by Joy Houston

Aged art might appear finished to an amateur. Frame it. Shelve it. Enjoy it forever. Done. Artifacts dug up long after their useful life is over, having been protected by whatever buried them, are ready for museum cases, right? Wrong. Composed of molecules in a micro world, neither art nor artifacts are dead or stagnant. Exposed to realities of a living environment, they are subject to constantly changing elements that can cause irreparable damage.

Top: Director de Suasnavar and conservator Oscar Rosales examine pottery found at hotel site. Bottom: Conservation work has been brought from the laboratory to the museum to be accessible to visitors.

Who wouldn’t agree that Guatemala has a wealth of art treasures, both indigenous and colonial? But without protective measures, they can be lost forever. “It’s easy to see the economic benefit of these treasures in museums and exhibitions that attract visitors. But getting support to do something about preservation is something else,” says art conservator Kennis Kim. Kim defines her work as that of conserving the current condition and preserving from further deterioration, adding, “We try to keep it as it was found and only do restorative work if the present state is visually disturbing or makes interpretation difficult.” She’s a purist. “If a piece has a hole in it that interferes with understanding the work, it needs to be repaired.”

Kim earned a master’s degree in art conservation from Queens’ University in Kingston, Ontario, and two more, in art history and museum studies, from Syracuse University. Eventually she began doing environmental studies and investigations for a long-term project of the International Committee of Conservation and Restoration (ICCROM). In 1997 Kim married Ken, a Canadian church worker, and made plans to move to Guatemala. Kim stayed on with ICCROM and continues to follow-up on the 10 project sites in Guatemala. Data is being collected in nine countries daily, weekly, monthly and yearly to study the effects on art by pollution, relative and absolute humidity, temperature and light. Kim says, “We will analyze the data to see how we can eliminate damaging fluctuations.”

Meanwhile, Kim took on additional jobs and new challenges. She participated in the Getty Project, which resulted in rehousing and upgrading storage for the textile collection of Museo Ixchel, and has taught art conservation courses at the Universities of San Carlos and Rafael Landívar. She is currently working with the museum staff of Hotel Casa Santo Domingo in La Antigua Guatemala to develop a preservation plan, which will include identifi- cation and documentation methods and graphs to monitor environmental effects.

It will also include considerations such as earthquakes, floods and human elements such as handling and theft—anything that has to do with protection of art and artifacts. As a painting conservator, Kim looked for solutions for treatments and techniques that, though unsuccessful, were still being used. Specialized conservation is also needed for ceramics, sculpture, paper, glass and wood, but lack of appropriate product can be a challenge. “Chemistry is a vital part of our work. Putting incompatible materials together can cause them to self-destruct.”

One wall of the workshop Kim shares with other conservators could be mistaken for an old-fashioned pharmacy, with assorted jars labeled with strange names. There’s also a refrigerator and a humidity monitor. The back room resembles a carpenter’s workshop to meet the needs of stretching and supporting the art works. While cutting foam board to fit the back of a painting, Kim explains that it acts as a buffer to slow down effects of humidity changes on the canvas, a sort of humidity surge protector. Her co-workers are adamant: “She is the expert.”

Kim prefers now to work with paper (maps, parchments and books) and textiles, contracting with private institutions and individuals, and sometimes works with artifacts dug up at Hotel Casa Santo Domingo. Remembering one discovery of a wad of fibers, she describes, “It was like a ball of threads.” Then, drawing one hand out slowly, with closed thumb and index finger, “As I began to untangle it, I thought it could be a rosary. Then, further inside was a leather cross. We knew for sure it was a rosary when we found a piece of finger bone inside the tangle, indicating that it had been wrapped around a hand.” Some metallic threads were pulled out and mounted, but some tangle is left to show how it was found. She has also worked on coffin covers, linens and lace, identifying the pieces by examining methods of construction, materials and trade lines, i.e., “This is Chinese; when did the Dominicans trade with China?”

Oscar Rosales is one of Kim’s former students and now a colleague who works with ceramics and pottery at the hotel. He points to a large urn, already in a glass case, whose fragments had been joined with silicon. The silicon bond works against the expansion and contraction of the pottery, pulling the pieces apart. He will remove the silicon, clean away any contaminants and rejoin the parts with an appropriate resin. Rosales’ work has been moved from a laboratory to a large table in the museum, accessible to students and visitors. Ana Claudia de Suasnavar, museologist and director of Paseo de los Museos at Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, says, “Generally the public just looks at pieces in museum cases and has no idea how they got there. We want to teach interactively. We want visitors to touch and ask questions and see the work of conservation.”

Conservators maintain a code of ethics to protect the historical context and history of the object. Carol Fong de Rosales, another former student, while working on a church image made of wood, discovered earlier restoration work— that’s restoration not conservation—that painted over the words of an open book held by the image. Interestingly, the words were not the same as the original text but perhaps were more palatable to parishioners. That raised a big question, now pending for church authorities: Whether or not to remove the restoration work to reveal the original. Rosales says, “We must respect the orders of the bishop who ordered the change.” Recognizing the dilemma Kim reasons, “As conservators we always go with the artist’s intent and back to the original— except when we don’t because the restoration work has greater historical significance.” She explains that conservation and restoration go hand in hand. The important thing is that any restoration be reversible and clearly identified as a change.”

Sound challenging? There’s more. Kim manages all this with a set of toddler triplets and a four-year old. How? She says she couldn’t do it without a very supportive husband and some household help, plus conviction and a heart full of commitment to conserving Guatemala’s treasures.