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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres, is famed for its agriculture, industry and recreation, boasting a booming economy and unique lifestyle for its citizens. Described by the same Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the Earth, Sonoma County is the place to

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live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies, Cinema Counties, 340,000 residents are, Ah, harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in the

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nineties with your host, Rich McGlinchy. Hello, everybody. Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties, and you know, this is kind of a special edition of our program. Usually, as you know, we talked to members of the county government, family, our city, government, family

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or related agencies. But every once in a while we get the opportunity of digressing a little, and talking to some interesting people in Sonoma County who are doing something very, very interesting on that show is today our two guests. I'm the lefties. Green is Janet Conley

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and the center of the screen is live in Washington, and they own a firm called Venerable Classics. Now, basically, they restore antiques and family heirlooms and art objects in the standard Rosa studio of their business, which now Charlie is named venerable classics. First of all, it's

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really nice to have you here. Well, thank you. Yeah. Um, you know, we're going to see a film a little bit, but when I saw this, I was quite my wife, and I watched this together, fascinated by it. So I think we'll back up a little

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bit. Bring the audience into this. When you talk about restoration, what do you mean? Well, that's a good question. A lot of people don't know, but essentially, it's ah, seemingly magical process that could take a pile of shards and resurrect it back into the object that

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was before it was broken. That's one thing that's possible with restoration. It's also a way to maintain a collection. If it has chips and cracks and that sort of thing that you hate to see in it. It can essentially remove those things. So what we try

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to provide is essentially the back room of a museum, which is normally only available to the museum and its collection. But we make those services available to everybody to the public, so and it's a fairly rare procedure. Actually, there are maybe a handful of businesses in

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the whole country that can do this sort of thing to this degree of exactitude with this kind of training. So we do have clientele all across the country and from Europe, so we have quite a broad reach and in fact, was at Kennedy Airport. We heard

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somebody came back and told us that while they were travelling, they stopped over at Kennedy Airport. They sat down next to a stranger, and the guy turned to him and said, Where you from? And she said, I'm from Santa Rosa, California He said, I've heard of

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that town. There's one thing I know about Northern California about Santa Rosa. It has a restoration studio in it way. Love hearing stories like that come back to us and so we have had clients tell us that they heard about us from the Smithsonian Institute or

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from Christie's auction house in London way have a reputation that's beginning to spread, and hopefully we're doing our bit to put Santa Rosa on the map. Well, I think that's true, and, you know, and I want to ask your thoughts on this to in a moment.

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But one of the things that I keep thinking of is is in every family, including my own. There's some things that have been handed down over the generations, usually of a fragile nature, and inevitably, something treasured gets broken and the great tears were shed. His old

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everybody recrimination is you get it happening. But the point is, uh, people will quite often try to take this poor little thing. 15 20 fragments patch it together. And of course, it's never. It's never the same, and it's never satisfactory. So what you're doing really provides

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a service to a lot of families that we can totally undo the damage so that it's not something pieced together. But it's as if it never happened, and that's really quite a service, whether it's something that has a great deal of value, you know, a great

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and take or something or something that's been coming down. Fifth, six generation people really want to keep that in their families and not be the one that kept it from moving on to the next generation is important. In fact, as you live with these things, you

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forget that they were broken. You look at them, they look absolutely hold. They look like they used to look. And I have one in my home and we were talking about it this morning. I forgot. I've completely forgotten that it broke that I wept when it

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broke that it went through that whole procedure. We restored it and it's back. And now I live with it and that whole incident fades. So it is kind of So what we're saying here, in essence to is we're in a sense of the word, I guess

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plugging venerable classic because you are providing a really much needed service. And as we will see in a moment in such a magnificent manner, you never know that it has suffered that horrible, great and shattering sort of lots of stages, lots of steps to get to

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the end result. But the person who owns it doesn't have to worry about that. They have their piece back whole, and it doesn't matter how many little things we had to do and how long it took because the result is so good. It's really quite exciting

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to do it. Yeah, well, um, this is what General we're talking about restoration. I think maybe this would be the opportunity. Opportunity. Time to look at this brief video you have, which actually shows us what you folks do. So let's take a look at that film

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right now. Uh, the pile of shards that arrives here at venerable classics must first be fitted together just to see what we're dealing with so we can plan our restoration. The glue of an old repair will have to

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come off. One gap of missing pieces is large enough to need internal support. As we analyze the problems, we get a good idea of the time and cost involved. We also get a clear image of the exquisite artistry this face once had and can have again.

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The old glue is softened by chemical poultices for several days until it can be safely removed. In the bonding station, the pieces go together one by one. Aligning the cracks takes patient checking and adjusting. As soon as her fingernail feels no catch in either direction. Mary

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locks the pieces into position until their heat cured the next day. The small pieces must go together perfectly to allow these large conglomerates to fit well. Weeks later, the final piece caps it all. Trish starts her rebuilding by cutting a bronze mesh armature to fit the

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gaping hole in the bottom. The round tabs cement into slots ground into the walls of the base. Porcelain putty will bury the armature as well as rebuild every missing piece chip and crack throughout the base until it is whole and strong before he curing. The porcelain

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material can be shaped by hand grinders and buffers. Trish ends with a final leveling of barely visible pinholes and irregularities. Rosa works with glazes especially developed for conservation. The's colors can be precisely matched to the original. She applies the first layer of glaze by brush, blending

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across the new porcelain area by area. The damages begin to disappear, and the original scenes emerged whole. An airbrush will soften and blend out the brush strokes where they're not wanted. Neighbouring sections have been protected by a temporary coating of frisk it. Every stage in the

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restoration is set by low firing at safe temperatures and finally foreground. Details are brought back to their original intensity when a final inspection reveals no further flaws. Vases ready to go home restored to its original beauty We're a fascinating segment. What a fascinating segment. I mean,

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that really, really tell us what you know very nicely. The proof of the matter sits right here in front of us. I think that who feels great. I defy anybody to find out where this thing was ever broken. It's a magnificent Well, is one of a

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pair and it's really ashamed to lose half of a pair like this. Now, I noticed it in the film. You, uh, the people here artists are people in there were working on several kinds of things. Now, maybe we should tell everybody right now. What kind of

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objects do you restore? And incidentally, I want to ask these of either one of you because I don't know, especially Czar. But you just jump in whoever s answer Well, we work on course. Porcelain vases, crystal chandeliers, ivory figurines, hand carving and details that gonna think

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jade, big marble busts, ornate Chinese screens, just about anything that's fragile, that can break. We can put back together again and make it look gorgeous. And then there's a special problem when someone has something that nobody else will touch, even if it's not something that we

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would normally do. If they've looked all around and jewellers or restores of all the other sorts can't help them. They bring it to us and we solve their problems. Later on, I was gonna ask you somehow you got actually got into this. Do either one don't

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want either one of you which to touch on what you were doing before you started doing well? I was teaching in the art field, and Janet was a glass blower directly before. In fact, she wanted to restore glass. And that's what opened up into the whole

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field. Uh, I imagine people after right now looking at this and saying My that's really beautiful And I'm sure it's quite very expensive. Quite very. I like that English I took me five years ago and you said this is a pair. Yes, yes, they're two of

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those, and the pairs were somewhere around $20,000. Something like that. You know, people don't often think of objects like this as valuable. Um, not long ago, a bowl about this size went for a $1,000,000 in New York at auction. So there's you, you know, it's quite

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a bit of money invested in objects. They're a very good investment value. They appreciate like final paintings. What you're talking about, something very, very expensive and probably very unique. Very beautiful. But let's get down to the smaller things. How do I know if something is worth

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restoring their lots of kinds of value besides this sort of value? There's a more personal value, of course, like an heirloom. If it's been through a few generations of the family, you don't want it to stop with you. You want to be able to pass it

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on to your Children. It gets more meaningful with each generation. So, uh, that's a kind of personal value. There's also things like, Well, we had a we worked on a mug one time, just a simple mug. But it was. It was thrown on the wheel and

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fired by a son who had since died, and the parents drank their coffee out of it every morning. That was it meant so much to them, and when it broke that How could they throw that away? So really, we're talking about the kind of object that

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that you can't throw away. It just tears a chunk out of your heart. You know, there is there so much meaning attached to it often times that, that that's a tremendous kind of value. Well, on I know what you're talking about because I mentioned to you

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before we started the program. My wife had a little bass, a little tiny thing from her mother and broke it and kind of patched it back together. But But you probably be contacted. You would like to know how to do that properly. So sure. What? But,

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um, what is the restoration cost arranges. We tell people who are thinking of coming to the studio that they might be looking at somewhere between a couple $100 several $1000. And that depends on obviously how damaged pieces, how involved the decoration. And you know, the details

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of the peace as well as what level they want it restored to. We offer three different levels of restoration, so people can really make a lot of choices about how important this is, how much they want to invest what kind of a result they want, including,

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you know, absolutely invisible. Basically, we're talking here. Unity said heirlooms, treasures and things like that. They're one of a kind to that family or those people. There's no way you can replace it. Not you can. You can restore it if they are lucky enough to have

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venerable classics around. But you can't replace it. That's so you become invaluable to people that's part. Have a family heritage, isn't it? It is. Yeah, probably the most important part. Um, did you work actually restore the value of the piece? Quite a bit of spoke about

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dollar dish. Now that broken, you restored it. Would that retain that kind of value? Well, this has now the value that this this this have been broken before. And when it broke this last time, it broke all along the old lines because the glue was maybe

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100 years old. It was a very old, very venerable kind of restoration that is, was ready to collapse anyway, So it did collapse. And these things do have to be redone every 50 to 100 years or so, you know, and older things have a history and

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often are broken, and that doesn't impact their value significantly at all if they're professionally done and look beautiful. So we have had appraisers come in and give objects their full mint value after a restoration in our studio, which we're very proud of, their very few people

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that that can get that. And traditionally we can get 80% of value back, even even on other kinds of things. You know another thing that about a moment here before we have to take a break. But can insurance no pay for this process in any way?

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Oftentimes it can insurance. If someone comes into your home, a worker or made or something like that, very likely they're insured, and that will cover it. A guest in your home. Homeowners policies often cover a guest something like that. And of course, if you've packed it

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and shipped it the shipping carrier or a moving company, foolish things immediately should be contacted because many times the insurance does step in. Now. If you do have something like this in your home that is valuable, it's we recommend that people talk to their insurance agents,

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get a special rider attached to the policy that covers that no matter what happens, anything just if it's bumped, you know, if no matter what, so that can certainly be done. Usually, that's very economical. A writer like value. This is about $20,000. Well, this is about

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10,000 pairs about Dave. We received it to bring truck Comes in again. I I'm getting a little nervous. I listen, we're gonna pause. Never. Yes. Station. Bring the audience a public service announcement. Ladies and gentlemen will be back in just a moment. Janet Connolly, Lynn Waddington,

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the owners of mineral classics. And this is a fascinating subject. Fascinating program. Hope you're enjoying it back with you. Right after this message. When I was 17 I found out I had a shady. Knowing I could die has been scary. But what's wars is that all

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00:19:26.740 - 00:19:48.110

Millions worldwide depend on medic alert protection to learn more, ask your pharmacist or call 1 800 idee alert. That's 1 800 i d. Alert. Welcome back to this special edition of 1990 just a normal county in the 19 nineties. We're talking about venerable classics, you know,

00:19:48.110 - 00:20:00.280

As we said earlier in the program, we often talk with governmental agencies, really agencies. Every once in a while, we get to talk to a couple of very interesting people who are doing a fascinating job. And we have to such people here with us today on

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the Left your screen, Janet Connelly and Central in Washington, and they own venerable classics, and I repeat what we said earlier. Basically, their job is to restore antiques, family ruins and art objects in their Santa Rosa studio. Um, and here we have the Brinks truck hasn't

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arrived yet. Here we have a base that they restored which is valued at $10,000. It's one of two. Incidentally, um, either of you, once again, you must have had the opportunity of working on some really wonderful pieces. Well, here's an example, but I've been others. So

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what did you tell us about some of your favorite restoration projects? Well, we have many favorites. I don't know. The the ones that are valuable leapt to mind. We had the honor of working on a pair of tongue horses from China. 300 to 600 a. D.

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Somewhere in there, there were huge items. This this big, each one. You hardly ever see them outside of a museum. You hardly ever see them outside of China. So it was quite an honor. They had been moved from one home to another in a private collection

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here in Northern California, and they've been damaged in moving, Even though they were suspended on, you know, straps under the Belize they were in moved as carefully as possible. They still were so fragile that they broke. We worked on them in the home so that we

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wouldn't have to move them once again to the studio. And that was wonderful. fascinating work and such an honor to be able to touch those things with our hands there. About 1/2 a 1,000,000 each of a 1,000,000 for the pair, roughly speaking, Yeah, restoration. That's another

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one. That's right. The restoration. It was only a few $1000 so the investment in getting them back to being their full value was very minimal. And that's even with travel in it, you know? So it really was. It was very reasonable thing to do any other,

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any other come to mind. Well, the women that I particularly enjoyed with a glass blowing challenge, of course, because that's my former effort. It was a cranberry, a current, this beautiful thing that had three conical shapes that you would put flowers in, or something like that.

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And the woman brought them in with one of the cones entirely shattered. Just this pile of pieces. And we said, Well, we can put this back together for you, but actually, if you let us re blow you one, we can do a better job and blended

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in entirely. So this was blowing with clear grant glass and with cranberry. The swirly thing with fluted edge is it had a wrapped ridge, the win around it, and when it was done and back together, you couldn't tell which of the three just that beautiful effect

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I didn't think she'd be able to do It is wonderful way One of my another of my favorites was a marble bust that was quite sizeable, and the the owner was ready to donate it to Ah Bay Area Museum, and he wanted to give it in

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good condition. The whole nose had been smashed off of this of this face, which was really a shame. And luckily, the owner was able to research and find a photograph of the working model, the clay working model that the sculptor had used so that we knew

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what this fella's nose really looked like originally. And we knew the kind of style, you know, because part of our job is to capture the style of the artist. We don't have a style of our own, but we take on whatever style that artist is used.

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And so this was craggy and rough and rough hewn kind of sculpting. So we gave it a new marble knows, and that was a lot of fun uh, how did you learn to do this? Well, that way apprenticed ourselves. It's hard to learn how to do

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this. It's a rare set of skills, and the training is not available in terms of schooling in this country. But I kind of went on Odyssey in the course of restoring glass. I was trying to learn how to do that when Lillian Glass and got an

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opportunity to train with a German restoration house who had immigrated to this country. There were six and seven generations in their family to do this kind of work, and they dated back to the NYSE Museum in Germany, and we trained with them for years, getting an

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opportunity to learn the skills, the techniques and to blend the old style methods with space age technology and materials that are now available. Great. Tell us a little bit about your studio in Santa Rosa, and maybe they also give us a phone number, kid. First of

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all, tell us a little about studio. We started just the two of us in a wonderful, sunny room. Uh, right downtown Santa Rosa, upstairs in the Doyle building. If you know where that is, you know Burlington Bakery downstairs, and we've expanded and expanded several times. We

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have over 2000 square feet now and 10 10 of us there in the studio. We've trained artists who came in with a lot of good talent to begin with, painters and sculptors and dental technicians who are used to making false teeth. Well, fingers and noses and

00:24:53.970 - 00:25:09.340

things were much more interesting than teeth, you know. So they were happy to come work for us and use their sculpting and firing and glazing kinds of skills. So they all specialize. Some. Some have spent their years getting better and better at mold making, so that

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we can mold off of one part to reproduce to another. That gets very tricky sometimes. And so we have the capability of doing a level of skill that many people can't weaken, do replacements out of cast bronze and blown glass and fired porcelain and all sorts

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of things that are very rare things many people cannot offer you really talented people rarely collectively. So, yeah, that's a Zagreb complement. One another. Um, where's your studio? Located? 6 45 4th Street, corner of fourth and D. An upstairs. You can walk in any time. We're

00:25:48.660 - 00:26:15.970

open Monday to Friday. Just come on in or you can call 5753626 753626 Remember, that's how people confined you. That right? Yes. Were easy time. How often are you there? Monday through Friday. Money for everything. Certain Saturdays or evening make appointments. OK, now, now we're talked

00:26:15.970 - 00:26:33.750

about what you do and how you restore these things. And I think it's marvelous and example sitting in front of us. Certainly accentuates that. But how can people protect their precious things from damage? By that, I mean, like accidental bumps or even a disaster like an

00:26:33.750 - 00:26:48.890

earthquake. That's a very good question. Because, of course, even though we can make money from restoring them, we'd rather they didn't break in the first place. I'm hoping, of course, that everybody truly has all their furniture bolted to the walls that everybody says that most people

00:26:48.890 - 00:27:04.220

that I talk to say, Well, I haven't actually gotten around doing that yet, So let me encourage everybody both those China cabinets to the walls because the whole thing falls on its face. We had so many clients We've got a lot of work. We had clients

00:27:04.220 - 00:27:20.540

who just shoveled it into cardboard boxes and brought us the cardboard boxes after the 89 earthquake because the thing fell on its face. So do that and check the shelves. Some shelves were held up by tiny little tabs on the sides. See if you can enlarge

00:27:20.540 - 00:27:36.530

them because the whole case will skew and that can pop a shelf off of its support and that will fall on the shelf below. That'll crash all those things. If you have tall, narrow things, pour sand in the bottom toe, weight them down. Okay, um, something

00:27:36.530 - 00:27:51.420

like this. If it's near a wall, you can put um, monofilament like £80 fishing line. It's almost invisible. Put it around the neck and go back to a little. I hook in the wall. If the table falls out from under it, it'll dangle. OK, lots of

00:27:51.420 - 00:28:12.810

tricks, like we're down to a couple moments. And what precaution should people take when they're cleaning these art objects? Be very careful, like porcelain lays on figuring some total. It would be very careful, right? $1000 1 of the most important things is that a lot of

00:28:12.810 - 00:28:29.900

people watch their mothers use a punch bowl, go from ice cold punch plunged into hot dish water as the bulls get old crystal gets is brittle as people's bones, so don't go from one temperature to another. It'll shoot a crack right across the bowl. Please be

00:28:29.900 - 00:28:48.450

careful with temperatures around crystal. That's that's a really important caution. 23 seconds left years. Teoh. They can contact you at 5753626 and you do make slide presentations. You would groups and wait for the group's anything like that. Church groups would come out and talk to give

00:28:48.450 - 00:29:04.790

you some good tips. We give away all our secrets of how these things were done in the slideshow. Then you can dio nice to be It was a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, I say, deviating from our usual normal kind of nineties. We had the pleasure of

00:29:04.790 - 00:29:21.180

talking to Janet Connelly and Lynn Waddington, and they represent the firm called Venerable Classics, located at fourth me and some phone number 5753626 If you have some of these aren't objects that have been crushed, destroyed and broken or something like that, you may want to contact

00:29:21.180 - 00:29:35.440

him. I know I'm going to. My name is Rich McGlinchey's programmers. I said Saddam account in the nineties, back with your next week with another member of the county government, family or related agency, or people such as venerable classics. Until then, Good night. Good luck and

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good health to each and every one of you.