That time a museum curator told me I was cleaning artifacts wrong for 2 years

I volunteer at a small local museum in Santa Fe and after a year of cleaning pottery shards with dish soap and tap water, one of the senior curators pulled me aside. She said the soap residues actually damage the porous clay over time and I should just be using distilled water and soft brushes. I switched to that method about 6 months ago and I can already see the difference in the condition of the pieces I work with. Has anyone else gotten totally different cleaning advice from what you thought was standard?

2 comments

2 Comments

evah405h ago

Wait, isn't distilled water actually safer for that?

christopher679h ago

Didn't the museum give you any kind of training or manual when you started? That's on them, not you. But yeah, I've been told opposite advice on just about everything. One guy at a historical society told me never to use distilled water because it can pull minerals out of the clay if you use it too much, which is the complete opposite of what your curator said. Seems like every expert has their own pet method and everyone else is wrong. At the end of the day, the fact that you actually saw a difference switching methods says a lot more than any theory does. Maybe the real lesson is just to ask three different people and go with whatever makes the most sense for your specific pieces.