Porch preservation

CEDAR RAPIDS - At first glance, the concrete flowers, vines and leaves of the plaster mural wrapping around the walls of Brucemore's sleeping porch are beautiful.

Look closer. The mural is whimsical, too.

Exotic birds and squirrels perch on several branches while a tiny mouse hides underneath a window.

“I still find things I haven't seen before,” says Maura Pilcher, assistant director of Brucemore.

That's just one reason to conserve this unique piece of artwork. Another is because of the artist who created the piece: Grant Wood.

“It is so far removed from what you think of when you think about Grant Wood,” says Anthony Kartsonas, owner of Historic Surfaces LLC in Chicago and the architectural conservator hired to conserve the mural. “It's unique for him, which makes this project intriguing.”

In 1925, Irene Douglas hired Wood to decorate her daughter's sleeping porch. An entry in the family check register indicates that Douglas paid Wood $182 for this work.

The piece was recently assessed for $3.5 million.

Pilcher says the commission wasn't unusual.

“Grant Wood did a lot of interior work during that time,” she says. “There are pieces of his work all over the city - little things he did to make some money.”

For instance, Wood designed trolley car advertisements for Henry S. Ely, and crafted interior details and décor for many houses in the Ridgewood and Vernon Heights neighborhoods near Brucemore.

The Brucemore sleeping porch mural, though, is different from the paintings that made him famous.

Known for his association with the American movement of regionalism, the quirkiness of the sleeping porch shows another side of Wood as an artist.

“It's so much more decorative than what he's known for, which I think really shows his talent,” Kartsonas says.

Early tests show that the piece was completed with ordinary gypsum plaster and household paint; common materials for a mural that is anything but typical.

Extensive research has yet to unearth any similar works by Wood.

“It was all standard materials, used in an unusual way, but it worked,” Pilcher says.

To conserve the mural, Kartsonas will stabilize the plaster and reintroduce a binder that will strengthen the original paint, bringing back the colors that have been oxidized, or washed out, over the years.

The project will cost an estimated $90,000. Work is slated to begin in July and finish in August.

“It's not a restoration,” Pilcher says. “We're trying to clean and conserve it so we can bring it forward.”

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Raise a Coconut to Grant Wood

Proceeds from the fifth annual Tahitian Party, to be held from 6:30 to 10 p.m. on June 28, will benefit the Grant Wood sleeping porch restoration project.

Tickets for this event are $60 per person and will remain on sale through June 19. Tickets may be purchased by visiting

www.brucemore.org or calling (319) 362-7375.