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Working with art is one joyful surprise after another, writes JULES BOAG.
ONE of the great joys of working with art is that you have to really look at it.
You have to thoroughly examine every artwork, both when it arrives at the gallery and, again, when it leaves - a process called condition reporting.
Whenever an artwork goes on display, it is important to determine whether any damage has occurred since its last outing.
This can happen in storage or transport, or it could be the result of natural aging.
It might be a minor chip to the frame, or it could be a clue to the history of the artwork.
Where has it been? What has happened to it along the way?
There are marks from its birth - the brushstrokes of the artist, the crests of paint from the pallet knife.
And sometimes, the scent of the original oil paint lingers.
There is evidence of where the artist laboured over detail, or where the paint was splashed quickly and freely across the surface.
Or there might be evidence of what has happened after it left the artist's studio.
Some of the artwork in the Albury Art Gallery collection are hundreds of years old, so we don't always know much about their journey - we don't know about the people who have owned them, who have loved them, and who have sold or donated them.
We might see evidence that a work was loved, or evidence that it was mistreated, but the best stories are those when someone can fill in the gaps and tell us the "provenance" or history, of an artwork.
Our gallery was recently lent a drawing, made on scrap paper in 1929, by Russell Drysdale.
The work, which the artist presented to the Bungowannah postmistress of the time and which has been loaned to the gallery by her daughter, has been ravaged by silverfish.
But the work was ultimately saved by being stored between the pages of a music book for 70 years.
This is why I enjoy working in the art world.
There are wonderful surprises, new stories and people willing to share them every day.
Jules Boag is the exhibitions co-ordinator at Albury Art Gallery and Library Museum