Traditional skills and where to learn them:Wallpaper printing and conservation
What is it?You can make wallpaper using block- or screen-printing techniques. Conserving it involves using a range of techniques to restore old, and usually valuable, wallpaper.
How is it done?Once you have chosen your pattern, you print the wallpaper a colour at a time, using screens (which work like stencils) or wooden blocks (on which you carve the pattern). "You build up the design, adding each subsequent colour," says David Skinner, who specialises in Irish patterns from the Georgian and Victorian eras, reproducing wallpapers found in great Irish houses such as Strokestown Park, in Co Roscommon, Birr Castle, in Co Offaly, and Fota House, in Co Cork. (You can see the patterns at skinnerwallpaper.com.)
What about conservation?This involves removing mould and other stains, repairing tears, retouching faded patches and resticking peeling wallpaper. "The most common problem is paper which comes away from the wall. Often, you have to take it down, clean the back of it and put it back up again," says Skinner, who was asked to renovate wallpaper at Áras an Uachtaráin before Queen Elizabeth's visit.
How long does it take?"It's labour intensive, and you might spend a whole day on one colour. We use water-based inks, which take two to three hours to dry before you can start the next colour," says Skinner. The time you'll need to conserve historic wallpaper depends entirely on its condition. Sometimes you can clean and repair it in situ; at other times you have to remove it, perhaps during building works, and replace it once you have restored it. "It's always better to preserve what's there rather than replace it with a modern copy, however good that is," says Skinner, who suggests that even wallpaper from the 1930s to the 1950s now has historic value.
Where do I sign up?David Skinner and his business partner, Hal Clements, say that they are the only people working in wallpaper conservation and historic hand-designed wallpaper, and that Ireland has no courses in them. Skinner will, however, give a talk, Peeling Back the Years: Historic Irish Wallpapers, Their History and Conservation, at Farmleigh House on August 14th, at the Irish Georgian Society's free Traditional Building and Conservation Skills in Action exhibition (igs.ie).
The contact number for Smith Henderson Stuccodores, mentioned last week, is 086-8153583; Dublin Civic Trust is holding a seminar on historic decorative plasterwork, finishes and paint (€170) on October 4th; 01-4756911, dublincivictrust.ie
