023 SMITH JOURNAL<<
Half of her clients include museums,
companies and private collectors. The other
half are families looking to have heirloom
clocks or automata restored. The money isn’t
as good for these jobs, but Cox often finds
the work more rewarding on a personal level.
“If something means a lot to someone, then
I have to make sure their object is aorded
the proper respect,” she explains. “That’s
a part of my job I take a lot of pride in. I often
feel as though I’m restoring a piece of someone’s
nostalgia: that I’m returning a part of their
memory.” In fact, this is where the name of her
business came from: ‘memoria technica’ is a
Latin term for a device that assists memory.
No matter the piece that’s brought in to
her, the initial process is always the same:
Cox analyses the object, and tries to ‘solve’ it
like a mechanical puzzle. These old machines
don’t come with instruction manuals, so
she has to rely on her technical knowledge
and investigator skills to reverse-engineer
how they work. Getting inside their creators’
heads is part of the job. “The vast majority of
automata were made by hand,” Cox explains.
“The objects have stories. They carry
lived histories. You can tell that the people
making them had good days and bad days.”Once a course of action has been decided on,
the real work begins. Spare parts are rarely
available, so Cox often ends up making her
own replacement pieces. Failing that, she
makes the piece that will enable her to make
the piece she needs. Asked whether she has
ever been defeated by a job, she shakes her
head. That would mean giving up, which is
one thing Cox doesn’t know how to do. Of
all the abilities required to be an antiquarian
horologist – good hand skills, an aptitude for
critical thinking and problem-solving – Cox
identifies patience and perseverance as the
most essential. “You need to be up for tackling
small problems all day. Making tiny decisions
on minute levels with very fine tolerances.
And you need to accept that you might have
to redo a thing several times before it works.”And when it does work? Cox describes
the experience as one of complete elation.
“Hearing a bird sing that maybe hasn’t
sung for a hundred years, it’s kind of
surreal,” she says. “You’ve given hours
and hours to an artificial living thing,
and then all of a sudden it’s there singing,
just for you. You’re overcome with this
incredible joy, and also wonder. Because
a very small, very human part of you
is still going: How does it work?”Perhaps the most peculiar thing about
the craft is how much time is dedicated
to measuring time itself. “As a conservator,
my job is to try and prevent an object from
ageing further than it already has,” Cox
points out. “I’m attempting to arrest time’s
disintegrating of the object. And yet, at the
same time, the object’s purpose is to count
the passing of time – so in that sense
I’m trying to keep it going. I’m trying
to ensure that time keeps moving at
the same time as I’m trying to prevent
time from happening to it.” •This page, from right
Carefully removing the
taper pin from a small
Napoleonic officer’s clock.
One of Cox’s creations: a
sterling silver Guilloché
medallion she made on her
rose engine lathe. The fine
moiré pattern is achieved
by altering the orientation
of a singular sine wave cut
in a repetitive sequence.