Resurrecting the hopeless. (Design Notes).(metalwork restorer Howard Newman)(Brief Article)

Howard Newman started working in his family's machine shop when he was ten years old. By the age of sixteen he was making jewelry and his knowledge and love of metals of all kinds and metals in combination with other materials laid a solid foundation for his career both as an artist and a restorer of metals. A second building block was an excursion into the world of professional volunteerism, first with the Peace Corps and later with inner city youths and welfare mothers in New York City during the 1960s, which must have buttressed his natural optimism and enabled him to see opportunities in what others would deem hopeless cases.

Newman enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1967, where he studied silversmithing and metal sculpture for four years under the Danish-trained craftsman John Prip. After graduation he worked in foundries in Italy and the United States before opening his own restoration business-Newmans Limited in Newport, Rhode Island. The firm (which includes one technical assistant, one administrative assistant, and one manager) specializes in hard-to-solve structural problems involving sterling silver, bronze, lead, zinc, and other metals. The successful restoration of these metals requires meticulous attention to patination, polishing, highlighting, and color matching. Some of his most challenging "patients" are made of metal but incorporate other materials such as ebony, plastic, ivory glass, and leather. These projects give him the greatest satisfaction, for they involve painstaking evaluation and intricate, creative solutions.

The most common maladies Newman must heal are associated with damage that has occurred in shipping. The privately owned lead statue shown below is one such example. Weighing some five hundred pounds, the statue arrived from England ...