More Chambers Tiles

More Chambers tiles have fallen from the plywood backing in Grimsby.

This is an excellent opportunity to remove the various types of adhesives on these and get m into shape to re-mount.

Here I am removing contact cement from a tile. Contact cement, asphalt and tile adhesive!

After pieces large areas together, I intend to get interior reinforcing done. I will also take up bad original fits by bridging gaps where the tiles shrank in the kiln. 

Here's me 'buttering up' the interior of a tile to bridge gaps before the curved top surface goes on.

Merton Chambers Mural Tiles

The work progresses on the Merton Chambers tiles for the Grimsby library.

There was a considerable ammount missing from these two tiles as I posted earlier. Here they are a little too clean and with preliminary in-fills. I also upped the contrast of this picture under led light to study the text.

The text was found online in a Melbourne Australia Adventist newspaper. The missing text was a rant on the perils of wearing corsets. It must have been a reprint in a Grimsby newspaper. Oddly enough, Chamber's wife was Australian.

Here's the restored and 'dirtied-down' tiles after treatment shown in sunlight, where they will largely be viewed. I'm very pleased with the results.

Grimsby Library Books

Here's Mark helping me out with a huge project at the Grimsby Art Gallery. I needed a driver as it was an exhausting project to accomplish in one day. 

I cleaned, sorted and reattached many tiles and fragments to tiles. Now I have to hope that the gallery will allow enough time for perfect adhesion. To get the tiles to stick, a lot of old adhesive had to be chiselled out. I had to use materials I know very little about. It's all a bit of a gamble on my part.

These plywood panels of terra cotta 'books' hung in the old Grimsby library as a solid installation - a 'wall' of terracotta and text reflecting the history of Grimsby. 

Over the years many book tiles had detached and were either broken or reattached with various cements. Here is a picture of two broken tiles removed to my studio for treatment. Missing material is indicated by yellow arrows.

A detail of a panel before any treatment.