Restoration complexity

I’m Heather, 26, soon to be graduate from quite well known art school. I know what you are thinking, why would one waste time with education for profession with such bad track record regarding jobs. But I wasn’t, nor am this moment clueless regarding facts. I chose my majors and minors with backup plans after backup plans. I obviously dream to rock the art world one day, but I am realistic regarding expectations. That is why I did my apprenticeships in places where I might earn long term employment while I can practice my own art. And that is why, I am currently apprenticing in a company which specializes in conservation and restoration of artworks.

The company is quite small, only like 4 employees and myself as an apprentice. Conservation is something that can be learned fairly easily, it needs basic engineering skills and understanding how erosion happens… most of time. Restoration is skill that not only needs fairly advanced understanding regarding conservation but one also needs to master one or more arts. To give a crude example, if you cannot handle the brush, why would you try to restore priceless painting from sixteen hundreds. Just do google search about “spoiled fresco” for the pictures and you see my point. That being said, there is only one person who does restoration here, rest are working in conservation. I do hope that I can be the second one in restoration “team” after I graduate and that is why I am working hard.

I’ve focused primarily on restoration of clay-based artifacts. Those are the most common source of business what we get in restoration side. Since it basically just “puzzle” skills and gluing, it is not something my superior, Jill, does often. She leaves those for me, and to be honest, that is fine by me. Even though it sounds basics, it still will pay the bills in future and I can use the equipment for my own after the work is done. Because of this arrangement, I’ve became quite skilled creating artistic clay vases.

So let me paint you a picture of myself. I’m 171cm tall and I weight 58kg. I have black hair which just about covers my shoulders. I used to have quite long hair all the way to my butt but after few minor accidents with clay and paint, I decided to cut it down for easier maintenance. Nothing is more annoying than wasting hours to get stuff out from hair. I like my round and tight butt but I love my boobs. My boobs are nice C-cups which makes guys red from lust and girls green from envy. Even though I do not get out much, I do love the teasing. And as cherry on top of the cake, with right bra, my cleavage acts as a temporary place to store tools in middle of work. I don’t get to brag about that too often.

The story takes part at the Friday evening. I had finished my classes for the day, and for some pocket money I did some extra work at the company I apprenticed at. Jill had asked me to work my magic on the clay artifacts from dig site few hundred kilometers from the town we were stationed at. She had hot Friday date and asked me to close up when I was done. She would take over at following morning, or noon as she was hoping to get lucky. She lived out of town, so she had brought extra set of clothes with her after work. She had also brought her dog to office, so he would not be left alone for long period of time. I am not huge animal person myself but I tolerated Cooper for hopes to get employed later this year. Cooper was large bullmastiff, weight wise somewhat over 60kgs. He did listen orders from Jill but I found him annoyingly stubborn when I was alone with him. And I could swear that he did some of the it in purpose. For example, without warning he might playfully push me when I was carrying something, making me almost lose balance. And once he licked my face when I was in middle of creating vase to school project which forced me basically to start the phase I was working on from the beginning. Simply put, Cooper and I we not the best of terms.

Jill had put everything ready for Cooper at her office. She asked me to left Cooper out to the hall if he was whining. I had no plans what so ever to comply with her request but I did smile and nod like I meant it. After change of clothes, Jill left to the restaurant and I was left alone. Rest of the employees had started their weekend hours ago. I checked the clock, 8:00pm. I estimated that it is going to take around 4 hours to get the work done so I was better to start. I went to change my own clothes to working attire that I use during my day.

It was quite hot August evening so I had naughty epiphany. Well, not as much as naughty as practical. Since I was alone and just about the only person I could meet in next few hours is Jill who could return from her date early if things went sour, I decided to strip to my underwear. I did not see any reason to get my clothes dirty due clay or sweaty due the warm evening weather. I would still be wearing my pottery overalls to cover my front, although they would be leaving my backside exposed. But who cares? Even if Jill got back early, she would say that I looked hot and wouldn’t think another second about it.

First two hours were uneventful. I’ve already glued one knee high vase. That was relatively simple since the pieces were quite large. Even a blind person would have assembled that one. The second artifact which I was going through was somewhat more difficult due being broken in smaller parts. But like with every puzzle, further you get, easier it will get. For the adhesive, I use industrial grade epoxy. It is awesome in my field. When the two chemicals mix, it will harden in matter of seconds. And the end results is pretty much same as with bone injuries, when broken bone heals, it is even stronger than before. Although, as a disclaimer, I should mention that one needs to be careful with this stuff. It doesn’t take much error to find yourself glued to piece of vase. It can be dissolved but the process might cost you a whole day of work. So patience is the key here.

Things were progressing as planned. Only thing which bothered me was Cooper whining at the Jill’s office. He was clearly getting bored and/or claustrophobic. I turned the music up to not hear him but it did not help. I seriously need noise cancelling feature for my next headset. I am well aware that if the whining does not end, I do not possess self-control to be focused to my work. So I made life changing decision to leave him out. At the very worst, I could continue my work at Jill’s office if he wouldn’t behave. And hey, if he actually does try to mess up my work, not a big deal the vase is already broken. And I can always say to Jill that she asked me to leave him out. I shouldn’t be in trouble no matter what. But boy, was I wrong… and more about that soon.

So I opened the office door and left him out. He happily jumped on me and barked. Guess this is alright, I thought. I went to get his water bowl and while I was crouching to get it, Cooper had a lick of my backside. I got up in lighting speed. “Bad Cooper! No licking my butt! No!”, I yelled. It did not seem to understand, no wonder there. I took the bowl from ground as quickly as I could and then laid it down outside of office as quickly as I picked it up. I am already regretting the decision that I made few minutes ago. However, for my pleasant surprise, he did behave. For next hour I was able to focus on the job in hand and listen my music without much of disturbance. Cooper just walked around the hall sniffing stuff. He mainly kept clear from me, maybe because of actually understanding me or maybe because of the chemicals I was using. I did not really care what gave me the peace I needed as long as it lasted.

I heard “beep” from my headset which indicated new message, snapped me out from zone before 11pm.