Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Tony Whitford was happy to see a large collection of sculptures returned to the commissioner's office in better shape than they left.

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre conservators Rose Scott and Taryn Webb brought the NWT commissioner several carvings of soapstone and other materials that had been repaired as a favor to him.

"I am delighted. The carvings are an integral part of the history of the commissioner's office," Whitford said.

The office has a large collection of all kinds of art from many Northern artists. Many of the pieces were gifts that past commissioners received from communities around the territory. The collection has been moved several times along with the physical location of the office, and in the process, some of the delicate works of art have been damaged or even lost.

Scott said that the commissioner had approached the museum last year about the carvings, and she and the curator came and assessed several pieces to identify the ones that could be repaired.

However, this was during the museum's renovations, and Scott is also busy as the centre's full-time conservator, so the project was on a time-available basis.

That, of course, made it the perfect job for a summer intern. Enter Taryn Webb, who has just finished her second year of a two-year art conservation degree at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and is performing her summer internship at the heritage centre.

Webb said she enjoyed repairing the carvings, and was able to learn from them as well.

"I had never worked with soapstone before," said Webb.

Scott said that art conservation requires both scientific method and an artist's eye.

The conservator needs to understand the behaviours and properties of the materials they work with and also re-create the colours and styles of a work of art.

In the case of the broken carvings, Webb said she worked with a special glue, an acrylic co-polymer, that is able to hold the carvings together and also be easily removed in the case of future repairs or an advance in the technique of conservation.

"Nothing we do is permanent," she said, adding that the first step in her task was to locate and remove any previous repairs that had been done to the pieces, before re-gluing, filling and polishing pieces where necessary.

At the presentation of the finished carvings, Webb pointed out to the commissioner the points of repair in each piece as they were unwrapped and returned to their home. Whitford said he was impressed.

"I never would have known (where the repair was) if you hadn't pointed it out," he said to Webb as she showed him a plaster fill on a carving of a bear.

The commissioner had his own expertise to share during the presentation, dispersing an assortment of facts about the animals in the pieces and scenes depicted in some of the carvings.

A carving of two walruses, Whitford explained, was of the animals exhibiting "haul-out" behavior, where walruses rest out of the water in groups sometimes resembling a pile.

Whitford also said that there were carvings that were too badly broken to be repaired, that had been returned to a government warehouse for disposal as they see fit.

"We are kind of hoping that the pieces would somehow go back to the artist to see if they can be re-worked into other things," Whitford said.