Monday 29 November 2010

Sophie Budden, Conservateur at Dar al athar al Islamiyah

During a lecture at Dar Al Athar al Islamiyah, Sophie Budden talked about her job at the al Sabah Collection, covering more than 22 000 objects. With a wide range of pieces from fabric, to carpets, to metal, to stones, to manuscripts; and from different eras, to different provenance, Sophie was talking about her aim: general care, cleaning, storing, finding,  packing, exhibiting.
It all sounded quite thrilling.

She showed pictures of before and after, she showed how meticulous the work had to be done, how precise scalpels under microscope took 4 to 6 weeks to clean a metal object to restore and give it a shine. She had a higher pitch of voice when she tried to convey her excitement on how it was "terribly neat to look and find what you want" through the custom made data base for the collection or through the endless storage shelfs. She mentioned "vigilance" as a time consuming effort for keeping the objects safe from humidity, from moths...
She shared her amazement after cleaning a silver enamelled sword, the exuberance of true minuscule carving showed and how the movement of luminosity is reflected and refracted

It seems that Sophie Budden has an incredible mission: Civilisations disappear, people die, and she fights the time machine to protect the precious objects from going back into dust.

more on the lecture at the DIA blog link

3 comments:

DAI said...

Hey Sarah!

I replied to your comment over at DAI's blog. I hope you didn't get several notifications in your email about my comment. I was having some technical issues.

I have known your blog for a while now and I am happy to know you started reading DAI's blog! And thanks for adding us to your blogroll!

Haya

sarah said...

Actually, I did not receive a notification in my email about your comment in your blog.
Technology is a killer when we are trying to get updated on the new ways... but hey! they are making it simpler and simpler!

It is a treat to read your blog, as you went beyond just the lectures and you developed it into a more informative and in depth explanations. There is so much to do and so much to expose and show to the outside world what the DAI has as treasures!
I hope we'll meet soon.
All the best
Sarah

DAI said...

I'm so glad to know you enjoy reading my blog! I try my best :) And I completely agree with you that the world needs to know more about DAI; actually Kuwait needs to know more at DAI! So I really do hope the blog is giving people a chance to see what DAI has to offer.

Thank you so much Sarah. Your comments here and at my blog made me so happy. Especially since I am just starting out and to get such praise from a blogger I've already been following even before DAI, means a lot to me.

Thanks :)
Haya