welcome very very much to conversations we've got a friend of mine an old dear friend of mine who is an artist so great capability and of interest and his name is william vinci and we've known each other for a very many many many decades he's fortunate fellow he's got one of the nicest ladies there is on the planet as his wife and i think and hope that he appreciates that as much as she is deserving of being appreciated but in any event william thank you very much for coming to the studio we're going to talk about art and restoration some of these matters but again welcome very much to the phrase it's good to see you again a long time know how you doing give my best to you know so you're an artist and you have been ever since i've known you and so forth and yet you've also taken a particular interest in restorative aspects of art items from the past that have reason to have careful artistic careful consideration of the restoration that something you become very involved with but maybe you could share d with you you've been artistic ever since you were just a youngster and so forth or how does the the artistic impetus  manifest in you and maybe how does it manifest in people in general or where does it come from what is your thought about that in a d n a s family lucky enough to be around talented people family member absolutely absolutely yeah the family the family was an artistic yeah yeah yeah and all the way through and been fortunate enough to study with some an a you know working with plaster being one of them and just just being interested yeah yeah and how things you know materials yeah right and as well as painting during world society as historically yeah one you know as a modernist being involved with modern painting abstract and then having a one foot planted firmly in the in the past just to the dedication of preserving historical artifacts and works of art and i've come full circle in and i started a new a while ago i started a business pure plaster working and restoring historical conservation and bringing back and preserving historical landmark spots in and around the country and new york i mean artwork that exist last there and last the you know  materials i'm working with metal in angelo working with angelo savelli learning a lot of the modern aspects of his craft and modern art and working involved in this for the last five years but in the eighty's i had a chance to i was given an opportunity to a private collection work restoring a calder alexander called tomorrow which was a ten month endeavor and very important piece and then i've taken it to the next level studying materials paper again and paint you know the industry standard these days is that things have to be reversible i don't know what you can't you can't put that whatever technique you use on in a restoration process you can't put something over something that can't be whether it's sculpture a painting that can't be reversed it went in time because what happened over many decades is that people came with no license just you know weekend warriors of the art restorers would come and just put anything like for instance on the george segal  was there was cracks in the plaster so what they do ever got their hands on it previous put a synthetic a poxy resin and it turned brown and it makes things worse you know so if you know that would have been somebody you didn't know what they were well that's the point and you have to have a great aesthetic capability to appreciate it and do it right you know what it's like anything and you develop that and have that that's characteristic of the work you do thank you but y have something that was made worse by something that somebody maybe a poxy right and you know it st when you before you do anything you have to get the the trust has that have an insured and you have to have an appraisal before you do it everything has to be documented and it's it's you know it's very important for the history of the piece to be documented so and then old has to be written all those problems have to be removed and saved doc and marked sealed and put away filed away and videotaped process so we have to remove carefully what was there get to the cause of the problem the brakes and whatnot and then fuse it and then go to the right material with the correct material and then there's an agent quality to the piece of ready whether it's been in sun pless the tents in the us than has to be cleaned then you want to make sure on the on the plaster but yeah so that's one thing and so everything that's done this is a story for everything and it has to be studied the way i do it i research make sure i have you know you never never think you know too much you know you are doing you want to get you studied the piece you know already you have you have to have the background and then you have to do you're trying to get the sensitive and you're getting a piece of art thing that has a sense of dignity to it and you want to capture as much as you can that by being educated to what the reality was exactly by the article they have very well said yes so so you're you're you're very very well ensconced as a term as overworked and everything in the wonder as world quality and gorgeous and meaningful artistic expression not a bad place to dwell  i mean you do conscious self privilege to be able to be in such a position rather than not knowing the difference between a black and a white or something like that like so many people have know is that it percy appreciation and all you're you're getting over that now one foot deeply embedded yesterday yeah i know but the family was encouraging and everything oh yeah yeah well i heard you mentioned earlier i do know where the where you have no choice i had to i think how did it out of your early experience how to do this when with the st thing that ever did do you remember when you were five years old or back seven or anything like that you know you in that think huge sculpture from two to toothpicks you made one you for the restoring yeah of the art that's a special quality it seems to me and people would and you i think it must get word gets around the art world it's not that larger world of meaningful art world i not a relatively small number three what have that had that appreciation and so forth so we're properties around one gets to know another and all that kind of thing right while it's still collect collectors and you know because it's not something i'm familiar with but i did the collectors really school in understanding and really appreciating the art as a work of art yeah rather than just knowledgeable yeah yeah they tend to be yeah it's generational you know like the the collection i worked on the the father was you know bought a lot of art for the family but then that there they're all very knowledgeable they all want to be part of the learning process and as it's handed down they learn more and more i think it's a it's a great thing you don't have the big they where with all and the ability to purchase because you do you buy art people who buy are saying quest they love it well always wound up because they want to see it it's always better to purchase a brown art because to love it around they're in their homes their whole lives it it gives them from what i've seen it gives them such nourishment of the just the interests of the the people who executed this and he says yeah they are and you know the history of right away from and their friends and it gives them a whole so much more of an appreciation for it for travel i mean just vast somebody like yourself who is really appreciate those who are really appreciative of it that way wouldn't do something like some silly poxy that would not be well informed person is going to do it like you would understand what i'm saying that some people just slap something together and let's get the sail on the way and they're not i mean that's what i'm trying to get it to people that really can appreciate fully the meaning of the art well and that you know you know i don't know how many this  is for every piece of work this and this is story so i mean who knows why you know whether it's exposed to sunlight whether it's been travelling to shows around the world they get hit whether there are worms that come into the frame i mean this as a one million for every piece of work this is a story you know something there's always something you know who threw a shoe i mean who broke something and then what happens is sometimes people just take it upon themselves they don't know any better you know times change you know when the work is hanging in someplace in the hilltop and something gets damaged the owner might feel like it they'd wan painting with the you know and then all of a sudden he would the wrong with it you starts to cloud it and you wonder why this is so you know everything is so yeah i wonder what it is is the is the meaningful expression of these things that are so important and everything like that widespread among the per population we think of it as the a great gift that certain people who had usually i can remember as a layman mr van gogh was down there he was ill he had some psychological he was down and are all i think is i mean and he had his brother up there trying to get the people in the museums where the thing is done and he was putting all these paintings and he couldn't sell them even to get a bottle of wine or something like that because the people in the gallery couldn't appreciate the beauty of what he was doing so there's a lot of want to be st of all it's got some good shape if you're in the upper class you want to be able to just show off and all of these kind of faults values can be manifest was in well i guess any any object of of exchange among the society and everything you know but he couldn't sell anything even though it ringback wasn't recognized at the time three is littered with those such a bunch of guys who were setting the pace for d that were in the museums and they couldn't see the quality of what was you know and that might go over the values and people who really have a sensitivity about them in general but in the society how many people are there to able to appreciate the finer things rather than just the mondeo and see how many another piece of bread or something or whatever motivates most human behavior and thought that's what i guess i'm getting at is a thing and you would be you would be involved with the people who claim to be involved with that artistic expression and the value of you know the artifacts and the things that come into my hands with great care because some i want to preserve and restore and return them in case of a an issue with them or jim when i'm trying to know yeah what the hands you know kind of sleep with yeah yeah i want to close my eyes and see feel what is going on the follicle you know hair follicles whatever it is yeah i just kind of to immerse myself it back to where i did leave yeah you know where it should be you know and it's important because you know these things are so important to be preserved yeah you know absolutely  know yeah the cultural heritage of the world and there was you know there's some there's so many people to give it's not sure it's true you know if there's some new thing that is just very bad thing and has no real lasting value you obviously have a sense while painting by wilfred alam or a a a three hundred dollars painting by someone who that was damaged in the paper hats that it's just they're all important everything should be treated that way you know and it should be looked at is one less so your approach is always the same you know no matter how because what you or you feel you relax on anything you know then you you change your perspective of what you're doing and you know it's just operation like like of a surgeon i don't treat every person in the same i mean it's the same thing yeah you know in my view yeah that's how i approach work my work yeah you don't like that ever since i've known you a long time and every you know and you also do your own work this restore ation is one thing but you're also i can remember you doing a piece for you doing plastering that had such a  all of a sensitive but it was it finally did like the scales fell from my eyes and you explained it to me and you were able to explain it and you were more important you were able to create it well it must be wonderful to be very very well creative that  remember correctly i think that was those kind of like you know it was a commission i would work on commissions and that's how i found you know that everybody has an angle to do and i've always felt comfortable having i've been fortunate passing it on generation oh you do absolutely that's an important part of study yeah it's the way so you know it's just i just leads it's just been leading in many work with it you know right and so that's using the resources and so it's only helped obviously you know when i put it all together and i've been doing now personal mistake collections and they you know i get involved with i just finished one for the last i worked on for the last four years and amongst other things value is just an original this particular thing is is the you know the conservation is important for me because i like i said i just finished a substantial collection like i said amongst other things i was doing  always interested in when i was very young being at the detective i always you know detective work you know investigation on the cover and you see a connection between detail you know  you know you do your research and then when you come upon the site or the issue you have to back off you can trample it so you have to and then you have to study it and you have to slow it down you know when you get to where you are going you have to slow it down and then study it and then you know in archaeology you have you know you carefully approach the area so you are you all the same it's all very careful execution of of endeavour's you know would him we were talking about how important it is to have a feeling for the past and that's something that i prefer should of the past and then you get to be where you could start thinking of the past and the present gives you the future and we could be think about the future and where we're going to what's it all about alfie the larger questions can be manifest in the thinking of people who are appreciative of the artistic expression seems to me absolutely and there and there's camaraderie between the various there with no but to bring back that mean i'm interested in virtually everything and i'm so glad that i am i would be so bored if it was just nothing more than a word i have is another dollar coming from and the normal thing here but yeah people are concerned within the call  beauty of it is that you know the great gift is that of the pool of information that is stored and what i'm able to be able to  execute and to to fill on to this and bring back to yes to to give back a piece in the near perfect condition after it's been in dire straits and to see the clients they see and to the to see it up on the wall reframed and preserved for the next generation is priceless you can't  interesting questions that people deal with rather than just them on bain things that they feel they have to deal with because of is it is it isn't a luxury thing to be able to think about something other and fighting over who gets to eat the carrion it's around or some little thing that you understand all in the condition and not enough there's no room for anything other than just get for the good gender stan that kind of thing that kind of thing is still driving so in intellectually interesting and so forth and there's not enough condition to that other than everything is turning you know the reason they have educational things going now mostly that people have or maybe it's a group maybe some people have been in history they've been able to be freed from having to be concerned with the immediate thing of having something to eat or something you know scares you think we're getting to be word more people are able to be concerned with the finer things the finer things then have been able to be when you had a few people living in the foo castle up on the hill and feudal times most the people who are walling around in the mud all they had to do is try to let the kid live for another couple days or something just at what i'm saying is it getting to be it were people could become interested in the finer things in the more important thing because the society is becoming more able to allow for a certain degree of freedom from just the immediate thing of taking care of the immediate material needs or something the kids if the number of people that are or do you think the people that are able to be in that are of a different way than the masses of the people yeah you do yeah  that say we have no art now you're not going to like this maybe or maybe you are oh this is a point of driving yeah ok the balinese have a saying this with it we have no art we do everything as well as possible solution because there's no problem oh i never heard that one there's no solution because there's no problem or you could turn around and say there's no problem and therefore we don't need a solution oh you know it's more to the point the st way by bringing up all the stuff yeah off the top of my head and everything but i think we're in a time of there's you know the i think it's becoming more and more available that people don't have to be instant gratification no not instant gratification doing what you're not to be doing what you really want to do or that is really worth while you're doing what you have to do is a thing that's installed in the masses you know the service to get under the legions of stuff they didn't do what they wanted to do or  where they had to do it because they had to and they'd be beaten if they didn't you know then this and that still that i think is still there and a lot of people's mind and then if you're lucky have three or four years to do whatever you want to do maybe at the end you mean that said if you if you you mentioned more street but you know it's like why did why do we do why do what i do i mean i did it's not you know it's something that is nothing else i couldn't do yeah you think yeah i know  looking for something to do or something would that be a problem that there aren't enough things of interest for the people to do and if they're left on their own getting where there's a vote there are supposed everybody's got ability to have enough of everything you need like there's a house and there's a hot shower and there's food and there's all these things that everybody's been longing for the masses of the people of the world even if you take it like that when you get to be where everybody can have that just a matter of course what are people going to do they're going to be interested in the finer things that you think there's something to that you don't tell me what do you think is going to happen to the masses of the world when they don't have to be slaves they didn't most of the people of the world throughout most of the make it like you know it's not it's not there it's not that important you know it's a it's not that it's the worst thing i can happen we need to fight against that and make sure that  that youngsters are exposed as much as they can to art museums and music and instruments for schools you know so they would have you know you can go there all want then they want to go i want to take a look the best thing to do is culturally you know do a cultural exchange yeah yeah with the old life of the mind and the spirit and everything like that for it so it was a good boy everybody can do that instead of having to be just plaster relief yeah and that's in a private collection it was quite extensively damaged and then there was george segal's on the in the studio i think there's the only before shot  know in the early seventies you know you're at one side it changes the matter with the light and and the role that that particular one is its own platinum paper so they would and that they're actually those little circles are at so the the life off of them in different ways and it creates different images and he created this it's brilliant but there was a heat source behind it accidentally in it and it brought the paper away from the foundation has its backing and century figurine and it was severely damaged just one of the we just took a few samples of some slides as many and it was just the process there was a process of i think there's a carefully filled and with the proprietorial pillars because of the composite of the the head so if you have to make sure that whatever you obviously there's a few options very few you know half the time again you don't want to to go back so you fill it in and make sure that it's it's it hears the right way and it's not going to expand the contract it's all it's safe  carefully and then you have the surface if you will the surface to rain the pigments you know there's a certain kind of everybody has a complection if you will so black at the top of the yeah hey one's hair it's painted and then do you have to you know you want to be able to to give that age quality so that was you mean to do more restoration you know it's they have the finished one that the next i think the next slide here another yeah that's careful execution it was damaged and there was over painting with wrong materials there were clouds in the oil there was a few tears and so again some of the outlines what faded and everything the materials used again very important they had to be reversible so whatever it is is put down the studio puts is is done in such a way where it can be brought back to the way it was before i got my hands on it so but everything is documented yeah well it's the way it was before if you got  on the website you see the fifteen by nine or ten and what happened was it looked to me the paper was all blunt damage so it looked like the edge of somebody took the in operation of restoration one of the works that were going on in the studio how much of your work is restoration much is really on a ridge you know if the pence you know what you know right now i have some things going yeah that's crazy you know everybody knows he put up the virgin records and then he put the virgin early and everything like that he had his warehouse across the street where he was on there was a lot of action down there not what word is the action at now at the no no no no no no that's not that can't be a scheme or plan you can't be a by product you used to be much more of what would be called for nettie age would know that was a time ago used to be for and that it was like you were bouncing like a ball all over the place anyway y a yeah i you know but what happens is that you know four months can go by i can be working on one piece you know i work done on the on the on a cold or it took ten months so you know you work on things and you know you don't realize it's just you know you have a few things going on at once yeah you know you know i had a really important that are completely opposite of what you know you have a something you know and then your own personal stuff ok well it's true well that it's really it's really really really interesting you spend time out in the east and that's where it is right where and we're part of new york maybe it's not fair what part did town of midtown yeah yeah i have a home surgeons you know who says time once you've focussed and you you're doing your i guess like hand surgeons would they relate to one another great or draw a large operation surgeons would be forming a group where they know they would get together so your artists find do you get in touch with other members of society as an artist or do you want do you have a lot of friends dr and you spend a lot of time in other people that are really fine much in since decided it's one part of it and restoring of that you know there's all kinds of different parts of society it's a big marvelous feast of things but do you think a be better if we had more cross mingling with the people who are in their own field with people in a field kind of far far as it should be in life man do you think it should be is it with you yeah well it should be how do you hang out with a lot of well he or and we do that you hang out with a lot of pot now you see an artist tend to be very i did i think i did do i think there's something there i think it be good to be able to talk to everybody or across culture or you know saying you know wall street they they they they have fine art collections well appreciate how lucky you are and that woman do you do you or do you every day make it clear to her i'm much you ok no no but that's that's that's just part of the question that i was getting at  mixing with you know and are you optimistic for the human