Mission Mural Rescue: The Final Installment

This is the final post about a multi-year project which has been documented on the YEGArts blog.

In early 2017, the Edmonton Arts Council’s Conservation team embarked on their most ambitious project to-date: the removal, restoration, and re-installation of a 50-year-old, approximately 160 square foot mural created by Alberta artist Norman Yates. The untitled artwork was situated in the Stanley A. Milner Library’s Circulation Room (previously the Edmonton Room), but extensive renovations of the building meant that the artwork had to be removed and relocated or else it would be destroyed. Given the importance of Yates’ contribution to Edmonton’s art history, the decision was made to move it to a more public-facing home on the second floor of the new space. 

The team’s preparations for the endeavor were necessarily meticulous. ​“That’s the part I really like,” says Public Art Conservator Andrea Bowes. ​“Break this down, think this through, determine where I’ll need help, decide who to call on for that expertise.” 

In this phase of the project, Andrea and the team collaborated with several different experts: 

• A company was brought in to create an air extraction room (“like a big, orange bubble”) to manage the clouds of dust that were the natural result of refining the edges of the mural panels to prepare them for reassembly.
  
• Local sculptor Will Johnson created a wall so that the team could do a ​“dry install’ of the piece and get a template for where the attachment plates would be placed.
  
• A team of tile experts proved interested and patient allies in both a trial run in the lab, and actual install of the mural on site. Says Andrea, ​“At this point, the pieces of the mural were ultimately like tiles, and Todd, Brad and their team from Décor Tile helped us get a system down. They understood the nuances of the process.”
• Skilled Paintings Conservator and former Edmontonian Cyndie Lack also joined the team at different points in the process to inform and assist with retouching.

Completing as much of this repair and restoration process in the lab as possible was important, as Andrea points out, ​“It was so much easier to work horizontally than vertically. Also, the restoration of an artwork is not a typical component of a construction project. Our tools and methods aren’t sympathetic to the requirements of a construction site; we can’t wear hard hats and heavy gloves to do our work, as it requires proximity, detail and subtlety. In order to carry out the remainder of the work onsite, we had to negotiate about these precautions.” 

Support from another expert, the artist himself, came via Norman Yates’ daughter, Janice. She had lovingly preserved her father’s archives, which included the original commission letter for the artwork, and his materials shopping list. While conservators are skilled at colour-matching, having this document meant that they were able to source the original pigments where possible and were well-informed about the artist’s process. ​“The paint layer is incredibly robust. We’re so thankful for Yates’ choices, as they’ve meant that the artwork has been able to withstand this difficult move.” Yates may have also been symbolically present throughout, as the team were surprised to discover a possible portrait of the artist etched into the back of the mural. 

The panels were transported back to Milner in July 2019. Once installed in its new home, the Conservation team removed three inches of the facing (around the outside edges) that had been applied to protect the surface of the mural. They did the finishing work on this portion so that the artwork could be framed in and the walls around the mural could be finished. ​“When I removed the first piece of the facing, it was such a relief. The repairs worked!” 

To accommodate construction timelines, the team couldn’t return to their onsite tasks until October 2019. Then the finishing work began in earnest: filling in the cracks between the panels and taking off the remaining facing so that cleaning and in-painting could be done on the entire piece. 

Reflecting on the process, Andrea laughs as she shares this tidbit of 2020 hindsight with her 2019 self, ​“Get a fatigue mat!” Sage advice for a project that saw Bowes and the team doing their laborious work for weeks on end while standing on the concrete floor of the Milner Library construction site. 

Once the final restoration work was finished, they were able to view the piece in a different way. ​“We didn’t really get to appreciate the mural as an artwork until the end. We looked at the back of it for a year and a half at least! It’s very satisfying to see it placed in a space so that it can be viewed in the way that the artist intended, not in a four-foot hallway, but in an expansive area where it can be truly taken in.”

When asked about how she views the legacy of her contributions (and those of the EAC Conservations team) to the overall work, Andrea reveals the heart of a conservator. ​“I’m glad I don’t see me in it. My biggest worry was that people would say, ​‘Oh no, what did she do?’. For the most part, people aren’t going to see our work or know that it was done, and that makes me happy.” 

This is the fifth and final installment of a series of blog posts. 

• Click here for the first article from February 2017.
• Click here for the second chapter from April 2018.
• Click here for the third chapter from February 2019.
• Click here for the fourth chapter from June 2019.