36 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {punchline} As Alexandra gives a tour of her “surgery,” she points to a heated vacuum table, essential for rescuing rolled paintings. “I wish I could gift them to every conservator of paintings,” she says. “It helps us to consolidate flaking paint and relax the canvas to work out any kind of dents.” The equipment list is extensive: an anoxic chamber (an oxygen-deprived bubble that eliminates wood-boring beetles and moths), a suction washing station (that keeps paper stable and prevents pigments from bleeding), microscopes, solvents, humidity chambers, light tables for mending layers, respirators of every kind, brushes galore. Only in its ninth year, the studio is still accumulating gear. “We’re building the ship while we sail it,” notes Alexandra. Let’s not forget the coveted Cook ‘N Stir. “We found it on French eBay,” says Alexandra. Patients rushed to Alexandra Thrapp Pignati’s emergency room in San Mateo don’t require defibrillator paddles, but protective varnish and starch paste. At ACT Art Conservation, the only multidisciplinary private studio of its kind on the Peninsula, Alexandra and her team resuscitate paintings, sculptures, books and other precious works. “We joke that one day we’re just going to paint a big red cross on the front door because we are sort of the art hospital,” laughs Alexandra. Her clients range from SFMOMA and the Legion of Honor to Stanford University and the California Historical Society, along with countless other institutes, private collectors and galleries. “In private practice, much more so than in an institution like a museum, we definitely get the emergency room pieces,” says Alexandra. She even likens arthandling trucks to ambulances. PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHANNA HARLOW
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