Hey y’all, specially arty types, I have a little problem.
My late father gave me a piece of art he did. I believe it’s pencil on some kind of brown paper that reminds me of parchment paper.
This paper is extraordinarily fragile because it’s old. If you breathe on it, it crumbles almost to dust. It’s very loosely rolled up and it’s not secured by anything.
I’ve never even seen it because I don’t dare unroll it, since I’m sure it’ll just fall apart completely in the attempt. I have no hope that I can preserve it long-term but if I could preserve it long enough to unroll it and look at it, maybe take a picture of it, I’d be grateful for that.
I have no idea how to accomplish this but it crossed my mind that perhaps there’s some sort of spray on fixative that I could use to give it some strength, enough to at least allow me to very, very gently unroll it. In my minds eye I think I could spray the surface that’s exposed right now, wait for however long, unroll a couple of inches , spray that, unroll a couple of inches, spray that…take whatever time it takes. My first thought is that a spray on adhesive might work, but I don’t know about these things so I don’t trust myself to play around with it.
My thought is that this unknown, perhaps fantasy substance would hold it together long enough for me to get it unrolled and photographed.
Maybe I’m just dreaming, but if you guys can think of a substance or a means to get this accomplished I’d be mighty grateful
On the Repair Shop TV programme here, the regular book/paper conservators use what they call “Japanese tissue paper” to strengthen fragile paper. Mind you, they also use a light spray of water to relax it first, which looks terrifying.
Which all argues for looking for a professional conservator/restorer.
That kind of acidic wood-pulp paper turns extremely brittle. This process cannot be reversed and I would not mess with it by spraying any chemicals on it or moving it or subjecting it to mechanical stress. A professional might know how to manipulate it or photograph it without unrolling (X-rays or terahertz radiation are also used for this).
I once dated a professional paper conservator (she was really high level – like she worked on the copy of the Declaration of Independence that was found in 1991 and sold for $7 million). While I don’t know of any way for the OP to unroll the paper themself, I do know, based on some examples of her work that she showed me, that paper conservators can work miracles on seemingly hopelessly damaged manuscripts. I would definitely get an estimate from a conservator before I’d try any home brew options.