Reminder Of Andrew Todd's Lecture At The CIG

This is just a reminder that tomorrow night, Andrew Todd will be giving a lecture at the Canadian Institute In Greece.  Here's more information about the lecture:


"The totem pole that has stood since 1975 in the gardens of the Residency of the Ambassador of Canada in Filothei is now undergoing restoration. The totem pole was built by the renowned First Nation artist Chief Tony Hunt and his relatives of Kwakwaka’waka ancestry in the 1960s. The conservator Andrew Todd from Bowen Island, BC is in Athens for the month of October working at the Benaki Museum under the sponsorship of the Canadian Embassy and generous donors to restore it to its former glory. On Wednesday, October 17th at 7:30 pm Mr. Todd will talk about this restoration project and the others he has participated in the Pacific northwest."

The lecture will take place on October 17th at 7:30 in the Canadian Institute's library.

The Canadian Institute is located at:

Dionysiou Aiginitou 7
GR-115 28 Athens
Greece

Click here for a map.

We hope to see you all there."

The Detailed Work Pays Off

At this point signs of how the Chief's Crest Pole is going to look is starting to become apparent.  The details that may have been lost or obscured are coming back to life in vivid colour.

Andrew is continuing to slowly and meticulously fill in the cracks with his collection of wood pieces sent to Greece from Canada.  After the pieces are securely filling the cracks, Andrew is ever so carefully carving them to match the contours of the Pole.  As more and more of this work gets done, the details of the Pole come out.

At the same time, Andrew has started to repair the paint.  He is both covering the areas where the cracks had once been, and also covering areas where the paint has chipped away completely.  The Pole is truly coming to life a little bit every day with these fixes.

Andrew has also started to fill in the areas near the base.  This, along with the top of the Pole, are the most damaged parts and require a great deal of filler and careful reconstruction.  Wherever possible Andrew is using wood to fill in the gaps, but later this week he plans to use some epoxy to fill in more of the holes that are too difficult to fill with pieces of wood.  Fortunately the Chief's Crest Pole, appears to be very solid and strong int he middle and these large outer repairs might be our biggest challenge.

Filling in Small Spaces

Repairing a piece, like the Chief's Crest Pole, is not as simple as re-painting it.  The first step is to clean out all of the dirt and debris from the cracks and crevasse   The second step, the one Andrew is facing now, is all about filling in the holes and cracks that appear once the Pole has been cleaned up.  This is where Andrew's skills as a woodcarver come into play.

After the cracks are free of any loose debris, Andrew pants on a thin layer of glue.  The glue is an acid free, PH balanced glue specially designed for restoration work.

He also applies a thin layer to a sliver of wood.  These slivers are cut from pieces that Andrew had flown in from Canada especially for this project.  The idea is to keep the wood as close to the original as possible and that even means collecting it from the same region that the Chief's Crest Pole was made.

Once the two pieces are covered in glue, Andrew carefully holds it in place until the glue sets.

At this point the wooden sliver can sit in place without falling out, but it is far from being ready for the next step.  For that, the glue must dry overnight.

Once the glue is totally dry, the next step is to carve this sliver down to match the area around it.

Here's a wonderful example of an area where Andrew as already carved his slivers down.  Not only has Andrew followed the contour of the frogs face, but he's also made sure to carve in the small details, like the frogs nose, into his replacement slivers.  This process is very detailed work, and with the dozens of cracks in the Pole, Andrew must work with great patience to make sure that all of the details remain in the Chief's Crest Pole.

While many of the cracks are small and narrow, there are also some larger areas of damage on the Pole as well.  Most notably are the base and top.  Andrew has already started to work out how he plans to fix these areas, including this new top that he's started to work on.

While working on repairing the cracks and crevasses Andrew has also started to experiment with colour.  There are many areas of the Pole that won't require any crack repairs, but will need a great deal of paint repair.  The goal of restoring this piece is to try to keep as much of the original colour as possible, and only re-paint when necessary   It's also important that where the Pole is re-painted that the colours match perfectly.  As you can see by the photo above the paint is chipped a great deal in some portions of the Pole.

Andrew has already started to re-paint some areas, and the results are fantastic and bright.  With just a little bit of paint, portions of the Chief's Crest Pole are really coming back to life.

The Metal Base

As you can see from this photo, the Chief's Crest Pole has a bit of support in the back to help keep it standing.

The metal base consists of two small spikes in the back of the pole covered in some kind of plaster and attached to a tower in the back.

There is also a large metal base designed to keep the Chief's Crest Pole off of the ground and away from excess moisture.

I managed to find several sketches of this structure in the Embassy of Canada's archives.

It appears that there are the two spikes in the back, and one larger one in the base.  While this base provided much need support while it was up in the garden, it's now creating a bit of a problem in restoration. To repair the Pole properly it must be lying down, this creates a great deal of stress on the two bolts in the back, and made it much more difficult to rest on the work benches.  This base may also create problems when the Pole has to be moved later on.  There are several ideas about what can be done, and how this will affect the future of the Chief's Crest Pole.

Past Restorations

While going through the archives of the Chief's Crest Pole, I discovered that this is not the first time that this Pole was repaired.  In 2001 it appears that a restoration effort was made.  This was also likely the time that the metal base was added.  The problems that came up during this restoration seem very similar to those that are here now.  Moisture and heat caused cracking, moss growth, paint chipping, and even the possibility of ants.  Bellow are several before and after photos from the last restoration:

The base before.

The base after.

The hat before.

The hat after.

The top of the hat before.

The top of the hat after.

The Chief's face before.

The Chief's face after.

The future of the Chief's Crest Pole is one that will keep it much safer than it's been in the past.  In the near future, after the restoration is complete, it will stay up at the Benaki museum.  After this time, the Canadian Embassy will look for a permanent home (possibly in their Embassy) were the Pole will be indoors and away from the elements.

The Start Of The Restoration

Now that the Chief's Crest Pole is safely in it's studio, Andrew Todd has started to work on restoring this piece of Canadian culture back to it's former glory.  The work is very detail oriented and time consuming, but it's coming along very well.

This first step is to clean and remove any debris and paint that is just too damaged to repair.  In most cases this damaged material is from past restoration work that had been done many years ago.

Along with a vacuum  and several brushes, Andrew's main tool of choice is a simple wooden stick.  He uses this stick to remove debris that is loose.  Wooden tools to not scratch or damage the original wood of the Totem Pole, and are very gentle on the paint as well.

While some of the loose debris is simply thrown out, some is to valuable to simply be disposed.  In these cases Andrew must re-attach these pieces using wood glues.

Andrew is also not simple eliminating all of the past restoration work.  For example, many of the cracks have been filled with these small slivers of wood.  These are likely from a past restoration, and where ever possible Andrew is leaving these.

This is a time for Andrew to explore the Chief's Crest Pole, and find out what kind of condition it is truly in.  So far he's optimistic, and let's hope it stays that way.

Remember, if you want to see Andrew Todd at work, you can visit the Benaki Museum at 138 Pireos street, Thursday to Sunday's.  You can see more photos from his work on our Facebook page, and you can also see Andrew Todd's lecture at the Canadian Institute in Greece on October 17th.

A Quick Video of Last Week's Move

Last week's move from the basement to the 3rd floor of the Benaki Museum was a slow and meticulous maneuver.  The move itself took more than 3 hours, but you can watch all of the highlights from the move in less than a minute and half.