The image of Bob Clarke’s Spy vs. Spy comic is from Anthony Snyder, who allowed me to show it in my blog. The sharpener gag is taken from The Mad Student Survival Guide for Those Bored of Education. I believe that the use of these images in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Unfortunately I don’t know too much about chemistry. Even though the Bavarian school system provided me with 13 years of education [1]I think this has now been reduced to 12 years., the type of school I went to and the modules I picked meant that I only ever had one semester of chemistry – so please forgive me and correct me if I am using the wrong words in this blog post.
A few days ago I noticed that my magnesium sharpeners look pretty bad. The surface is now very rough, not shiny any more at all, except for some small areas. The sharpeners have been stored together with a silver plated letter opener I bought very cheap from The Pen Shop. A few erasers were also next to the sharpeners for a long period of time. I’m now wondering what caused the corrosion/tarnishing of the magnesium.
Maybe someone who knows more about chemistry can tell me what happened – so that I can avoid similar mistakes in the future.
Click to get a better look how the surface looks like now
My first idea what might have happened: A process similar to the one when aluminium is used to clean tarnished silver took place. The magnesium sharpeners kept the silver-plated letter opener untarnished, because magnesium is less noble than silver and therefore attracted sulphur or other chemical elements.
My alternative suggestion: Just like the chemicals from another eraser ‘ruined’ one of my wooden pencil boxes once, the chemicals from the erasers that were stored together with the magnesium sharpener changed the sharpeners’ surface, too.
Can anyone tell me what really happened to the magnesium sharpeners?
For this exhibition paper has been ‘cut, sculpted and manipulated’ into works of art. I’ll try to keep the number of photos in this blog post low, but that’s really difficult with so many exciting pieces of art made from paper.
Many pieces of art have been made from everyday objects. Japanese artist Yuken Teruya uses paper bags from different companies. Using a photo of a tree from the bag’s company’s country he then cuts the paper into the shape of this tree.
The Manchester Art Gallery allows taking photos unless there are signs indicating that specific works may not be photographed. I did not see any signs indicating that the works shown in this blog post may not be photographed. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
