What can we do with an object?
Here are the things we can do, or not do, to an object as it ages:
· Nothing;
· Maintain;
· Repair;
· Restore;
· Preserve;
· Conserve;
· Collect.
For plenty of objects, “nothing” is a viable option—so long as no accident befalls the object. A glazed earthenware vase that no one drops or knocks off a table will probably need nothing but dusting for an indefinite number of human lifetimes after its manufacture. We have intact amphorae from Roman shipwrecks that have lain on the seabed for 2,000 years.
For other objects, especially complex ones with moving parts, “nothing” will preclude continued function. You cannot do “nothing” to a car and keep driving it for very long. Same goes for a mechanical watch. Such objects ask us to consider the meanings of “maintain” and “repair,” and the differences between them. For utility, I’d offer that “maintain” means to clean and lubricate moving parts and parts that accumulate residue during use that can impede proper operation over time—or, for that matter, to clean and apply protectant to surfaces exposed to the harsh elements—the sun, salt air, rain. “Maintenance” also extends to replacing “wear items”—on a car, these include tires, brake pads and rotors, belts, spark plugs, bushings, boots, and tie rod ends—among others. Because conscientious owners replace such items before they break, it is more useful to call this “maintenance” rather than “repair.”
“Repair,” then, means fixing something broken. Bodywork after an accident is repair. Putting a window back on its track is repair. Gluing and clamping a broken table leg is repair. Our technological life depends on the skills and materials necessary to carry out repairs.
Scholars of technology point out that “repair” is generally carried out for utility. That isn’t absolutely true; a sizable dent that doesn’t penetrate the paint does not necessarily compromise the utility of my car, but I’m going to have it fixed because it looks terrible. It is generally true, though, that repairs are undertaken to restore the full usefulness of an object.
The verb “restore” means something more than repair. The “restoration” of an object is a set of work items, and associated materials, used to return an object with a history of use, or of existence accompanied by degradation, or both, to its original condition, as much as possible. An oil painting from 1500 may need restoring because it has collected five hundred years’ worth of grime from the air around it. Removing that grime may be all the restoration it needs, if the paint is undamaged. A 1962 “barn find” Jaguar XKE is going to need much more than that.
In the world of old cars, “restoration” has, traditionally, ruled as an unquestionably desirable undertaking. 1962 Jaguar XKEs are judged at shows for how closely they come to original condition. To put one into that condition usually requires replacing a significant number of parts, probably replacing the entire leather interior, stripping the body to bare metal and repainting it—among many other expensive and labor-intensive tasks. It is true that restoration encompasses repair, but it goes beyond it.
Lately, though, some enthusiasts and collectors have challenged the status of restoration. They argue that there is value in preserving the history of the car, as evidenced by all of the ways in which it differs from how it was when it was new. These dissidents do not reject repair at all; they insist upon it, in most cases. These are people who, for example, would drive their 1962 Jaguar XKE, rather than keep it covered in a garage until time to load it into the covered trailer for transport to the next show. But looking at their car will make obvious the faded paint, the little scratches and dings, the worn number plates on the engine, the cracks and creases in the leather seats, and all the other signs of aging, wear and tear. You can keep a 1962 XKE in fine running order without fully restoring it. Some owners choose to do this. Their cars “tell the story” of the sixty-two years of that car’s life, rather than obscure it through restoration to pristine condition—which, ironically enough, requires making plenty of “unoriginal” modifications to it. Any worn piece that cannot be made to look like new gets replaced. That piece did not come with the original car. In a sense, it is deceptive; it conveys a sense of “original condition” that really isn’t.
Generally speaking, when it comes to objects considered culturally-significant to archaeologists and curators, restoration is flatly rejected. The priorities of archaeologists are conservation and preservation.
Conservation involves a set of specialized techniques for stabilizing an object and preventing further degradation of it. An iron anchor or a section of wooden hull that has lain in salt water for five hundred years requires such treatment once it is removed from that environment, or it will degrade quickly, likely to the point of destruction.
An iron anchor will be completely covered in “concretion,” a hard, rough coating of marine organisms and their shells. This can be so extensive as to render the identification of the object as an anchor difficult for a non-specialist. Conservation requires carefully removing that concretion, using both mechanical and chemical methods. This takes a significant amount of time and painstaking work. It would never make sense to do for any commercial or utilitarian purpose.
After concretion has been removed, the iron itself must be stabilized. Over time, salt water penetrates iron, and when the iron is removed from the water and allowed to dry out, the water evaporates slowly, leaving the salt crystals, which precipitate out as white powder. Salt is, of course, highly corrosive to iron. When I was an intern, we put recovered iron cannonballs into an oven on low heat for hours to days at a time, to draw out the salt and dry out any remaining water. Often, we would discover that we had not allowed enough time, when we observed new crystals forming on examples we had already put on display. Back in the oven they’d go.
Wood is even more intensive to treat. It will turn to dust if allowed to dry out. Standard procedure is to submerge it in a tank of propylene glycol—for years. The antifreeze drives out and replaces the water, stabilizing the wood.
Preservation may, then, include conservation, as an initial step. After that, it is a matter of protecting the object from damage over the long term. This may require climate control, limiting light exposure, and constructing a protective structure around the object. We also commonly use the term “preservation” in reference to buildings—as in, “historic preservation.” The priority there is to retain, as much as is practicably possible, the original structure and its appearance. Preservation, though, does not preclude a coat of paint, as necessary, or repairs of damage. It does, however, prioritize the use of materials as close as possible to the originals—at least in appearance, if not also in substance.
A significant archaeological and historical departure from the sort of restoration undertaken by car collectors is the sacred status of reversibility. Anything we do to an object should be reversible, with the understanding that, at some time in the future, other curators or conservators may be able to employ different techniques in their work, or they may have different interpretive priorities than ours. We do not consider ourselves to have the right to permanently alter a canopic jar from ancient Egypt. We might touch up the paint (or not), but if we do, it will be with non-permanent paint that can be completely removed from the original surface.
The priority for curators is collection. An instructive contrast is that between utility and collection. Once an object is brought into a collection—particularly a museum collection—it is no longer useful in any utilitarian sense. An early 20th-century washing machine collected by a museum will no longer be used to do laundry. It will also not be repaired in any way that might be required for further utility. The “purpose” of the washing machine is no longer to wash clothes; it is to convey “meaning.” The washing machine is a record of the history of washing machines, and of domestic appliances more generally, and it is also expected to convey some ideas to those who may examine it. This is what we mean by “interpretation.” The curators will present a particular interpretation of the object to the museum’s visitors, based on their expertise and their (well-founded) opinions. Of course, another curator may have another, somewhat different interpretation. It’s common for us to re-evaluate our interpretations of collected objects over time, as our priorities and outlooks shift, and as we learn more about the historical context of the object.
So, those car enthusiasts who eschew traditional restoration are hewing close to the mentality of the museum curator—except that they usually insist that their cars still work, so they will carry out whatever repairs are necessary to make that happen.
I think the key concept for thinking about all of this is “repair.” What is the place of repair in the history of this object? What is its repair history? What is the place of repair in the future of this object? What sorts of repairs are appropriate, and why? It makes no financial sense to restore a car—at least if we restrict “sense” to utility. For a wealthy car enthusiast, though, it can make plenty of another sort of “sense.” It makes plenty of financial sense to maintain and repair a car—for any owner, even if solely for utilitarian purposes. And, if we have to choose between one object that we think will require less repair than an alternative object, we may well choose that object over the other one for that reason. I could not be less like this myself, but when I was a kid, when my Dad would buy a car, if the salesman showed him the more “loaded” model, he would ask to see the more basic one (the one I would call “poverty-spec”) instead, saying “All that stuff will break.”