Just like a threadbare stuffed animal or your favorite pair of weekend jeans, the “flaws” of a piece of art or memorabilia become its storytelling character. Here’s an East Coast US railroad map from the 1940’s. It came in folded, cracked, taped together and stained. The final framed presentation shows all of these existing issues, but the piece has been stabilized so it won’t degrade further. This map was used by a railroad engineer during the middle of the last century, so “damage” to the piece actually speaks of its place in history. What did we do before GPS and Google? We got out the map!
