By By KEVIN SCOTT CUTLER
Lifestyles & Features Editor
Editor’s note: This article is the second in a series of three articles about damaged portraits at the Beaufort County Courthouse.
With skilled and steady hands that would make a surgeon envious, Nancy Scoble carefully sets out to restore historic paintings once displayed in the old Beaufort County Courthouse.
The paintings, discovered tucked away in a supply closet in the present courthouse two years ago, were damaged by an unruly youngster in the late 1960s while they were hanging in the old courthouse, according to former Superior Court Judge Jim Vosburgh. The old courthouse is now headquarters for the Beaufort-Hyde-Martin Regional Library.
In 2008, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners appropriated funds to repair the five portraits. Two, one featuring Stephen Bragaw and the other showing Edward Warren, have been completed and are displayed in the courthouse; Scoble is working on a third, that of James Edward Sheppard, and portraits of George H. Brown and William Blount Rodman II have yet to be restored.
Scoble, a respected Washington artist and a genius at art restoration, was approached by Clerk of Court Marty Paramore and asked to consider taking on the project. She responded with enthusiasm.
Scoble’s first brush with restoration work involved photography.
“I loved restoring old family photographs,” she said during a break from working on the Sheppard portrait. “Then, my family had someone work on a painting my grandmother had done around 1890. They put on an acrylic coating that couldn’t be removed and just did an improper job.”
That experience prompted Scoble to learn the correct techniques of art restoration.
“I wanted to find out how to do this right, so I took course after course after course,” she said. “I’ve worked on the restoration of canvas paintings as well as porcelain pieces.”
Scoble didn’t advertise her skills after she moved from Florida to Washington almost five years ago. She did volunteer for three months at Tryon Palace, which led to a paid position doing restoration work at the historic site in New Bern for just over a year.
So skilled is she, the repairs are all but discernible to the naked eye.
“If you haven’t seen my work, that’s what I expect” is her professional motto.
The series of courthouse portraits, and older paintings in general, are covered with layers of soot and dirt from furnaces, along with nicotine stains from cigarettes, cigars and pipes. This is in addition to the tears and gouges caused by the little boy wielding a wooden gavel more than 40 years ago.
Most of the portraits appear to date back to the 1860s, according to Scoble. She starts with a gentle cleaning and then begins the actual restoration process.
“I work on the outside edge first and remove layers of grime,” Scoble said. “I repair the tears and chipped paint and freshen the faces. And I stabilize the paintings.”
The work is fascinating, she added.
“It’s so exciting when you start seeing long-buried details surface in the paintings,” she said. “It’s like a puzzle. Each one’s a puzzle. The most important thing is knowing a good place to stop.”
Paramore said he is amazed with the transformation of the Bragaw and Warren portraits. He is anxious to see the others restored. But he’ll have to wait because the painstaking process can’t be rushed.
Along with her restoration jobs, Scoble is a working artist who, along with fellow artist Art Tyndall, formed the “plein air” group that gathers weekly for outdoor painting sessions.
She’s active with the newly opened Inner Banks Artisans Center on Main Street in Washington, and she’ll be a featured artist at the North Carolina Estuarium later this year. She also operates her own business, Suncatcher Studios LLC, and can be contacted at 252-944-7212.
One of her favorite activities is teaching art to students at Washington Montessori Public Charter School. She started there as a volunteer, and now she teaches three days a week.
“It’s a good balance between teaching and being a working artist. It allows me to address both interests,” she said with a smile. “I love it. I absolutely love it.”
Beaufort County’s Superior Courtroom is a virtual “who’s who” of leading Beaufort County residents from the 19th century and early 20th century. For a look at the county’s portrait collection, see Sunday’s Washington Daily News.