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Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:20:03 EDT
From: MSGuild@AOL
If the dongus was original to the sculpture ;but not in living memeory and not what the public is used to seeing
what decision should be made regarding its historic replica ?
A similar project I am working on involves a well photogaphed ante bellum ruin deep in the woods along
the Mississippi river.
The great hosue burned sometime after the war of Northeren aggression ;
and all that was left standing was 26 (yes virgina ) 26 ....30 ft high stucco flutted masonry brick collums
with decorative corinthian heavy iron capitals still on top.
The ruin is well loved by the all the artists and tourists whocome to paint and ooh and ahh over Its subdued colors
and its mystical location and their dramatic discovery of it hidden like a time capsual
Seeing it its as if it just stepped out of the pages of Gone with the Wind(or is it the wind done gone ?)
One can easily imagine Rhett and Vivian smooching it up over on one of the iron railings that holds on to the masonry
by a thread much like the Titanics actual chandelier.
The problem is (like the dongus) much of the patina and color that is so well loved is coming from colors
that are deteriationg the masonry .
The white of the brick for instance is from salts ; the deep shadows of gray come from a 1960's attempt
at stabilisation with a smear of portland slurry to cover the deteriating lime (?) stucco bases and flutes.
The dull reds are from the detoriation of exposed soft bricks and the blacks and greens are from mosses growing in wet masonry enviroments
I can't in good nature recomend to resore this to keep those colors .
I could go on ; but the fact is the ruin ( as it appears now ) is what everyone expects
I will have to interpet the color of the decoratve stucco masonry based going from the color of the grey slurry
to a antique white based on a fragment that I found that hadn't been touched .
The slurry of 60 's thin portland grey sits over either a lime stucco or a natural cememnt stucco
( the lab will tell) The thin slurry in most cases chokes the stucco to pop off or blister off as moisture
coming in from abovbe has no place below to dry out under the slurry
However in other cases where the mositure is not getting in from above the slurry
is holding up quite wel.l ...Thoughts of Removing the slurry of course will destroy the village in order to save it
r i could just tighten and waterproof whats above and moniter the base for improvement ;
but since all masonry has to breath I am opposed to this as I have found evidence of brick deteriation from the choking
and its internal humidity as it holds up the collums
Like the Dongus I am still dithering back anf forth ; if the dongus goes back i will be tarred and feathered by the Baptists
not the first time mind you ...and if I save and reinterpet the ruin as it once looked
I will be tarred and feathered by the locals and tourists (many of whom are Baptists)
My querry here is how should we look at history when it comes to strucure ? With the dongus as the artist intened
or without as presumably the state (owner )intends it
Both remind me of a historic wall at Mills resevation/?) that was built wrong ; but that is how people rememberer it so it was put back wrong
I will be taking recomendations (if they aren't too graphic ) how I should approach the dongus and the ruin
based on past experience of those who have been tarred and feathered /py
/Py
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no