January - February: A conserving project, of love soap and a whole lot of Lids!

A recent discovery for us at the centre came recently with the donation of two wonderful murals of the Late Sandra George and Bronx. Two incredibly wonderful artists whom worked with the communities within Craigmillar and Niddrie for many many years.

Sandra of whoms mural I decided to focus on first due to the condition of the piece, was a photographer that really helped capture the people of the communities of Craigmillar and Niddrie in the 1980s - 90s whom created such a wealth of photography, that over the last year into this, the Craigmillar Now archive group has been recording and archiving her work for the future to learn, enjoy and be inspired by.

The mural was rescued out of council storage a place where its been living since its removal from the Craigmillar libary window in 2017 and donated to us, and from the looks of things was well in need of some TLC! Hence why the last month at the centre has been spent carefully cleaning each and every lid to bring back the vibrancy of the mural and ready for future conservation.

Its been a huge task indeed for there was simply 1000s to clean, all of different sizes colours and types. For most it might have seemed the sort of task to drive anyone to insanity but for me it was well worth the mildly cross-eyed moments and occasional dreams of bottle lids to have this incredible piece in a way brought back to life again and im sure I didn't loose too much sanity along the way.

Now its much cleaner and its first stage of conserving is completed its currently returning to safe storage at the centre. This is as im hoping for the next stage to commence with some of the Payback team in the near future to stabilise the back bord and frame so the art piece would be at less risk of breaking down further.

Hopefully now its clean and the loose lids have all been saved and the design recorded that this is just the beginning of a exiting future with this mural wich in the long term i hope to reattach the loose lids and have back in pride place on display for the community to enjoy and admire.