Plain white bread was right for job

Editor’s note: This column is being reprinted from Sept. 15, 2004. Jack was a lover of art. When we rearranged our offices in Portland, his sister Louise had, and is still working on, the job of finding a home for all of the art. So far, she hasn’t had to buy any Wonder Bread.

About a week ago, I spent a couple of days hitting my mother-in-law in the face with a couple of loaves of bread.

Wonder Bread, to be precise. Two loaves.

Re-reading those last two paragraphs, I figure that some sort of explanation is in order.

My mother-in-law — a great lady — died in the spring of 2003. 

An art teacher, she was a talented artist in her own right. And in the process of sorting out things from her estate, there’s been no shortage of paintings to go around.

Though the sorting process is not complete, Connie spent a week with her siblings this spring trying to bring some order to the chaos.

As a result, a number of pictures have come our way. Some are in good shape. Others need framing. And some need repairs or other work.

On Labor Day weekend, we took two of them over to our framing friend Heather so she could give us some guidance.

One of them was no problem. It’s a Japanese woodcut that had been a gift to Connie’s parents in 1960. At some point, it had fallen off the wall; the lower section of its frame was split and cracked. Choosing a replacement frame was relatively easy.

The other picture was another story entirely.

It’s a portrait of my mother-in-law as a very young woman. She’s perhaps 21 in the painting, and she’s lovely.

Our best guess is that it was painted by one of her fellow students at Moore Institute of Art in Philadelphia in the 1930s.

The frame, however, looks as if it came from a Five and Dime Store in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the canvas needed to be re-stretched to get out some wrinkles.

It wasn’t until we got it out into the light of day that we saw the real problem.

The portrait was dirty. Black specks and accumulated gunk soiled the image. One particularly bad spot was on the neck, but there were several bad spots to be addressed.

Heather gave it a look and shook her head. Cleaning and restoration of an oil painting can be expensive, she said. And when the picture has solely sentimental value, it can be a tough call.

We were just about to give up, when Heather had another thought: Wonder Bread.

It may be an old wives’ tale in art circles, but Heather had heard that good old fashioned white sandwich bread — the kind I’ve never cared much for — can be used as a cleaner.

So, there I was a few hours later, with the painting removed from its stretcher and spread out on the kitchen table. Peeling away the crust, I gathered up the slice of white bread like a gum eraser and started tamping it on the surface of the painting.

Sure enough, the white dough started to become discolored as it lifted soil from the surface of the canvas, all without affecting the paint.

It’s an odd way to spend an afternoon, and it didn’t clear up all the discolored areas. But my mother-in-law was looking better after I’d finished.

Just the same, I think she would have preferred whole wheat.