When Art Restoration is a Community Matter

When Art Restoration is a Community Matter

Transfiguration by Ada Quarles, after Raphael
(after restoration)

 I never met Ada Quarles, but after restoring the mural she created more than 80 years ago for the First United Methodist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, I almost feel  I know her.   Fearless and expressive.  That’s how I imagine her.  Not only did she execute a copy of Raphael’s Transfiguration, making it larger than the original, she painted it at her home which is no mean feat when the measurements are 12 feet wide by 14 feet tall. (There are two conflicting stories of the location.  One person remembered her cutting a slot into her kitchen floor to make room for the canvas.  Others report that she worked in an out-building). Upon completion of the work, she presented it  to the church.

          

  I was asked to look the mural as part of a major renovation of the church’s sanctuary, a project overseen by architect William Owens.  During my preliminary examination I noticed some water damage, but the most noticeable issue was the dinginess of the colors.  It was not simply the intervening years that had brought about the dulling of the colors, but  a fire in the nineteen-fifties left a layer of soot that I now saw on the heel of my hand after I touched the surface.  Also, I came away with a suspicion that the mural had never been varnished. Without this protective coating, my efforts at cleaning would be severely limited.

            

 When I started cleaning, with a variety of solvents and gentle abrasives, I could see that my suspicions had been correct: there was no varnish.  Consequently, there was little I could do beyond the superficial to brighten the pervasive gravy-like colors.   Even inpainting (touching up) the water- damaged areas did little to improve it.  At this point it was agreed that I should stop work to  give the Trustees of the First United Methodist Church, together with the mural committee, time to consider what the mural meant to the community and how far they wanted restoration to go.   Goals needed to be defined.  Was our object the removal of flaws or the transformation of Mrs. Quarles’s original vision  ?   This project caused me to see the scope of restoration in entirely new ways as we considered the wishes of  a church community.  In my next blog entry, I’ll describe what happened next; how I got from before to after.

Transfiguration by Ada Quarles, after Raphael
(Before Restoration)