A DAY WITH DON WILLIAMS
by Mike Mascelli
Monday March 26, 2001
Our day started in the lobby of the hotel with coffee and conversation.
Fred, Dean, Larry and I huddled around the TV to watch a home video of Fred's shop
that we had forgotten the day before. Fred's modest drawl plays down the fine shop
and business he has built over 25 years, but pictures don't lie. He has a very complete,
large shop employing 5 workers, complete with an office, networked computers, and all
the tools of the trade. Interestingly he has great luck employing Hispanic women as
sanders, and praises their thorough attention to detail and solid work ethic. The quality
of his finished work speaks for itself. If you do get a chance to visit, remember that little
orange shop cat's name is Sawdust. Gotta love it.
Our gang was joined by Jon Szalay accompanied by the charming Christine Howlett,
who drove in from NJ , and Joe Day from PA via a course at The Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe.
Counting Don, that made an even dozen.
Don pulled in, and we began our adventure with a drive to a place called Suitland
(not that Don wears one !) MD. If you think of DC as the center of a clock,
we were at about 4 o'clock. So, we pull in to this industrial park complex
and I am thinkin, well they must rent some office space here ? Yeah right.
The entire complex comprising dozens of buildings is ALL Smithsonian.
You may have heard the term "our nation's attic" ? Well this is it.
A huge building to house the American Indian collections, the African, the American,
and on and on. The group of individual museums that make up SI is supported by the
SCMRE where Don actually works. Once you get past the guard at the door,
it looks a little like Mission Control.
It is a huge place with giant corridors leading to all manner of people and equipment.
We had the overpowering urge to whisper it is so "lab-like". We stopped in a couple
of "typical" wood shops, you know the kind with microscopes, controlled environment
chambers and test tubes ! They don't call this place the LAB for nuthin.
Don spent time 'splainin how all of this science supports the mission of understanding
(and slowing down) the process of decay of all materials that make up furniture and
wooden objects. We saw a hand held reflectometer which accurately measures the
sheen on a surface, and other equipment for precisely assigning a color value to
something. I think all of us wished we had paid better attention in school.
Don can get out there on the chemistry and physics stuff, but usually
with the help of a question, he managed to reel us in.
Anne N'Gadi, LarryMc and RobertL
A highlight of our morning was meeting Anne N'Gadi who is the charming research
librarian who has custody of some 14,000 scholarly articles and lotsa cool books.
You oughta see the giant Kardex "ferris wheel" cabinets that hold all this stuff.
Way cool. Don has graciously offered Anne's help with problems that we might wish
to research, and having talked to her I better undertstand the way that could work.
If you ask a very general question about "upholstery" she would have to go to Don or
one his colleagues for clarification. If however you asked, "are there any articles on
minimally intrusive upholstery ?", she would be off and runnin. Keep in mind that the
pool of material available is mostly scholarly papers by people in the conservation field,
but it also includes neat stuff on the chemistry and science of this stuff too.
Remember their mission is education, they LOVE to pass out info to people
who really want it !! Anne can quickly work through titles, and maybe a synopsis
of an article, but she is not a furniture conservator. The gang really liked all the
free info that Anne and Don passed out, including a book on picture varnishes and
Their solvent, an SCMRE annual report and reprints of some scholarly papers like
"Practical Hits on Dyeing with Natural Dyes". See how this works ??
We saw a large shop room where Don and his colleague were building the
shipping crates for the Santos exhibit we were to visit later on in the afternoon.
It is obvious from the care taken with all the tools and materials in this "shop"
that the level of work is very high. We all particularly liked the "elephant trunks",
which are movable exhaust vacs using 12" flexible hose,
that stay where you put them and even have a light to shine on the work.
They have an internal armature that controls the positioning, and the actual fan is
up in the ceiling with a roof vent. Very quiet, and about a grand from a scientific
supply house. Don is really into building proper fitted boxes for his exhibits, and
he emphasized that the inside face of the plywood sides remains unfinished.
This allows some buffering of the air in the micro-climate inside the box.
Don is also real big on these small digital humidity and temperature sensors.
The whole thing is really well thought out.
We only had quick glimpses into some of the working labs on our way, like the folks
doing work on ancient middle eastern stonework, or the large paper conservation lab.
It was easy to see that the level of excellence is part of the fabric of the facility, and
it permeates everything. We finally got to a large bright room that looks like a cross
between a high school art class and a lab. Tables in the middle, cabinets with counter
surface around the sides. Obvious signs of ongoing work. One corner was carved off
for a small neat cubicle of office space, desk, computer, phone etc., and behind the
low walls opposite, was a space utterly encrusted from floor to ceiling with books,
magazines, tools, and just plain stuff. Not much question which one was Don's.
We had arrived.
In the center of the room on a table was an unsuspecting little wooden chair,
with a very unbecoming coat of red paint, obviously over many other layers.
So around the room we went like so many school kids trying to guess the origin,
period or anything about it. I think it was unanimous when Don asked us if we
would strip off that awful paint. We were soon to learn that we had the rare privilege
of seeing a truly unique object of priceless value ! With Don's guidance we observed
some of the small nuances of the chair, like the way that the seat slats were dove-
tailed at the back, and the way the wood was bent into long continuous members
unlike really anything we had seen before. It seems that this lightweight marvel,
which would fit in nicely on someone's front porch, was in fact the work of a
Boston maker call Gragg at the turn of the century. Seventeenth century that is !
In the early 18's this fellow was setting up one of the first factories for mass produced
furniture in the colonies. His skill as steam bender is evidenced by the bravado with
which he pushes the limit of the wood (hickory), and the style of the chair looks like
it could easily be from the North Bennett Street School last year.
The conservator for OUR American museum (part of SI) found this waiting for him
at a flea market and Don thinks he paid about $60 for it. We asked how many
others were known to exist, and there was a measurable silence when Don said,
"this is the only one".
From tiny scrapings Don knows the details of each layer of finish on the piece and
he is pretty sure that the original black finish with gold detailing is mostly intact.
He explained that they will employ the same technique that he detailed in his article
on the Japanned Clock, to remove each layer about 2 square inches at a time.
With some 400 hours to invest, this is conservation work at its finest.
To know Don, you must understand that the thrill of discovery and the
intellectual challenge of the treatment of the chair is already complete.
He will now direct others to carry out the work and move on to some other puzzle or problem.
We also got to pull stuff outa Don's storage area, including some chair frames
that they use to teach minimally intrusive upholstery. In the photo you see
Don holding a complete chair "cap" with the chair along side.
I think you can see that the upholstery is all done on the bench and then the cap
is placed over the chair frame with no fasteners at all. This is leading edge stuff,
but in practice the work is pretty straightforward. We also got to see a big wing
chair mock up done in a modified version of this techinque that uses Dymatrol,
a continuous resilient sheet that takes the place of all the webbing and springs
to give the chair some "give". I could have stayed here a LOT longer !
We had some good-natured kidding about not seeing any sawdust anywhere,
and finally at the end of our whirlwind tour we saw the machine room. The table saw,
band saw, planer, and other tools are much the same as you would find in any well
organized shop. But this is far from just any shop. We scooted across the hall to
a large room that looks exactly likethe radiology department of a large hospital.
Mostly because it IS just that !
Don has several of machines that develop x-rays not onto film but onto specially charged
metal plates, and the results are those striking blue images seen in the Santos exhibit.
The detail is incredible. Someone asked how they do large pieces ?
We entered a room the size of two car garage with a 25 foot ceiling
complete with an overhead traveling gantry to support the x-ray source.
See, I told you it was like NASA! To bring it back to earth for us, Don suggested
contacting a large animal vet, who could have a big x-ray rig that might not be
busy all the time. This science stuff just gets you thinkin !!
We ended our all to short visit by hustling down to catch the shuttle bus.
Not having to drive in DC is a pleasure, and the bus dumped us right in front
of the famous "Castle", which is the original building of SI.
Its Cinderella appearance and perfect gardens provide a stunning
welcome for visitors, and I can tell you it sure worked for me.
Somehow Don managed to arrange a lunch for us in the very
swanky dining room that is reserved for SI big shots and guests.
Two tables for six, right this way.
Lets just say that the elegant buffet is not quite the workin man's lunch !
The food and the company were truly excellent, and even us skinny guys
filled a couple of plates AND did the desert. It doesn't get much better than this,
and yes of course we bought Don's lunch.
We then had the pleasure of meeting Don's pal Peter Muldoon who has the
demanding job of caring for the furniture that SI actually has in service in this building.
We were soon walking through elegant hallways full of equally elegant furniture,
all beautifully done, and all genuine antiques.
It goes without saying that the average visitor does not get into these halls, but with the
flick of a doorknob, Peter had ushered us into the office suite of the Secretary of SI.
Whoa.
I will only describe one of the dozens of incredible objects that we saw, and it is a remarkable
marquetry and decorative painted specimen cabinet, which Peter had recently treated.
Nothing like walking around with the furniture guy, eh ? I think for me the best part
was wending our way through some scary lookin service tunnels to Peter's tiny shop,
and second was the chance to poke around in his storeroom !!
Here again the tools and materials were all familiar, but the approach to selected objects
is quite different. Sure Peter has to fix the common "too big" pocketbook in the file drawer,
but he also gets to work on one of a kind and high quality antiques.
I will confess that I did ask what work they were not able to do, and was pleased with
the answer: upholstery ! If I only lived closer. Yes, we did ask Peter to join us in Groop.
At last we had arrived in the big galley (the one with the fountain in the middle) to view
Don's Santos exhibit. We had a few curious looks from visitors wondering why WE
were getting a private tour, but that is just what we got !! These objects were created as
religious art, but Don focused on them as objects of wood, paint, glass eyes and even lead.
He explained their techniques for stabilizing them, and went over how
they used the special x-ray images to understand how they were made.
I found these haunting blue images equally compelling if not more than the objects
themselves, though some of the craftsmanship is very fine indeed. Don explained
how the cases were constructed, and how they will be transported, and who exactly
gets to pack and set them up. Don designed the whole thing and he will personally
supervise the road shows ! Don't feel bad, he got to go to Puerto Rico in February !
We had seen and heard so much by this point in the day that I can look back now
and realize that we should have taken advantage of the opportunity to ask the normally
modest Don a hundred more questions. This was a rare glimpse into the creation
of an exhibit with one of the top experts in the field of conservation in the country.
Not bad for a bunch of refinishers.
As we walked to another part of the gallery and watched Don open up one of those
velvet ropes across the stairs, he was telling us of his plans for a really big exhibit.
We walked past several dozen incredible pieces of rare furniture as Don explained that the
exhibit will take several years to put together, but he hopes to put together a show on the
decoration of surfaces to encompass all of the trades including carving, gilding, painting,
and even upholstery. He envisions a series of "shops" displaying all the tools and materials
of the trade, and showcasing both finished pieces and ones in stages of completion.
Imaging a frame maker's shop with carving, gilding, glass cutting and all !
The kicker is that Don may ask US to prepare some of the actual materials
for the exhibit, based on his designs. It is exciting to even be considered, a
nd I have no doubt that this will be a landmark show.
A few of us who were going north, stopped in at the University of Maryland to see Don's work
on the nearly completed giant couch with the minimally intrusive upholstery treatment.
Don assures us that this is the largest such project yet attempted, and I am only including
a couple of pictures here, as I will put the rest of them with my previous story on how we
approached this work. The basic prinicple here is to use few if any fasteners into the frame,
and what you see are elaborate and most importantly removable panels that Don created
to give this display piece the appearance of being upholstered.
Tredway Childress and Don Williams
It is actually strong enough to sit on, and he DID really install all of those
decorative tacks one by one, with hot melt glue. It is an incredible job.
(All I did was to sew a few seams in the covers.)
As a personal observation, I can't help but admire someone who started out working in
the warehouse of big furniture store, and through hard work and education has reached a
point where he can design and curate a major exhibition of all the trades we all hold so dear.
Don is not some obscure intellectual, he is a real workin guy, who gets paid to do what he loves.
Don is completely approachable on all levels, and it just so happens that he has an incredible
mastery of his discipline, and believes part of his mission is to share it with us.
As we walked out into the crisp DC afternoon, I know I was thinking about how much
this single day's experience would stimulate my thoughts for the next few months.
So many questions, so much to learn, and yet some satisfaction in knowing that it
DOES all fit together somehow. Don is fond of saying that "chemistry is your friend",
and I am proud to say that he is a true friend to the folks of Groop.
Fred, Christine, Jon, Mike, Don, Joe, Reed, Tredway, Dean, Larry, Robert, Kevin
Don will be doing some teaching at the Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe in York PA, and
also at Mitch Kohanek's DCTC in Minnesota, and based on the success of this trip,
I am pretty sure there will be other Groop events which will include him in our future.
I would like to personally thank everyone whose presence made this such a great event.