About the Company

Contact Information and Location

Phone/Fax: 301-210-3731
Email: conservationofpaper@erols.com
Website: http://www.conservationofpaper.com
Location:

CCAP is located south of Laurel, Maryland, USA, between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland. It is roughly six miles north of the Washington beltway and can be reached conveniently from either Interstate 95 or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Online maps of the area are available from MapQuest and Yahoo. When you make an appointment to visit the CCAP lab, you will be offered a concise, hand-drawn map showing the best ways to reach it.

Please note that CCAP is open by appointment only. For more information about doing business with us, please click here.

Services Offered

Cleveland Conservation of Art on Paper, Inc. was founded in 1995 and offers a broad array of conservation-related services:

For the convenience of its clients and the security of the artifacts, CCAP is also pleased to offer:

CCAP serves major museums in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, small museums in the mid-Atlantic region, and private collectors. Among its better-known clients are the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. National Park Service, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Library of Medicine, the University of Maryland, the Virginia Historical Society, and the International Baha'i Archives.

At CCAP, chemical and physical stabilization of the paper artifact are always the primary goals of conservation treatment, in accordance with the American Institute of Conservation (AIC) Code of Ethics and Guidelines of Practice. Treatments are based upon a detailed, scientific knowledge of paper, inks, and artistic media.

Clients interested in having CCAP provide conservation services are generally guided through an established, step-by-step procedure leading to a contract. All services are provided personally by the owner (see next section). No "interns," "technicians," or "associates" are involved, and work is never subcontracted to a hidden second party. On rare occasion, an unusual artifact may require the services of a second conservator in a different specialty. In such cases, the client receives a full disclosure in advance of authorizing treatment.

Owner/Conservator

CCAP is owned and operated by Rachel-Ray Cleveland. Ms. Cleveland holds three art-related degrees—an MA in Art Conservation from the State University of New York at Buffalo (1993), a Graduate Certificate in Collection Management from the Chicago Art Institute (1986), and a BFA in intaglio printmaking from the University of Iowa (1975). She is a member of four professional organizations:

Ms. Cleveland has been privileged to perform conservation treatments on a number of rare paper artifacts, including a Joshua Reynolds ink drawing, a William Henry Johnson silkscreen print, a Picasso lithograph, a Paranesi engraving, a parchment document signed by George Washington, a Jacob Lawrence gouache painting, a Hokusai Ukiyo-e woodcut, letters of Albert Einstein, and the earliest known manuscript on the aphorisms of Hypocrites (12th c.). She has also worked extensively with historic American documents and has a continuing interest in handwriting inks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition, Ms. Cleveland contributed a chapter on early American handwriting inks to the book, Before Photocopying: The Art and History of Mechanical Copying 1780-1938 (Barbara J. Rhodes and William W. Streeter, Oak Knoll Press, 1999). She has also delivered papers on conservation subjects to conferences in America and Europe. More about Ms. Cleveland's professional activities is available on the Web; to see the results of a Google search for her name, please click here.

Facility

CCAP's facility, located south of Laurel, Maryland, includes a modern, well-equipped laboratory. The lab is carefully controlled for temperature and humidity, and is equipped with a ready supply of analytical-grade deionized water (Neu-Ion), a three by four foot suction table, a microscope, and a spacious glass-surface work area. Together the lab and office constitute a dedicated 800-square-foot facility that can easily accommodate artifacts up to four by eight feet.

Secure artifact storage is provided in a 4,000-pound safe made by the Mosler Safe Company. The safe has been given a TL-15 burglar resistance rating by Underwriters Laboratories Inc. In addition, the lab is equipped with a centrally monitored security system.

Removing tape from a document.
Closeup of a medieval manuscript.


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