Excerpt from the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies

Over the past couple weeks I have posted some excerpts from the recently released Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies - 2009. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Journal is now available for sale for $55.00 (click HERE to order). It is published by the non profit Foundation for Appraisal Education, all contributors have submitted articles without compensation to promote the appraisal profession. The proceeds go to support scholarships and the education initiatives of the Foundation.

I started the Journal project with the Foundation for Appraisal Education as publisher, and we are seeing positive sales growth and greater recognition of the publication within the appraisal profession. With no rest for the weary, we now begin the process of looking forward to article proposals and submissions for the 2010 edition. If you have an article that fits within our editorial policies, please feel free to contact me. In the first year I had to solicit the articles, for the 2009 edition, many contributors contacted me directly, and I expect the level of interest to continue. I already have a good selection of articles and proposals for 2010. If you have an article or idea you feel would complement the publication, please email me at toddsig01@gmail.com or of course todd@appraiserworkshops.com.

The easiest method is for me to post the articles as they appear in the Journal, so this is the third article from the journal and excerpt from that article. The following is a contribution by paper conservator Christine Smith, entitled Paper-Based Artifacts and Light: An Introduction.

Minimizing Damage:

To create a pleasant, livable environment while protecting valued artifacts requires knowledge, artifice, and well-planned compromise. No level of light is low enough to prevent damage to art on paper, but lower levels cause proportionately less deterioration. (While minimizing light in order to preserve art, it is important to acknowledge and accommodate the need for higher lighting levels as people age.)

Rating the light sensitivity of different objects is extremely difficult. In a single artifact many compounds, with a broad range of sensitivities, may be used; and they will deteriorate at different rates in different circumstances. For example, if a paint fades to 50% of its original intensity after 100 hours of exposure to light source X at light level X’, the paint will fade the same amount after 200 hours of exposure at half of light level X’, or after 50 hours of exposure at a level twice as bright as X’. The very same color might react differently in a different binder or if mixed with a second, UV-absorbing pigment. Another light source might be more or less damaging.

Generally colored materials are more vulnerable than black and white media. Watercolor paints, writing inks, and pastel crayons tend to be more vulnerable to fading than pigments more thoroughly encased in an oil binder. Media intended for ephemeral purposes (e.g. student-quality paints, advertising inks, house and office supplies) tend to be manufactured with poorer quality materials than artist-grade supplies. Organic colors are more fugitive than inorganics. Within each category, there are wide differences based on the particular material involved, how thickly it was applied, how much protection any binder provides. For example, two organic colors used in traditional ukiyoe prints, red or pink benibana (safflower) and blue aibana (dayflower), are so light-sensitive that they can be expected to fade noticeably in less than four years even if they are illuminated at only five footcandles.2 (See the following section for a discussion of footcandle levels.) Under the same conditions, another organic ukiyoe color, indigo, can withstand about four times as much exposure even though it also is classified as fugitive. Some colors are fragile because they are mixtures of variously light-resistant compounds. Hooker’s Green is a mixture of light-resistant Prussian Blue and light-sensitive Gamboge yellow. With exposure, the yellow component fades, leaving behind apparently blue foliage.