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Rosie H. Cook

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Asialink+AsiaSoc.23March(1)

2017 Asialink Arts Residency

Crazed Puppets 04  Crazed Puppets

bundengan-01 This is not a Kowangan

aptccarn5 #APTCCARN5

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I came home to these two wonderful surprises! The first is a 1995 special 25th anniversary edition of Orientations magazine, focused on Chinese textiles, and the second is a giant and quite fabulous book “Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths: One Thousand Years of Chinese Textiles” beautifully showcasing over a hundred textiles (with bilingual descriptions for each one, which is so valuable for me!). Such a generous gift from a very kind and supportive friend! #textileconservation #textiles #chinesetextiles #embroidery #books #orientations
Finally my Piper Silks @pipers_silks 2/20 silk threads are here! Time for another thread rainbow🌈! Unfortunately a couple of colours were sold out 😢 but at least we have many shades of off-white to use on our Dudou. Very grateful to @miriammurphyconservation for the recommendation 🙏 🌈#rosielovesrainbows #pipersilks
The dudou stomach wrap and its cotton lining, separated. We used a hot air pencil to weaken the adhesive in three of the four corners and it peeled away from the silk underneath very nicely. Now to get the plaques of adhesive out of the cotton, and think about cleaning it. It’s interesting to see that one of the edges of the lining uses the selvedge so it didn’t need to be folded over before sewing #textileconservation #conservator #textiles #chinesetextiles #asiatextiles #dudouproject
I'm enjoying Camille Schmitt's "La Medecine de l'Art" not only for the valuable information and insights it provides, but for reminding me how much I love Classical Chinese (古文) for its conciseness, made possible by obscure literary or historical references as well as possessing very specific words for almost every situation. Here in three lines, Zhou Jiazhou 周嘉冑 (1573-1620AD) describes the perilous process of backing removal, and by the time it has been translated into rhapsodic French prose, the text has grown an extra 10 lines. My translation is 99% based on Camille's French -- my days of translating Classical Chinese are far, far behind me!: "The viability of paintings and calligraphies is entirely reliant on the removal of the backing. For silk, it is quite feasible, but for paper, whilst some backings are easy to remove, other fine papers adhered with thick glue are difficult to remove. If the glue contains Chinese ground orchid (bletilla striata) it is extremely difficult. The particular nature of this operation relies on the precision and skillfulness of the artisan in deploying remarkable ingenuity. Little by little, with patience, he focuses on the fine and delicate fragments of backing paper. The entire time, he experiences the same perils as one who stands near deep water, or walks on ice. The success of removal is even greater than winning the battle of the River Fei [a victory of the Eastern Jin over the Qin in 383AD, near the Feishui River]." I'm not certain of the details of the battle of the River Fei, but I certainly can appreciate the perils and immense joys of a successful backing removal! #paperconservation #asianart #classicalchinese #chinese #conservator #thisisconservation #china #backingremoval
I saw this rather “surannée” television set on my way to work this morning, on the back of a truck full of discarded electrical goods. At first I was just struck by how ancient it looked, but then as I walked away, I started to think it actually looked a lot like the TV set we had once upon a time, when we still lived in England, before my father swapped it for a guitar and ended telly in our household for the next decade. This would have been well over thirty years ago so maybe it’s a fake memory — what do you say @katherinedavid7187 ? I just have a sudden vivid impression of the sensation of pressing the buttons for each channel, and remembering the curiosity of what the little twirly knobs did combined with the strict instructions not to touch them!
My green and gold kangaroo munchies alongside more traditional Lunar New Year offerings at the office. First day back and I have so much to catch up on — from reporting back on the fantastic AICCM Textiles Symposium last week, to getting caught up on quotes and signing off on finished projects. Happy Year of the Pig! 🐖
HKG stopover. Those mountains!
On the importance of inventories: I have had to coordinate moving house pretty much every year for the past 18 years, of which around half have been international moves. Most of my possessions go into storage or are distributed to kind friends for safe-keeping. Unsurprisingly things go missing and other people move house too — I recently recovered a precious camera which I had left with a friend in London in August 2006! Last year I had every intention of using my professional skills to write a proper inventory of where my possessions were located, and as far as I remembered, I had an entire spreadsheet written up. In anticipation of my upcoming time in Melbourne, I opened up said spreadsheet last night, feeling quite smug, only to discover this frankly hilarious if utterly useless abandoned effort at an inventory. Luckily I have all my notebooks from the past few years here in Taiwan, so I’m hoping 2016’s scribbled lists may help me a little... anyway if anyone wants a 🔔, a dish shaped like a 🍍 or a flowerpot shaped like a 🦕 ...
I was so relieved when I started examining the dudou (肚兜, pronounced “doo-d’oh”, 肚 meaning “belly” and 兜 meaning “apron” or “wrap”). The stitches holding the cotton lining have almost all failed — leaving only a handful of threads (green and purple on the diagram) still holding. It’s much easier to treat the apron if the two layers are separated, but I always feel reluctance to cut through original stitches! However of the four patches of adhesive, shown in red and orange on the diagram, the two red ones represent adhesive that has seeped into the silk below. We will therefore have to get the adhesive to release in those two areas first before we can fully separate the lining from the silk apron. #textileconservation #textiles #conservator #thisisconservation #dudouproject
My colleague has brought in a “dudou” 肚兜 for us to treat in our downtime. It’s a woman’s undergarment, which covers the bust but most importantly wraps around the stomach, where small pockets can accommodate herbs to improve the stomach’s qi. This beautiful white silk dudou is embroidered with what was once a vivid purple and pink design, as you can see where the pocket flap has protected the embroidery from light damage. The shattering silk is very fragile, and there is foxing both on the front and on the cotton lining. It was previously mounted onto a board with adhesives which will also need to be removed from the lining. We are very honoured that our colleague has entrusted us with this garment which used to belong to his grandmother! #textileconservation #textiles #chinesetextiles #silk #conservator #thisisconservation #dudouproject
Happy Friday! A contemporary of yesterday’s photo 15 years ago — my little sister @bindweedmind somehow carrying our not-that-little brother @raphaelcook 😂😍🥰❤️#10yearchallenge
After some logistical planning, we will be washing this oversize textile folded over so we can accomodate both a temporary bath (190cm x 90cm) and a rack side by side on our benches (with extra boards clamped to the sides to claim some extra space!). This way we can lift the textile out of the bath using the sheet of Mylar it is being washed on, and pop it on the rack, adjust one side of the bench to tilt downwards, open up the corner of the bath, drain the water into a large bucket, then lift the textile back into the bath before pouring in more water. Rinse and repeat until the water runs clear... The towels under the rack are on their third or fourth tour of duty, as we dry them out and re-use paper whenever it is safe — here they will collect any runoff from the textile between baths (and after that they will probably be used to mop up our splishy-splashy studio)! I’m already tired just thinking about this operation tomorrow 😂 #textileconservation #ghettoconservation #sustainableconservation #thisisconservation
If you only knew how much work every single rinse involves when you don’t have a sink or a tap 😖. These samples of bathwater represent the different stages of washing and rinsing a grimy textile, but we achieved clear bath water eventually 🥳 now we have to repeat all over again with a textile 10 times bigger (this was washing a piece approximately 60cm x 25cm, next one is 160cm x 130). 💪💪💪 #textileconservation #thisisconservation #ghettoconservation #whitershadeofpale
Since the #10yearchallenge has multiple variations I’ve chosen a picture of me from 15 years ago, whilst studying in Beijing. Featuring a mass of ancient technology (gigantic laptop with 1GB hard drive, brick mobile phone as well as a landline, PAPER Chinese dictionary, what I believe is my twin lens reflex camera but might just be a normal camera, and my beloved Flik-Flak wrist watch — crazy to think all of that is contained a thousand times better in my iPhone). Also featuring my distinctive early 2000s skater girl style: baggy chinos, short sleeves over long sleeves, septum piercing, and of course a gigantic head of dreadlocks. Not pictured: my phat etnies skate shoes, because this photo was taken in my friend Nina’s room. I shared a rather grotty twin room in a cheaper dorm and Nina’s place was a haven of peace, quiet, comfort and cleanliness... and slippers only please, no shoes allowed!
Quick and fun test to confirm the dye on our current project is indigo: Drop the sample (our sample is quite large as it is not a conservation object, but normally a few threads is enough) in a mixture of 5% sodium dithionite (Na2S2O4) and 5% sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in distilled water. This reduces the blue components from the fibres, turning both the sample and the solution yellow. Add a few drops of ethyl acetate, and then when shaken it momentarily re-oxidises the indigo turning it blue! #textileconservation #indigo #conservationscience #conservator
These are the exact same model of pens I bought when I first came to Taiwan on a scholarship at Shida (台灣師範大學) in June 2005. I loved how fine the ball point was, and when I came back to Taiwan the following year, I bought stacks of these pens, which I then brought with me when I moved to Australia in 2007 and wrote with till they ran dry (I remember messaging @evnvnv on Facebook to ask if he could send me some more). I bought them again when I studied at Zhengda (國立政治大學) in 2011, and when I did my internship at the puppet museum in 2016. I didn’t end up buying any during my residency in 2017, or after I started my job here in 2018, but I went to buy a notebook at the Cheng Shiu University bookshop today and spotted my old friends. This summer it will be 14 years since I first came to Taiwan! So many memories, including the very tactile sensation of writing in a Chinglish notebook with these same cheap clicky pens. #taiwan #rosielovesrainbows
Late Christmas present from my sister, “La médecine de l’art” a wonderful publication of Camille Schmitt’s doctoral thesis on traditional conservation of Chinese scrolls based on Ming Dynasty texts. Working in Asia I find there’s a lot of overlap with paper and paintings conservation as many scrolls are either on silk or covered with silk. Plus I love learning about traditional conservation methods! Perfect gift 💝 bonus: the parcel came with some beautiful if somewhat eclectic French stamps, celebrating: 300 years of diplomatic relations with Thailand, the 1918 Armistice, Edith Piaf, and Percheron horses.
It’s lovely seeing everyone’s Top Nine Instagram posts, as well as the Year of Color posts aggregating all the colour palettes of Instagram accounts. My end of year reflexions aren’t easily visualised and are more a state of mind. To be honest, the past couple of weeks have felt like the end of a much longer period of time than a year. I’m tempted to say 3 years, or even 6 years — 6 years ago being when I began my journey to become a conservator, and then immediately realised I would need to work full-time in a management-level role, throughout my studies, in order to keep up with tuition fees. To list the many things I have achieved and the numerous places I’ve visited on this journey would read as a humblebrag, so I won’t; instead I want to honestly emphasise the toll it has taken on my mental and physical health, and how glad I am to have finally, FINALLY, stopped and rested for a couple of weeks. I love my job, and it’s been a crazy, rewarding, but also exhausting experience to get where I am today, and I am grateful that my workplace has been flexible and let me take time off, before I completely broke down after so many years of pushing myself. I begged my partner James for this original drawing by @bjennymontero as a birthday gift back in July, but I’ve been too tired to get it framed yet (ironically) so it has been languishing in the cupboard. My 2019 resolution is to get it framed, and whenever I am exhausted by my work, to look at it and remember to be proud but also to take better care of myself. I know many of my friends and fellow emerging conservators have also worked so incredibly hard and push themselves every day, and I wish you all good luck and remember the importance of #selfcare
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