Mending the Muscle Men
The Stark Center at the University of Texas at Austin was founded by faculty members Terry and Jan Todd, in celebration and exhibition of physical culture. Based strongly off of their own collection practices, Terry and Jan brought a wealth of archival material (books, magazines, photos, ephemera, sculptures, etc) to the university. The center has expanded and is thriving as they continue to acquire, catalogue, and describe their collection materials for researchers.
I had the absolute pleasure of working with them on an acquisition of Russian strongmen posters that needed some care and attention. A total of four posters needed attention, of which my photo documentation could have been better.
Working for the Stark Center was one of my very first freelance jobs and, as such, my space at home was not yet set up and ready for such oversized material. So one of these posters was sent out for a lining at my recommendation, after I did some of the basic prep work to dry clean and remove tape from its back. The others, I was able to mend and flatten in-house at the archive.
Most of these posters had a same, core issue: they had been rolled up, and then pressed causing breaks. So the primary task was to flatten them and reinforce along the breaks. Otherwise, there were some losses to fill, dry cleaning to do, tape to remove, and plenty of tears to mend.
Honestly, perhaps the most complicated part of this project for me was figuring out exactly how to work on such massive material in a confined space that was not dedicated to treatment with a minimal amount of materials that I could bring in to work on-site. But in the end, all of these posters laid flat, and were completely safe for handling, framing, and display.
Visit the Stark Center online at https://starkcenter.org/ or in person at:
The University of Texas at Austin,
403 DeLoss Dodds Way
Austin, TX 78712
Tell them I say “hi”!
