The entire cemetery is built above the ground because the ground is too wet [to bury bodies]. There are huge crypts and walls that are covered with tombs. Everything above ground. What is significant about this cemetery is that the cultures are mixed, all in one. The French, Spanish, African-American. It’s divided into three squares and one entire square is divided into free people of colour: this is where you’ll find a lot of notable names in jazz, politics, and the military that make this site unique.

That said, I can’t tell you exact names yet: this is the main reason we’re going. The site has never been mapped before, and now it’s in real disarray. The restorers will fully map the site, note down the names, and decipher damages that the cemetery suffered before and during the hurricane.”

Save Our Cemeteries is a non-profit devoted to promoting, preserving, and protecting New Orleans’ 31 historic cemeteries. You can view info about the known damages to different cemeteries on their Local Cemetery Conditions Following Hurricane Katrina page.

Stoneangels: What are some of the larger projects you’re involved in?

Kreilick: I’ve been asked to establish a conservation plan by the Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond, Va. They’ve got some fabulous monuments–a wonderful pyramid to the Confederate dead–the Confederate soldiers who died at Gettysburg were re-interred there, two American presidents are buried there (Monroe and Tyler), Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy… J.E.B Stuart is there, and George Pickett of Pickett’s Charge fame.
They’re really on the front end of the curve with their conservation planning. In determining how much work needs to be done, my job is to offer them this plan of Four Steps:

1. The recording of all the inscriptions
2. Survey of plot land
3. All monuments assessed and prioritized for their conservation needs
4. Determine costs involved, create a budget for the next 5 years

I’ll be going there next week to determine their immediate conservation needs, like seeing which marble statues need to be consolidated…

Stoneangels: Consolidated?

Kreilick: The first sign that marble is wearing away is the white powder that forms on the surface, what we call “sugaring.” That’s the calcium binder, or glue-like material that holds the grains of marble together. If you look at marble under a microscope, you’ll see grains of stone that look like they’re bonded together with strands of glue. What happens over time, you lose the glue. We apply a chemical that is absorbed by the stone and reintroduces a glue, or binder, back into the stone and hardens it. It stops the dissolution of the stone. That’s a very complicated type of intervention. It’s aggressive, and the conservator uses it sparingly.

“It’s important in conservation to know how not to clean too much.”

Stoneangels: What other techniques do you use?

Kreilick: You might have a monument dealer resetting a stone, or a conservator re-pinning a stone that’s been fragmented, back together again. If on the other hand simple cleaning is needed, a mild detergent, garden hose-pressure water and a soft-bristle brush will do the trick. Volunteers are the perfect resource for this type of conservation. And we will train them. I’ve used student interns from the Savannah College of Art and Design – Masters candidates in Historic Preservation under the supervision of a trained conservator. They’re a great resource.

It’s important in conservation to know how not to clean too much. Like they say on the Antiques Road Show, ‘If you had not cleaned it, it would be worth more.’ If you overclean something, you take away original material.

One of the things we’ve tried to do with volunteers is establish training days at cemeteries. We may have the participant or the cemetery hosting it pay a fee to cover our costs. The National Park Service has a very good cemetery workshop program, but it’s several hundred dollars for a 3-day session and is designed primarily for professionals. Ours would be less expensive.

Stoneangels: We’ve covered the technical aspects of conservation. What other aspects are there?

Kreilick: Ownership. Individual cemetery monuments owned by the family. Laurel Hill is not empowered to hire someone to fix a monument. They belong to the family. For the Harry Wright (the father of baseball) monument over at West Laurel Hill, we had to contact his daughters to get permission to work on the monument. I could put myself in a precarious situation without written consent. If I work on a piece and it loses value, then I’m liable. I have to carry Fine Arts Insurance and liability insurance for pieces I work on in my studio or if they’re damaged in transit.

Another aspect of all my projects is that there’s some element of education involved–making the clients aware of what they’re asking me to do and coming to some understanding of what they’re going to get. It’s very important and good business practice.
Scott can be reached at scottkreilick@aol.com

Stoneangels: You can’t use nails as a dating tool, can you?

Kreilick: That’s right for a variety of reasons.

Stoneangels: My father used to sell antique furniture he built using a bucket of actual antique cut nails he found somewhere…!

Kreilick: Case in point! The Manassas house was to be restored to a certain time period, but analysis of the nails and the surrounding building fabric showed no battle damage. Despite the age of the nails, it appeared that the house had been moved onto this foundation on the battlefield sometime after the war. So if that house was not there during the Civil War, then why bother restoring it?
“The first rule of conservation should be ‘Do no harm.’”

Stoneangels: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen in a cemetery?

Kreilick: The most disheartening thing is previous restoration efforts that cause irreversible damage. We’ve seen some wicked horror stories that were done with good intentions – you know, cementing or epoxying things back together again, with epoxy dripping down the sides of the stone. The first rule of conservation should be ‘Do no harm.’ If you cannot restore the statue or monument exactly as it had once been, you should instead preserve the existing condition so it gets no worse. If an inscription is worn down, have it transcribed onto a bronze plaque to be installed nearby. The guideline in conservation these days is to never re-inscribe a weathered inscription. My life is dedicated to not losing original material. Never re-carve the inscription, as this destroys more of the original material.

Stoneangels: Ok, I was going to say it’s ironic that you’ve currently got the contract at Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia) to restore the “Old Mortality” gatehouse centerpiece. Old Mortality, the character, went around re-inscribing tombstones – I thought that’s what you did.

Kreilick: Old Mortality is a fictional figure in Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the same name. He was a stone carver who traveled across Scotland on his pony re-inscribing the names of the Presbyterian martyrs – what we just said we wouldn’t do now. Old Mortality is a large project that will take at least a year to complete. James Thom created the sculptural group in the 1830s out of brownstone taken from his New Jersey quarry. It was brought to Laurel Hill to be the symbol of the cemetery. We need to first stabilize and restore the building that shelters the [life-sized] statues–Sir Walter Scott leaning in a tombstone, who is talking with Old Mortality resting on a coffin, with his grazing pony behind him, and there’s also a plaster bust of James Thom. First we need to mitigate the deleterious effects of weather on the structure itself–create a better drainage system, replace the lead-coated copper roof, re-stucco the exterior–then remove the statues and restore them individually.

Stoneangels: And you do all this work yourself? Are you an artist?

Kreilick: Not all. I may subcontract work out to a sculptor, a welder, or a mason. That’s the way I run my business, especially for the large projects. I establish a team to accomplish what needs to be accomplished; I would be the prime contractor. Sometimes I’m subcontracted by a structural engineer or an architect, and sometimes the other way around. Currently, my favorite projects are the smaller ones where I do the work myself. Examples are conservation of some Wright Brothers artifacts owned by the Franklin Institute. I’m working on the original model airfoils that the Wright Brothers fabricated and tested in their wind tunnel that they created, as they were discovering what the shape of the wings should be on the original Wright Flyer. There’s a couple dozen first-generation models made from saw blades and other pieces of scrap metal that they had around the bicycle shop. From these, they picked the one that gave them the best lift and drag and that’s the one they used in their original airplane.

I’m working on the original lift and drag balances that they created. The Franklin Institute was one of the first organizations to recognize the achievement of the Wright Bros. This work is all funded by a Save America’s Treasures grant. These are grants that Hillary Rodham Clinton, as First Lady, helped create.

“The Smithsonian did not recognize the Wright Brothers’ achievement.”

Stoneangels: I thought the Wright Brothers’ planes and things were at the Smithsonian?

Kreilick: The story goes that the reason these artifacts are located at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and not the Smithsonian is because one of the directors for the Smithsonian was a direct competitor of the Wright Brothers and so the Smithsonian did not recognize their achievement. This person was designing his own airplane and wanted to be recognized as the inventor of the airplane.

Stoneangels: You can only ignore airplanes for so long.

Kreilick: The Franklin Institute was the first scientific organization to recognize their achievement. So, when Orville Wright died he willed his collection of artifacts to The Franklin Institute rather than the Smithsonian.

Read more: Part 1, Part 3

Stoneangels: What’s the difference between conservation and restoration?

Kreilick: They’re activities that fall under the umbrella of “preservation.” Restoration is restoring a building or an object to a specific state from a certain time period at some point in its past history. Conservation conserves original material, to mitigate active decay and inhibit additional decay. Sometimes there is overlap. For instance if a statue has a missing arm–like the Venus DeMilo – I could recreate the arm with original materials. I adhere to the American Institute of Conservation code of ethics, however. A conservator needs to be able to recognize that my work is not original – I don’t create forgeries. Also, I won’t make up a new arm if I have no record of what the original looked like. That’s important to me.

Stoneangels: There’s a lot of ruin and decay in cemeteries – why is that?

Kreilick: Most of that you see in abandoned church cemeteries – prior to 1830. Families died off or the church disbanded. Nobody was left to take care of them [the cemeteries]. Its not that the will is not there, its that the resources are not there.

With the advent of the rural cemetery movement (the first being Pere Lachaise in Paris, the first in the U.S. being Mt. Auburn in Boston followed by Laurel Hill in 1836), you began to see endowments set up, income from burials, and donations. This money is used to maintain the integrity of the grounds and monuments. At that point in 1836, Laurel Hill was a couple of miles outside the city! Because it was out of the city, it was scenic, and there was a distinct effort to make it a place to visit, to walk, to enjoy the scenery.

If a cemetery is no longer actively burying people, there’s no income with which to maintain the cemetery. The only way to produce income is to find more places to bury people in the cemetery, or more creative ways like cremation – build mausoleums to store the cremains. That’s why endowments are established to maintain family lots on an individual basis. Now, when someone is buried they will try to create an endowment from the start, so there’s a source of income to maintain the plots. If you don’t have income production or endowments, you have to start looking for donors – people who have an interest in historic cemeteries.

Stoneangels: Some materials weather better than others I’ve seen.

Kreilick: Of the various stones and metals used, granite and zinc hold up better than marbles and bronze. The acid rain destroys limestone and marble, causes bronze and copper to oxidize, and iron to rust.

Stoneangels: Would your work be more difficult if you lived in Europe? The quality of the statuary there seems so much better.

Kreilick: I don’t know that it would be more difficult. Artists still use alabaster, soapstones, limestones, marble, bronze alloys – they’re the same materials that have been used for thousands of years. The skill required to produce a masterwork in marble is very rare today. Before the mid-1800s, the better carvers were in Europe. Early American sculptors got their grounding and training in Europe. But they use the same materials, they’ve just developed different styles of carving.

Stoneangels: What kind of metal are the greenish statues made of that we see in cemeteries? It’s oxidation that causes that?

Kreilick: Yes. Most likely bronze (which is mostly copper)–it’s the cupric ions that cause them to turn green.

Stoneangels: The stone carving course you’re currently taking at PAFA, is that to give you a better idea of how statues are made?

Kreilick: No, I just wanted to do something creative, something that didn’t involve metals. I’ve worked with metals most of my professional life.

Stoneangels: You told me about your consulting work for the National Park service on cut nails, iron nails. Did you go to school for that?

Kreilick: Before going into conservation, I worked as a metallurgist in industry for 15 years. So I came into the business with a prior interest in historic metals. Non-ferrous metals which were used in historic structures or objects are bronze, brass, copper, zinc, aluminum. For ferrous metal, wrought iron, cast iron, and steel.

When I was completing a Bachelor’s Degree at Penn [University of Pennsylvania] in the History and Sociology of Science Department, I chose to study the manufacture of cut nails for my thesis. I wanted to tie together my interest in metals together with my interest in historic preservation. This was in anticipation of entering the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at Penn. What really grabbed me about nails was how ubiquitous they are. You don’t build in this country without nails!

So I researched that and have subsequently been hired by architects and the National Park Service to assess nails from various historic buildings – including buildings from the Manassas Battlefield, Monocacy (right outside of Frederick, Maryland), the King of Prussia Inn, the Livezey House (Glen Fern) on the Wissahickon. So I’ve become somewhat of an expert on nails, from wrought nails to cut nails to wire nails, and their manufacture.
Continue reading: Part 2, Part 3