Category: Textiles Conservation

A Thank You

The following has been reposted here from the Textile Specialty Group’s mailing list, TSG-Discuss, with the author’s permission.

Having been a textile conservator at the MMA for over 30 years, I confess that in some ways I kept to myself and did not always participate actively in the Textile Specialty Group endeavors,(though maintained my membership throughout my professional career.)

Now that I am preparing to teach a course on Textile Conservation at the UCLA/Cotsen/Getty Villa program on archaeological conservation, I would like to sincerely thank all of you who have put so much time, energy, professional thought and your personal and intellectual experience into what has become the WIKI– TEXTILES project.

It is a tremendous service to the field, and all of us can benefit from it.
Christine Giuntini, Susan Heald, Meridith Montague, Mary Ballard, Lucy Commoner, Kathy Francis, Deborah Trupin, Sarah Stevens, Jane Merritt,Susan Mathisen, Denyse Montegut, Sara J. Wolf and EVERYONE who contributed in the past untold hours to make this project what it is, and to those who continue to contribute now their time and effort into this project — all deserve a huge thanks and recognitition of the work that has gone into the project.

I personally and professionally truly appreciate what you have done, and think it is a great project. It is so useful on so many levels, designed with forsight and integrity, filling a big need for the profession.

I just wanted at this time to thank you all for your efforts. It is and will be a great resource for so many.
Best,
Elena

Elena Phipps
President, Textile Society of America (2011-2014)

Beneath the Wrappings: Conservation of Emory’s Old Kingdom Mummy

In 1921, William Arthur Shelton, a professor in Emory’s Candler School of Theology, purchased an Old Kingdom mummy from the sacred site of Abydos in Middle Egypt. In storage at the Carlos Museum for over 90 years, its linen in tatters, its head in a separate box, and many bones missing or exposed, the mummy provided an extraordinary challenge for conservators Renee Stein and Mimi Leveque. This video documents their almost year-long treatment of the mummy in close consultation with curator Peter Lacovara, students and faculty at Emory University, doctors at Emory Hospital, and other consultants.

For more information, visit carlos.emory.edu

View the 16 minute video on Emory’s YouTube channel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plying the Trades: Report from NATCC Conference

“Plying the Trades: Pulling Together in the 21st Century,” the 8th North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC), met in Oaxaca, Mexico this past November, 2011.  Following two days of apropos workshop offerings, including an introduction to biological classification for textile conservators held in the local ethnobotanical gardens, two aqueous cleaning courses with the ever-in-demand Richard Wolbers, back-strap loom weaving (with regional artisans specializing in different techniques), natural dying (using local products including the hand-spun wool slated to be dyed), and feather mosaics (following a traditional technique using adhesive derived from a specific orchid flower), the program got off to a resounding start with a thought-provoking keynote address by Dr. Sven Haakanson.  If anyone present already felt sated from the successful workshops and early regional tours they could not help but quickly be drawn into the flow of the following two days.  Dr. Hakkanson’s touch points of living heritage, community, and repatriation of knowledge paved the way for an exciting conference filled with multi-cultural and disciplinary presentations, covering the territory of regaining lost traditions, sharing knowledge with local communities, creating discussions between communities, collection holders, and conservators, and finding paths for mutual ground or compromise for object care.

A few highlights included a history of community development and outreach at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), conservation in the public eye (quite literally due to their on view textile conservation laboratory) at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, UK, and the immense challenges and rewards of building international education programs.  Participants were further inundated with information during poster sessions, set during coffee breaks, which successfully promoted many discussions.

Planned to the nines, the conference also included a cocktail reception in the beautifully restored Centro Academico y Cultural San Pablo (originally established as a Dominican convent in 1529), and, the following evening, the conference closed on a high note with a full parade down the streets of Oaxaca complete with band, balloons, dancers, lanterns, and fire works leading the attendees to a lovely dinner set in the local Ethnobotanical Gardens.  Everyone left Oaxaca full of knowledge, mescal, and a new found appreciation of community.  Not to worry if Oaxaca proved too difficult to reach: post prints are available for purchase through natcconference.com (CD format) and plans are in the works for NATCC’s next conference.  Moving from one welcoming community to another, and focusing on modern materials, NATCC is slated to meet in San Francisco, November, 2013.

—Denise Migdail

 

TSA Book Award

The Textile Society of America announced that Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, ed. by Ruth Barnes and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg is the recipient of the R.L. Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award.

This comprehensive volume highlights Mary Hunt Kahlenberg’s personal collection of over 350 Indonesian ceremonial garments and textiles, which she has assembled over a 30-year period.  Kahlenberg, a former Curator of Textiles at LACMA, has been at the forefront of the study of Indonesian textiles. This handsome book chronicles a lifetime of work dedicated to both collecting and research. Kahlenberg has brought together some of the leading Indonesian textile scholars, including Ruth Barnes, Traude Gavin, Roy W. Hamilton, Rens Heringa, Marie-Louise Nabholz-Karatschoff, and Toos Van Dijk to present newfindings.

Further information about  the award can be found at the TSA website, http://www.textilesociety.org/awards_shep.htm.

 

AIC’s 39th Annual Meeting- Textiles Session, June 2, “The “Observer Effect” in Conservation: Changes in Perception and the Treatment of a Man’s Silk Suit, c. 1745” by Laura Mina

This talk was in interesting treatment case study of an 18th c suit, including some detective work about what has happened to it throughout its history.   Ms. Mina also attempts to draw parallels between treatment decisions made throughout the history of the piece, or conservation decisions in general, and the “observer effect” from quantum mechanics.

The suit is from the Museum of the City of New York collection and consists of a coat and waistcoat but no breaches.  The suit was a very fashionable garment when it was created in 1745 and, as frequently happened with beautiful and expensive clothing, it was sold and resold many times.  With each new owner, alterations occurred to suit their needs, creating a confusing mix of stitches and patches.  Finally the suit was donated to the Museum of the City of New York in 1938.   Even then it appears the suit wasn’t spared alteration, but in the name of restoration.   Ms. Mina then described the treatment she undertook and part of her rational for the treatment.  This piece required patience to excavate its many layers of interpretation.

AIC’s 39th Annual Meeting- Texiles Session, June 1, “On-line Access to and Preservation of a Multi-Component Sketch Collection” by Marjorie Jonas

This talk discussed the re-housing and development of a database for a collection of design sketches by Bonnie Cashin within the FIT Archives and Special Collections (SC) at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).  Bonnie Cashin was a 20th Century fashion designer that designed clothing and accessories with this collection of sketches representing her work for the Phillip Sills Company.   More than 4000 sketches with accompanying fabric swatches and ephemera had been pasted into a spiral bound sketchbooks originally, but various sketchbooks had been unbound with the pages loose in boxes and other books remained intact.   The collection had only minimal catalog information and this along with its various housings made its use difficult and required unnecessary handling.  For this project, the sketch books were unbound because many of the plastic bindings were failing and pages were sticking to each other.  All sketch book pages were re-housed, first into 3 ml polyethylene bags and then archival boxes.

The main point of the talk was describing a finding aid that was developed to improve access to the collection and reduce the amount of handling the sketch pages encounter.  This finding aid is an online database with 10 categories that includes catalog and biographic information, with hyperlinks to images of the pages and associated materials.  For this finding aid each sketchbook page was given a unique number based on the ISAD(G) archive numbering standard.  The database is keyword searchable through the FIT library site.   This project has improved access to this collection while reducing handling and the searchable database concept is being used for other archive collections at FIT.

AIC’s 39th Annual Meeting – Textiles Session, June 1, “Uses of the fiber Reference Image Library” by Katherine Jakes

This was a very interesting and informative talk about the development of the Fiber Reference Image Library (FRIL) and web site (https://fril.osu.edu/) at Ohio State University and some of the ways it is being used. The concept was originally conceived to be an interdisciplinary and internationally developed library of fiber images but lack of funding made a large scale project impossible. Katherine Jakes then utilized the resources of Ohio State University’s Historic Costume Collection to create a scaled down version of the original vision and hopes that it will be used as a model for other institutions to do the same.

The website has photomicrographs of longitudinal fibers in both transmitted and polarized light for natural and synthetic fibers. Also included are photomicrographs of degraded fibers. All the images are linked to information about the object from which the fibers were taken, including photos, and there are links to other objects in the Historic Costume Collection that have the same fiber. In the future Ms. Jakes hopes to add more fibers, including feathers, archaeological material, and enhance the depth of the links.

Ms. Jakes also highlighted some of the outreach that has been done using the resources of the website. The first was a program developed for Middle and High school students that uses garments in the Historic Costume Collection from famous designers as an opening to discuss fiber properties and how that relates to the designers fabric choice. Also discussed is how microscopy is done. The second outreach project that Ms. Jakes talked about was dating fabric found with human remains on an island. The location and other items found on the island has raised the hope that these remains were Amelia Earhart but the fabric was polyester which wasn’t produced until the 1950s therefore too late for it to be her.

39th Annual Meeting – Workshop, May 31st, “Museum Mannequins” by Helen Alten

Helen Alten’s “Museum Mannequins” workshop covered a variety of methods for designing, building, and adapting mannequin supports.  Construction processes were broken down into additive, subtractive, and cast-and-molded techniques.  The majority of designs were for male and female torsos.  Padded hangars, T-mounts, and full-body mannequins with cast-from-life appendages were also discussed.  Design and presentation issues were covered, emphasizing the use of appropriate undergarments and appendages.  The benefits and problems associated with many prefabricated mannequins were discussed.  Questions and discussions were encouraged throughout the PowerPoint presentations and hands-on activities, which was helpful as workshop participants had varying levels of experience and each participant’s contribution enriched the workshop.

A 29-page handout was e-mailed prior to the one day workshop.  This was appreciated, as a lot of material was covered.  The handouts that were provided on site expanded on the initial handout with a workshop outline, a five page bibliography, a list of material suppliers, “cheat sheets” for measuring garment dimensions, a basic bodice pattern, and six articles on designing and constructing mannequins.  Helen also pointed us to useful resources such as Patterns of History historic garment patterns, Museum Mannequins: a Guide for Creating the Perfect Fit (2002) edited by M. Brunn and J. White, and A Practical Guide to Costume Mounting (2007) by L. Flecker.

Each participant was asked to bring a garment to measure for the practical workshop.  Hands on activities included measuring the garment, creating a pattern for a rigid-board mannequin, and creating a foam mannequin.  Two groups made mannequins out of Ethafoam®, a material commonly used for mannequins, and one group made a mannequin from Plastazote®, a softer type of polyethylene foam.  As a molding demonstration, two participants cast their hands in plaster using alginate molds.  The workshop went about 1 hour over time and most participants chose to stay.  Samples of buckram were provided for experimentation at home.  All supplies and tools were provided.

Helen encouraged participants to contact her with future questions.

39th Annual Meeting – Textiles Afternoon Session, Wednesday, June 1, A Versatile Mannequin Design, Gwen Spicer, Spicer Art Conservation, LLC

Gwen presented a step-by-step instructional guide to a mannequin design she created with the help of Small Corp Inc.  Small Corp creates custom internal metal armatures onto which Ethafoam torsos can be built by the conservator. The “sideways ladder” design of the armature ensures straightness of form on the base.

This mannequin design was initially created for the exhibit America by Air at the National Air and Space Museum  but Gwen has since used the design for several other diverse projects.  Gwen illustrated the adaptability and versatility by showing images of the design being employed for clothing from various fashion periods and ethnic groups. You can also view images on the Spicer Art Conservation Website.

Gwen’s presentation was clear and comprehensive with discussion of each step of the process including measurement taking (a measurement sheet is available), tools and materials used. Discussion afterward clarified the approximate cost of armature for a mannequin (about $600 though it probably varies depending on how much is ordered) and approximate time estimate for creating the Ethafoam torso (about 4 hours with experience). As the metal armature components can be mixed and matched and potentially re-used with a new Ethafoam torso, this seems like a viable option for mannequin display system that can be adapted for multiple uses over time.

39th Annual Meeting – Textiles Afternoon Session, Wednesday, June 1, When a Silk Flag is Dust and They Still Want to Exhibit It, Helen Alten, Northern States Conservation Center

The subtitle of Helen’s presentation was “Or be careful what you bid on”.  Helen was faced with the dilemma of finding a solution to being asked to stabilize an object for exhibition even though its condition was so poor that she described it as at the end of its life. Helen had already bid on and secured the contract for a Civil War silk flag while it was still pressure mounted in the oak frame in which it had been displayed for decades. Her suggestion that the flag be stabilized for storage and not exhibited upon discovering its fragile condition after removing it from the frame, was not acceptable to the curator. Helen went on to describe the treatment undertaken to stabilize the flag which included cleaning with Groomstick, an adhesive treatment, and a padded board. The reverse of the flag was not cleaned because the fragile condition and large size of the flag( 47 x 81 )inches made the prospect of turning the flag to clean problematic. Helen described using silicon release paper to gently move the flag when needed.

Compromise between best solution and practical solution…storage vs. display. It would have been interesting to discuss this case study as an ethical issue- it must occur with some frequency in private practice- when and how can back out of treating an object? what other compromises or options might have been possible? did they consider cleaning to raise pH and pressure mounting with more appropriate materials? Has anyone pressure mounted a flat textile of this size. Helen mentioned how heavy the previous mount was.