Conservation, Preservation & Restoration
Conserving Milwaukee's art since 2000
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Featured in:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Woman magazine, OnMilwaukee, Antiques Trader magazine, MPTV appraisal fair, 414 magazine, Milwaukee Fine Home & Living Magazine, Shepherd Express, MPTV Art's Page on TV, Wisconsin Arts & Culture Guide |
In-house services
Art owners work directly with the conservator and your art is carefully treated on premises. By fostering a personal relationship with every client and artwork the best results can be achieved. Conservator Monica Mull uses techniques learned from professionals of the Rijksmuseum, Northwestern University, Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration, along with 25 years of experience. |
Satisfied clients include:
Iron horse hotel, Trinity Church, Lily Pad Gallery, SB Gallery, Paul Davis Restoration, Alfons Gallery, Pototsi National Brewery Museum, director of MOWA: Museum of Wisconsin Art, Aram Library in Delavan, Two Rivers Historical Society, Mukwonago Historical Society
Testimonials:
"Monica - You did a fantastic job. My deepest appreciation for your professional work."
-- Ray Retzlaff, MILWAUKEE
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"Your repair work is superb. Neither my wife nor my framer could see the repairs. Thanks for a great job." -- David Stejskal, SOUTH CAROLINA
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"Thank you again for such superb workmanship .... or “work-womanship.” I couldn’t be happier . " -- Pat C. , MILWAUKEE . .
"It was a pleasure to work with you and have your expertise available to restore our painting."
-- Bob H. , MILWAUKEE
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TESTIMONIALS:
***** Dee Becker May 20, 2022
Monica, thank you for restoring the painting and sending the photos. I am very, very pleased with the result. The painting has come to life on my wall. Love it. You da best!!
***** Mary Beth Popchock January 29, 2020
Monica is the ultimate professional. She is extremely talented and her work is of the highest quality. She has performed "artistic miracles" on repairs for many works of art for us. Her conservation work is highly recommended, as well.
***** Dan Chunn July 24, 2018
I have been working with Monica on restoration and framing of my art work for several years. My appointments with her have been enlightening and she has shown great patience. Monica is a great listener and understands my love for my prints and etchings.
***** Maureen Dick February 9, 2018
Recently we needed to have an original piece of artwork framed. The artist recommended Monica Mull for the project. She shared some insightful ideas which were greatly appreciated. We are very pleased with the end result.
***** Dee Becker May 20, 2022
Monica, thank you for restoring the painting and sending the photos. I am very, very pleased with the result. The painting has come to life on my wall. Love it. You da best!!
***** Mary Beth Popchock January 29, 2020
Monica is the ultimate professional. She is extremely talented and her work is of the highest quality. She has performed "artistic miracles" on repairs for many works of art for us. Her conservation work is highly recommended, as well.
***** Dan Chunn July 24, 2018
I have been working with Monica on restoration and framing of my art work for several years. My appointments with her have been enlightening and she has shown great patience. Monica is a great listener and understands my love for my prints and etchings.
***** Maureen Dick February 9, 2018
Recently we needed to have an original piece of artwork framed. The artist recommended Monica Mull for the project. She shared some insightful ideas which were greatly appreciated. We are very pleased with the end result.
Providing Services For: art collectors, art investors, brewery collectible enthusiasts, family heirloom caretakers, antique dealers, art galleries, artists, frame shops, interior designers, churches, historical societies, disaster response companies, insurance companies & anyone who loves art!
Monica of Art CPR was honored to have the opportunity to learn the Modular Cleaning System with conservators from around the globe, at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn taught by Chris Stavroudis of Los Angeles, a consultant to the Getty Museum. Conservators learned organic chemistry, then applied it in the lab creating over 40 cleaning solutions. Monica is pictured here with Emilia Cortez, an ancient Egyptian artifacts conservator who has been at the Metropolitan Art Museum over 25 years, and Renee Riedler, of Vienna Austria, at the American Natural History Museum in NYC. If you'd like to read more about the safer, less toxic aqueous cleaners we created in the lab, please click on the following link:
"A Novel Approach to Cleaning: Using Mixtures of Concentrated Stock Solutions and a Database to Arrive at an Optimal Cleaning System" <http://cool.conservation-us.org/waac/wn/wn27/wn27-2/wn27-205.pdf>; |
Hidden writing revealed! You never know what you'll find when opening up an old picture framing. In this one minute video, Monica Mull of Art CPR reveals hidden writing beneath an original watercolor illustration for one of Ludwig Bemelmans' classic childrens' books. The illustration on watercolor paper was glued to a cardboard backing. (very bad!) As Monica removes the cardboard backing, letters begin to appear. What did Ludwig write on the back of his artwork? Watch the video to find out.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxbfMA_4KY |
By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Writer Published Jan 14, 2019
A lot of people have been working hard since last May to bring back Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1046 N. 9th St., after the blaze that threatened the 1878 building. Art conservators Monica Mull and Kelsey Soya are among them. From dozens of firefighters who battled the May 15 fire, to folks who rescued precious objects the following day, to Paul Davis crews who toiled to clear out muck four feet deep, to engineers and Triad Construction crews who shored up the exterior walls and installed a temporary roof to allow reconstruction to begin. Hundreds have chipped in. But two important team members have worked in quiet solitude, a pot of hot water for tea on the stove, in Wauwatosa to restore two dozen artworks that hung in the church and will be displayed there once again thanks to their efforts. In late May, Monica Mull, who owns Art CPR studio, received 25 works damaged in the fire and has since been working to restore them with the help of her assistant, Kelsey Soya. Now, work on those photos and prints is complete and Mull has returned them to Trinity.
"I've been doing work for Paul Davis Restorations for about 18 years now," says Mull when we meet in her studio, located in a lovely Irish cottage-style building. "I got the work through them. Among the works Art CPR received are photographs of the earliest pastors of the church, and yardlong photos. There is a print of a text in German and one showing the church choir members, which includes headshots of well-known Milwaukeeans with well-known surnames like Gettelman.
Mull received the works 12 days after the fire, at which point they were still in their frames. "When received them, they were soaking wet," she says. "Typically in fire damage you have plaster, insulation and soot. Water running down the front of the glass. The before pictures are kind of gory." Those before pictures show various levels of water damage. You can see stains, especially along the lower portions of the works, because as you'd expect, Mull says, water tends to pool along the bottoms of the frames. The dampness also caused many of the works on paper to warp and, in some cases, photographs without mats became stuck to the glass. In one case, there was mold to battle. "Normally I would just look at these and give an estimate and then wait for insurance company permission to proceed," says Mull. "When it's a severe water damage, you kind of have to treat it like a triage situation: stop what you're doing, get things out of the frames immediately.
"I got these in at 4PM and we stayed up all night taking everything out of frames to dry. If we hadn't, all the photographs would have been stuck to the glass. All the pieces would have been moldy. Since we had everything opened up we were running fans to start the drying process." Then the real work began. Mull used a heat press to dry and flatten some, and water baths to remove stains. Damaged spots were touched up. Mats were re-cut. Frames and glass cleaned. Some works, like silver gelatin photo prints, required more specialized techniques. In at least one case the gelatin that had gotten wet had adhered to the glass. One of these 19th century photos, of a large group at a picnic, was beyond repair. In addition to being torn from top to bottom, it was heavily water damaged. "It just couldn't be cleaned," says Mull. "It was a silver gelatin print and those can't be washed. The stain can't be removed. We had to restore it digitally. I had someone do the Photoshop, then we had to reprint it." The digital version was cleaned up, printed and framed with the original photograph – which Mull stabilized as best as possible – mounted face-out in the back of the frame for anyone who wants to see it. "That was the only one we just couldn't save," says Mull.
One of the most interesting works, and one in which Kelsey Soya invested a lot of time, is a collage of headshots created by cutting the figures out of each original photo and mounting them into a single oval-shaped image (you can see it on the easel in the main photo above). Whomever did the original work – which has no text to identify either the group or its members – also used ink to add highlights and contour to features on some of the individuals: slashes to define beards, curving lines to highlight a shoulder line, marks to add detail to washed out facial features, etc. The plaster relief depicting the last supper was the only work that was not a photograph or print. "There was a big chunk missing," Soya says. "We filled it. We painted different spots in with watercolor. Once we were done touching up, you can't tell."
Watercolor paints are used, adds Mull, because, "everything conservation should be reversible. That way in another 100 years or something when it's cleaned, they can take it off and redo it." Mull is clearly enamored of her work, despite the fact that it typically results from tragedy, as she does a lot of restoration of objects damaged by fire. "It's pretty constant work," she says. "There's always fires and floods. Sometimes I'll go out to the sites and see, or work on something there." She hasn’t been inside the damaged Trinity, but she has seen many photographs of it.
"It's fairly interesting to see after a fire happens. The last one I went out to was a stove fire. I got to see the kitchen and the stove and everything all blackened. It's kind of scary. It makes me be safer out here. I don't leave things plugged in. I make sure the stove is off."
A lot of people have been working hard since last May to bring back Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1046 N. 9th St., after the blaze that threatened the 1878 building. Art conservators Monica Mull and Kelsey Soya are among them. From dozens of firefighters who battled the May 15 fire, to folks who rescued precious objects the following day, to Paul Davis crews who toiled to clear out muck four feet deep, to engineers and Triad Construction crews who shored up the exterior walls and installed a temporary roof to allow reconstruction to begin. Hundreds have chipped in. But two important team members have worked in quiet solitude, a pot of hot water for tea on the stove, in Wauwatosa to restore two dozen artworks that hung in the church and will be displayed there once again thanks to their efforts. In late May, Monica Mull, who owns Art CPR studio, received 25 works damaged in the fire and has since been working to restore them with the help of her assistant, Kelsey Soya. Now, work on those photos and prints is complete and Mull has returned them to Trinity.
"I've been doing work for Paul Davis Restorations for about 18 years now," says Mull when we meet in her studio, located in a lovely Irish cottage-style building. "I got the work through them. Among the works Art CPR received are photographs of the earliest pastors of the church, and yardlong photos. There is a print of a text in German and one showing the church choir members, which includes headshots of well-known Milwaukeeans with well-known surnames like Gettelman.
Mull received the works 12 days after the fire, at which point they were still in their frames. "When received them, they were soaking wet," she says. "Typically in fire damage you have plaster, insulation and soot. Water running down the front of the glass. The before pictures are kind of gory." Those before pictures show various levels of water damage. You can see stains, especially along the lower portions of the works, because as you'd expect, Mull says, water tends to pool along the bottoms of the frames. The dampness also caused many of the works on paper to warp and, in some cases, photographs without mats became stuck to the glass. In one case, there was mold to battle. "Normally I would just look at these and give an estimate and then wait for insurance company permission to proceed," says Mull. "When it's a severe water damage, you kind of have to treat it like a triage situation: stop what you're doing, get things out of the frames immediately.
"I got these in at 4PM and we stayed up all night taking everything out of frames to dry. If we hadn't, all the photographs would have been stuck to the glass. All the pieces would have been moldy. Since we had everything opened up we were running fans to start the drying process." Then the real work began. Mull used a heat press to dry and flatten some, and water baths to remove stains. Damaged spots were touched up. Mats were re-cut. Frames and glass cleaned. Some works, like silver gelatin photo prints, required more specialized techniques. In at least one case the gelatin that had gotten wet had adhered to the glass. One of these 19th century photos, of a large group at a picnic, was beyond repair. In addition to being torn from top to bottom, it was heavily water damaged. "It just couldn't be cleaned," says Mull. "It was a silver gelatin print and those can't be washed. The stain can't be removed. We had to restore it digitally. I had someone do the Photoshop, then we had to reprint it." The digital version was cleaned up, printed and framed with the original photograph – which Mull stabilized as best as possible – mounted face-out in the back of the frame for anyone who wants to see it. "That was the only one we just couldn't save," says Mull.
One of the most interesting works, and one in which Kelsey Soya invested a lot of time, is a collage of headshots created by cutting the figures out of each original photo and mounting them into a single oval-shaped image (you can see it on the easel in the main photo above). Whomever did the original work – which has no text to identify either the group or its members – also used ink to add highlights and contour to features on some of the individuals: slashes to define beards, curving lines to highlight a shoulder line, marks to add detail to washed out facial features, etc. The plaster relief depicting the last supper was the only work that was not a photograph or print. "There was a big chunk missing," Soya says. "We filled it. We painted different spots in with watercolor. Once we were done touching up, you can't tell."
Watercolor paints are used, adds Mull, because, "everything conservation should be reversible. That way in another 100 years or something when it's cleaned, they can take it off and redo it." Mull is clearly enamored of her work, despite the fact that it typically results from tragedy, as she does a lot of restoration of objects damaged by fire. "It's pretty constant work," she says. "There's always fires and floods. Sometimes I'll go out to the sites and see, or work on something there." She hasn’t been inside the damaged Trinity, but she has seen many photographs of it.
"It's fairly interesting to see after a fire happens. The last one I went out to was a stove fire. I got to see the kitchen and the stove and everything all blackened. It's kind of scary. It makes me be safer out here. I don't leave things plugged in. I make sure the stove is off."
Would you like to see how this poster was restored? For those of you who are curious to see the restoration process, I invite you to take a "digital peek" into my studio. I am excited to announce the creation of my new YouTube channel! I have just posted my first video showing part of my working process: in-painting a missing area of the poster pictured above. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg_19fhsGDE
Preservationists and artists working together!
Sometimes an artist's work needs restoration in his or her lifetime. If an artist is still living, it is best to seek out the artist and request that they re-paint damaged areas of their own paintings. If not, that's where a conservator steps in with reversible paints.
In this case, Wisconsin artist Tom Uttech's painting had fire and water damage. Paint loss occurred as a result of water soaking the painting, especially at the bottom. Art CPR conservator Monica Mull worked in collaboration with the Museum of Wisconsin Art and Tom Uttech to preserve this large 60 x 75" painting that he created in 1965. Conservation work included dry cleaning the front and back, stabilizing loose paint & application of gesso to the areas of bare canvas. Now that those areas are primed with gesso, they are ready for Tom to re-paint.....Take it away Tom!
Sometimes an artist's work needs restoration in his or her lifetime. If an artist is still living, it is best to seek out the artist and request that they re-paint damaged areas of their own paintings. If not, that's where a conservator steps in with reversible paints.
In this case, Wisconsin artist Tom Uttech's painting had fire and water damage. Paint loss occurred as a result of water soaking the painting, especially at the bottom. Art CPR conservator Monica Mull worked in collaboration with the Museum of Wisconsin Art and Tom Uttech to preserve this large 60 x 75" painting that he created in 1965. Conservation work included dry cleaning the front and back, stabilizing loose paint & application of gesso to the areas of bare canvas. Now that those areas are primed with gesso, they are ready for Tom to re-paint.....Take it away Tom!
While cleaning this painting, I was excited to research and find the book it illustrated. Such a beautiful painting, of course it's the cover art! This book is Volume 3 in the My Bookhouse series, by Olive Beaupre' Miller, Copyright 1920.