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Back on June 21st I posted on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/FineArtConservation/ and https://www.facebook.com/bestartdoc/ … request “Friends”, leave a thumbs up, leave a comment?) that we were part of a team to save an iconic and historic mosaic mural on the North Shore of Oahu at BYU-Hawaii. The iconic mural has greeted visitors to the entrance of Brigham Young University-Hawaii Pacific cultures educational center for many decades and has been widely published.
Well, a week or so ago, we completed the removal of the entire cement wall, saving 100% of the historic mosaic mural in good condition, and have it documented for the architects and admin who will determine its reinstallation at an unknown future time. It was 1 of 3 murals in the entrance of the university. The other 2, I removed from their walls last Dec. 2023 which are also waiting for details of their reinstallation. They were painted in oil on canvas and were adhered to the wall. Each of these murals measures 11′ high by 33′ wide. We’ve been working with Okland Construction Co. on this project. Whereas most murals are made of ceramic or stone, this mosaic was made at a workshop in Venice, Italy out of glass tesserae.
The concept (it is not an image captured of an actual event) of the mosaic mural is by the artist, Edward Grigware, which came to represent Hawaii becoming a State of the USA and the establishing of the educational center for all Pacific cultures.
Obviously, after the facing-carrier-armature-protective layers were applied to the surface of the mosaic, then we couldn’t see the composition to guide the removal process. So, I made a map of the mural and transferred it to the front of these layers to guide us.
This is the completed map showing the planned removal. But, it turned out that we were able to remove the mosaic in much larger pieces thereby resulting in 75% fewer cuts. With this map, every piece is documented and can be put back together like a puzzle. This is, actually, the way the mosaic mural was made (then shipped) to the installation site originally… in 1 ft sq. pieces and then put together like a puzzle.
Kory Ates and Mike Terry from Okland Construction assisted me in the removal process. In all, I think we lifted about 4,000 lbs of mosaic and cement off the wall!
Here is the mosaic mural wall… without the mural, which has been removed with its cement wall.
Each section of the mosaic mural is numbered and inventoried, then stored according to its position on the wall for easy retrieval. Each pallet has the entire mural map and also paperwork with more precise details. We now await the plans from admin and architects to plan out the restoration process.
The restoration process will include removing the 1″-2″ cement layer from the back of the mosaic, consolidating any loose pieces/tesserae, applying new grout from the back, adhering the mosaic to a new support or backing, removing and cleaning the facing-carrier-armature-protective layers which were applied to the surface of the mosaic, and then any fine tuning for appearance sake.
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Questions? Call Scott M. Haskins, Art Conservator
805 570 4140 faclartdoc@gmail.com
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