The Regina conservator saving history, one fragile page at a time

Robin Canham has a warning about tape.

Don’t use it.

“I often joke with people who ask me, ‘Robin, should I put tape on this?’” she said. “Well, I have a job because people put tape on things a lot of the time.”

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Canham is a professional art conservator in Regina, specializing in works on paper.

She says tape can be a bit of a nightmare for people in her line of work.

The glue from the tape can stain and weaken the paper. Removing it later can turn a simple tear into an even bigger problem.

The things that land on Canham’s workbench are often the things people can’t bear to lose.

A photograph. A letter. An old book. A document folded away for decades.

Sometimes it’s history. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes, it’s both.

Her job is not to make old things look new. It’s to figure out how to help them survive.

Canham is currently working to restore this university diploma for a client who lives near Melville, Saskatchewan. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Not erasing the past

There is an important distinction between restoration and conservation.

Canham explains it with a comparison to a vintage car.

Imagine the car was originally baby blue. If you repair it and paint it red, you’ve restored it.

A conservator takes a different approach.

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“We try to leave as much of the original material as possible,” Canham explained, “while still kind of respecting the future of the object as well.”

The stains, fading and evidence of aging might stay, depending on the wants of her client, because those things are part of the item.

The goal is not to erase its life. It’s to make sure it gets to keep having one.

Robin Canham uses many modern tools and methods in her conservation work, but says newer isn’t always better. Her book press was manufactured in the 1880s. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Whenever possible, Canham’s treatments are reversible, meaning someone in the future can undo the work she’s done and make different choices if new research or technology provides a better option.

Before she treats anything, she tests it extensively. She needs to know exactly what the paper, ink, adhesive or other material can tolerate.

“You can never be 100 per cent sure,” she said.

That uncertainty is part of the job —and so is improvisation.

Conservation, Saskatchewan-style

Canham has access to modern microscopes, LED lighting and other technology.

She also works with tools that have been around for more than a century, including a book press and board shear manufactured in the 1880s.

But of course, there is the reality of doing this work in Saskatchewan.

She doesn’t have access to all the technical and scientific equipment available in larger conservation labs.

So she adapts.

An art conservator’s toolkit isn’t limited to paint brushes. Robin Canham uses a wide variety of items to get the results she is after. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

“I think when you work in Saskatchewan, you make do with what you have,” she laughed. “It’s a little bit of that Saskatchewan attitude.”

It turns out to be a useful one when your job is solving problems that sometimes have never been solved in quite the same way before.

Every object is different. A treatment that works beautifully on one piece might be completely wrong for another.

Sometimes glue won’t come off, or tape refuses to release.

But eventually, she finds a method that works. That’s when the magic happens.

“There’s always that little magic moment where you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is looking so much better now,” she reflected.

The things people can’t replace

Not everything Canham works on is centuries old.

Some of the most meaningful things she sees are much newer.

A photograph damaged by water. Documents caught in a fire.

Family keepsakes that might have little monetary value, but are irreplaceable to the person holding them.

“A lot of times, I find that people have strong emotional, sentimental connections to that item or to that object,” she said.

Robin Canham’s conservation work isn’t exclusively limited to paper. She also works to repair and conserve frames, cases or other items. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

Paper may be physically delicate, but it can carry enormous emotional weight.

A single sheet can carry someone’s handwriting.

A photograph can hold a face that no longer exists anywhere else.

A book can have the fingerprints of generations of readers.

And when something happens to those objects, people aren’t necessarily trying to save paper.

They’re trying to save what the paper represents.

A letter from Louis Riel

One of Canham’s favourite pieces she has worked on was a letter written by Louis Riel.

When she encountered it during an internship at the Provincial Archives of Alberta, the letter was in such poor condition that it couldn’t be handled in the reading room. It needed help.

Canham stabilized it, allowing the letter to be digitized and, eventually, making it possible for people to access the original again.

That is the part of conservation she loves.

Not simply repairing an object, but giving people the chance to see it.

“To be able to provide access to it so that it’s not damaged further in the future by handling and things like that, that was really special,” she said.

Before beginning conservation work on any project, Canham does extensive testing to ensure that any treatments she applies will not damage the item. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)

How to protect your treasures

For all the painstaking work Canham does repairing damaged objects, she’d much rather people never need her in the first place.

A big part of conservation is preventative — figuring out how to keep something safe before disaster strikes.

And her advice starts somewhere surprisingly simple: get it off the floor.

“One of the things that I often get in are works that have been stored directly on a basement floor, and then there’d be like a water incident,” she said.

Raise it up. Put it on a shelf. Even six inches can make a difference.

She says when it comes to preserving something meaningful, a little prevention can go a long way.

And, of course, there’s that other piece of advice.

NEVER use tape.

A faded photograph. A handwritten letter. An old book. Each can hold a piece of someone’s history. Robin Canham’s job is making sure those stories survive. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)