the reproduction. ​“It’s something I was made to buy for grad school,” she said. ​“It’s helpful for identifying different papers and printing types.”

Passersby continued to stop and engage with the Sidewalk Studio. Most of them didn’t stay for long, but each person left the reproductions looking a little cleaner. ​“This is a great workshop!” exclaimed one woman as she left. ​“I’ve learned everything I’m gonna learn.”

There’s a lot more to learn about conservation, but the Sidewalk Studio was a good place to start. Moreover, it let people know that the Yale Art Gallery is here and open to the public — to kill a couple hours in downtown New Haven, get out of the heat, and see some beautiful art.