'Rebirth' for art treasures

Walsh handles her trade more from a "craftsperson's" or surgical perspective. Using a surgical lens is by no means straightforward, involving forensic assessment of the art piece's raw materials, and clinical diagnostics to gauge the extent of the damage, artistic sensibility to colors and patterns, and the meticulous craftsmanship needed for its restoration.

"When we get a client's piece, I'll carefully check its condition and recommend what can be achieved through conservation. It involves thorough photographic and written documentation, cleaning, bonding broken pieces, recreating lost pieces and retouching lost details. Conservation requires a range of practical hand skills drawn from craft practices, balanced with elements of chemistry and ethical considerations," she says.

Walsh, whose father was a potter, became associated with ceramics in her formative years. Over time, she has developed a deep affinity for it. "As a child, I would visit him at the pottery factory. He always had his wheel and kiln at home as well. I grew up surrounded by ceramics," she recalls. Among the ceramic fixtures at her home was a blue-and-white bowl gifted to her dad by a Chinese potter when he visited Australia in the 1980s. This was probably Walsh's first encounter with Chinese art when she was "definitely under 10". She vividly remembers being captivated by the exquisite patterns on the bowl, which held a place of pride in her father's cabinet. Her admiration for Chinese ceramics has not only endured into adulthood but also deepened, translating into her affectionate stewardship of these delicate treasures.

Walsh found the demureness and hushed elegance of the incense holder that she was attending to had not remotely diminished because the lid had broken into three jagged pieces. The fracture had left two of the lid's five holes separated from the rest of the structure, disembodied from its entirety. On the bigger stray fragment was a fluttering butterfly, its wings rimmed in black appearing as fragile as its main body left behind on the relatively intact part of the lid. This would be the most challenging part of her restoration work.

"Although the incense holder is a solid heavy object, the hand-painted butterflies gave it a sense of lightness, rendering the whole piece softer and ladylike," says Walsh as if mirroring the dulcet-toned nature of her "new friend". She treats every broken piece of art sent to her for salvage as an acquaintance that gradually becomes close to her.
With ceramics, the restorer cannot simply refill the missing paint with clay or ceramic as the entire object, having been fired in a kiln, cannot endure a second "baptism by fire". "Instead, we have to employ modern alternatives, like epoxy, adhesives and calcium-based fillers, to imitate the materials used in the ceramic object of historical provenance and significance," she says.

To compound the onerous work, the cleavage of the incense holder's lid turned out to have been snappily cobbled together with a wonky "superglue" before it was sent to Fine Art Restoration Co for proper remedy, laments Walsh. Moreover, touching up the butterfly motif to match the original artist's virtuosic craftsmanship requires tremendous artistic and technical dexterity.

Her restoration of the ceramic lid began with the application of a poultice to remove the superglue and clean up any residue. She then rebonded the ceramic using epoxy adhesive which is renowned for "aging gracefully". "Next, I used 'dry' pigments to fill in the areas that had been lost, imitating the look of both the clay and the glaze. Once everything had been cured, I gingerly sanded and polished only the areas I had restored, taking great care not to offend the original surfaces."