Beadwork Preventive Conservation

The concept of “entropy” comes to us from the field of Thermodynamics, and has been used in a variety of professions over the course of recent history.  In its most basic form it states that all systems will ultimately fall into chaos.  There’s more to entropy than that, but for this discussion, this definition will be enough.

Entropy happens.  There are a number of reasons it can happen to beadwork, for example, some of the compositional elements of beadwork are antagonistic to each other.  The old metal beads of the 1700’s and 1800’s traded and used in North America oxidize quickly when in the presence of the cured hides of various animals.  Another problem that can besiege glass from the same time period is that the mixture of glass was a highly guarded secret.  So one glassmaker may only have a small piece of a larger puzzle, thereby making inferior glass that corrodes with glass disease and ultimately decays.

Consider the air quality, relative humidity and exposure to light in your home.  Air quality is vital because of possible introduction of foreign particulates.  Particulates can expand and contract with humidity and will slowly fracture glass beads and begin the oxidization (rust) process on the metal portion of beadwork (at least for oxidizing metals, that is).  Airborne mould spoors can and do infest beadwork, and once the beadwork is infested with mould, it is always infested.  The impulse is to brush away the mould must be resisted!  It sets aloft a whole new generation of mould spoors into other areas of your collection and home.  Water vapor can also form around these particulate, thereby raising the relative humidity.

Relative humidity (rh) is important, as higher air temperatures increase the capacity of containing more water vapor.  Living in different parts of the country, and different altitudes on a year-long basis encounters fluctuating rh.  To combat this, it is important to find a balance between the ambient temperature and rh of the room.  Most HVAC units do this for you, but it’s best to monitor this yourself.   An ideal situation would be:  70 degrees Fahrenheit, and 40-60% rh.  Anything that strays to the extremes of heat and rh could render leather floppy and pulling apart the threading agent, or a lower temperature and rh will make leather brittle and crack, leaving the beadwork to contract and break beads.  Any unaligned combination of temperature and rh will open any number of possible threats to your beadwork.

Hotter air has the potential of holding higher amounts of rh.  Make this small experiment, and one will soon see how and why this is possible.  You will need four beakers; one that measures 70 cc, one that measures 80 cc and one that measures 90 cc.  Take thirty marbles, divide them into three groups of ten and place ten in each beaker.  Now, in a perfect world, those marbles will represent atmospheric molecules and should be floating around the beakers.  With the fourth beaker, fill it to the 50 cc level, and put 50 cc into each of the other beakers. 

So here’s the interpretation of the results of this experiment:  The 50 cc of water represent the ambient rh in any given parcel of air.  The marbles represent the molecules that make up our atmosphere.  The 70, 80 and 90 cc’s represent the temperature of specific parcels of air.  Look closely, and you will see that there is only a 20 cc gap for more rh to fill the 70 cc beaker.  That means less rh potential is present, a total of 100% rh is actually less than the 90 cc beaker with also a 100% potential, but it’s potential is 40 cc’s more than the 20 cc’s of the 70 cc beaker.  This is why stability in rh is so crucial in maintaining your collection, especially in high temperature dry, wet and in between conditions.

Light is the most important factor of all; if beadwork is left in natural light, you may be cooking your beadwork with UV light.  Seriously consider this; microwaves are a form of electromagnetic energy, which is what light is.  In the Ultra Violet (UV) end of the spectrum, we are essentially cooking our evening meals with this energy.  It’s not that far of a leap of intuition to understand that unfiltered light can and does damage beadwork.  Usually, inland sea level has low UV, but there’s a magnifying effect from the water’s surface (even a river) that can intensify UV, think of a beach sunburn verses sunburn from hiking.  It’s best to buy UV sheets and stick them on your windows, re-glaze your home windows or ask for UV glass should your beadwork be framed.

Also, as one rises in elevation, there is more UV present because of less absorption and reflection by the atmospheric molecules in the air.

View the storage conditions of the beadwork.  Knowing how to store your beadwork is crucial.  Think of what type of stress may affect the beadwork anytime you wear it and store it.  Body salts, oils and skin sloughing off onto the beadwork will affect the threading agent, the beads and their possible finish.  A crumpled piece that has been tossed in a drawer is perhaps the greatest death knell to any piece of beadwork,  Lay beadwork out flat according to it’s design; if it’s made in the shape of an arc, lay it out in this shape, a simple strand, again, lay it flat in this shape.  Never hang beadwork, as the stress will cause separations in the threading agent and tears in the beadwork. 

Wood off-gasses different chemicals, as does the finish used to preserve it, so while there are many jewelry armoires and have been used for decades, even a couple of centuries, they are not the most ideal environment.  Their drawers close completely, but should be slightly ajar to allow some air in and out.  There are other pieces of jewelry, specifically cellulose nitrate that can completely damage all oxidizing metals and also destroy other cellulose nitrate pieces in your collection.  Because of this, it’s crucial to keep the drawers open, or better yet, separate the cellulose nitrate pieces from the rest of your collection.

Closely monitor beaded tapestries and weavings at a minimum of twice a year.  The most common problem will be that they fray at the top and bottom of the tapestry.

Lastly, museum professionals identify beadwork techniques and materials so they can anticipate potential problems in the long term care of their objects. The following is a short version of Beadwork Identification:

Five Forms of Beadwork Identification:

1.      Stringing

a.       Coiling

b.      Knitting, Crochet, Tatting

c.       Embroidery

2.      Loom Weaving

a.       Weaving on Warp

                                                                          i.      Tapestry Style; most common form of beadweaving

                                                                        ii.      Shed Style; usually with the heaviest of beads, like Wampum

b.      Weaving on Weft

3.      Off Loom Weaving; so many different styles, it’s difficult to examine them all

4.      Embedded Beadwork

a.       Intentional Embedding (i.e. Huichol)

b.      Unintentional Embedding (usually found in African beadwork)

5.      Beads not acting as beads