From left: Amy Dobson, Jennifer Shrestha, Laura Pate and Kathy Robinson-Hays of Brown Mountain Art Restoration. Photography by Julia Cartwright.
A 12-by-4 painting hangs in Rudolph’s Meat Market in Deep Ellum, which was established by a member of the Andreason family in the 1880s.
Completed by an unknown artist at least 100 years ago, the painting depicts the Charles Bridge in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. It’s where the grandparents of Richard Andreason, the current market owner, were born.
The painting, which is displayed prominently in the Elm Street shop, had been in his great-grandparents’ house and then at the Czech Center of Dallas.
But not long ago, it was in completely different shape.
Andreason reunited with childhood friend Laura Pate, who owns Brown Mountain Art Restoration, at a funeral service. He needed her help.
When Pate saw it, the painting was sitting on its side, a corner of the canvas hanging down like a curtain. It took over two months for Pate and her team to repair the stretcher bar, clean the surface and fix a few tears.
“That’s the way we are in Lakewood and East Dallas. We just support each other,” says Justine Andreason, Richard’s mother. “And that’s the first person we thought of, was Laura, when the painting needed to be hung in what we feel like is the proper place, which is our market.”
Brown Mountain Art Restoration was founded by Libby Brown. It moved from its original location near Fair Park to its current spot in 1985, and it’s now one of the oldest shops on N. Henderson Avenue.
Since Brown retired around 1999, the business has been in Pate’s capable hands. And even before then, Pate says it was basically common knowledge that she had the skills and authority to run the operation.
Pate, who attended Lakewood Elementary, J.L. Long Middle School and Woodrow Wilson High School, had always been interested in art. Her mother was an archaeologist, and her father was a documentary film writer. It wasn’t a surprise when she graduated from the University of Texas with degrees in art history and studio art with a ceramics concentration.
She moved back to Dallas and started waiting tables at Blue Goose on Greenville while also selling her own art pieces. One day she drove past Brown Mountain, and her curiosity was immediately piqued. She went inside and asked for a job.
“I was a starving artist,” she says. “Anything with the word ‘art’ in it, I was like, ‘Hey, what’s that?’”
Pate didn’t get an offer right away, but her persistence in asking for work paid off. She started working at Brown Mountain part-time, gradually increasing her hours there while stepping away from Blue Goose.
Though she had a background in art, being a conservator came with new techniques to learn, such as replicating pieces and color-matching.
“You can be working on something in the morning, and then the light changes by the afternoon,” says Pate, who lives in Caruth Terrace. “And it’s like, OK, is that the right color, or is this the right color?”
Artists at Brown Mountain work on a wide range of pieces and materials, such as ceramics, wood and glass, but not metal or paper. A job could be putting a broken porcelain object back together. It could be repairing a broken frame. It could be cleaning a canvas painting.
Their clients include insurance companies, designers, cities, moving companies, community organizations and private individuals. Pate helped restore cabinets at the Hall of State that were damaged when pipes burst during the freeze. She was also involved in repairing “Iggy,” a mosaic iguana by Carolann Haggard located at Grauwyler Park near Love Field Airport.
When a piece is brought to the shop, Pate and the three artists who work with her take some time to evaluate it together. They do a thorough inspection of the object before going back to the client with an estimate and options for repair. It makes sense that the process is collaborative from the get-go, as it can take all of them, each with her own specialties, to complete a project. At busy times, Brown Mountain could be juggling 15 commissions.
“We can usually make something look perfect, we can do a slightly visible repair, or we can just put the pieces back together — for maybe more sentimental pieces that may not have the value, and they don’t want to spend more than the piece is worth,” Pate says.
Brown Mountain handles both conservation and restoration. Conservation work is often requested for public art, and it requires making a piece look the way its creator intended. Restoration is less invasive, often the solution for museum pieces or those with historical significance.
Since the pandemic, Pate has joined the Texas Collections Emergency Resource Alliance. She provides advice to cultural institutions and members of the public when disasters strike, helping them decide how to salvage or repair damaged pieces.
Working at Brown Mountain is not just about fixing objects, though. In repairing them, Pate says she also helps fix relationships, learning from her clients the stories behind the damage, and it becomes kind of therapeutic.
“I think that’s probably my favorite thing about this place — the connection between art and history and relationships and family,” she says. “That’s kind of on this smaller scale, when we work on these little pieces. Now the bigger pieces are cool too, like sculptures and things, because I think those bring the community together.”
