A line from Simon and Garfunkel’s song “The Boxer” is very applicable for today’s post.
There are pros and cons to every paint system, especially when using dry pigment paint and diluted hide glue. Any introduction of water will reactivate the paint and binder instantaneously. Water damage to historical scenery is often extensive and unsightly. Prolonged water damage is a death sentence, especially if the dry pigment starts to dust off and surface mold appears in areas. Both of these happened at the Masonic Theatre in Winona, Minnesota, when a roof leak above the stage and was never fixed. Paul Sannerud and I were hired to remove and place the entire collection into on site temporary storage when the City decided to finally renovate the auditorium and stage area. Water damage was first noted in the 1990s and it continued until 2014 when the entire collection was placed in storage where it would supposedly await some form of preservation.
Extensive water damage in Winona decimated a lovely early-twentieth century scenery collection. The frustrating aspect of the story is that it was entirely preventable, unless you really didn’t want to have a historic drop collection.
I have frequently heard the phrase “People don’t know what they don’t know.” I also sincerely believe that with the correct information, most people can make informed and reasonable decisions. However, some people don’t want to be informed, or ignore the facts entirely. For almost two decades, I repeatedly explained to one City of Winona official the need for appropriate care and handling of their painted scenery. The problem was that I wasn’t telling them what they wanted to hear.
Now the City of Winona only owns a portion of this water-damaged collection. Much of it was auctioned off last month to another Scottish Rite who had no idea what they purchased site unseen. You see the pictures posted for the online auction were from 2010 and the scenery went into storage in 2014. For four years after my 2010 assessment, water continued to damage the historic scenery collection. Streams of water rushed down many of the drops. The roof leak was never repaired, so the collection continued to deteriorate until it was placed into storage.
The collection was in far worse shape than depicted in my 2010 scenery evaluation pictures. Yet these are still the pictures that were used for the online auction and the call for scenery preservation bids last month. I contacted the city to express my concern that a recent assessment had not been conducted prior to requesting bids for the work or the auction. Last spring, I had recommended that Curtains Without Borders complete a current assessment and establish the specifications for any restoration work, so that individuals or companies could all bid on the same thing.
While removing the scenery in 2014, I noticed active black mold. Not old mold, recent mold and pointed it out to City officials. Later on, there was a rainstorm and I both photographed and videotaped the water leaking down from the roof.
Again, I passed the information onto city officials. At the end of the project, my one assistant said, “Are you supposed to see the sky from the stage?” “No!” I responded, and immediately began looking up. However, without all of the drops, we could clearly see the waterlogged wood of the grid too. I contacted city officials and they came in to see the holes above the stage.
Most recently, I explained to the city that I could not bid on a project site unseen, or without some form of professional assessment by an independent entity. The City responded that any interested party could visit and unroll each of the thirteen drops to assess the current damage after scheduling an appointment. It was clear to me at that moment they still had no idea of what they owned, its historical significance, or the fragility of each drop. I was still explaining that the excessive handling – rolling, unrolling, rolling, unrolling – would cause irreparable damage to a collection that was perilously close to the end of it’s life. I could also no longer vouch for the condition of each piece as I last saw it, as before the auction, twenty-five drops were removed from the 2014 custom-built storage rack. People who were not trained in the handling of historic scenery moved, unrolled and rerolled many of the drops. It was a red flag to me.
I intimately knew the condition of each drop in 2014, but I didn’t know the condition of the drops after excessive handling by city employees. If the tubes were slid out of the storage rack, the painted surface would have been extensively damaged. No one would know the condition of each painted scene until that tube was unrolled on site. The scene could look like the Shroud of Turin.
Regardless, the drops could be the perfect pairing for a few Scottish Rite Valleys with similar collections, so I entered the bidding on behalf of a client in November. No matter how much I wanted the collection to go to a good home, I couldn’t recommend that my client spend more that $10,000 for the remaining scenes in any case. We withdrew from bidding at $10,000, and the auction ended at $10,010. And yes, the online auction also used the 2010 photos from my assessment, misrepresenting the condition of the collection to those who bought it.
The new owners contacted me and I simply felt bad for them as they had no idea what they had purchased, or the extensive work that would be required prior to hang it. And the Winona collection, the most complete set of Masonic scenery that I have ever encountered in the country was forever split. It is no longer is the perfect example of what theatrical manufacturers marketed to Freemasons. As it went out the doors and made its journey south, I just felt bad and wondered how many of the drops would end up in the dumpster at the end of the day. I cannot express the extent of the prolonged water damage and the care that it will take to repair.
To be continued…
