On Friday, May 27th, 2016, Museum Textile Services will open it's doors for visitors between 4 and 7 PM. Our new studio, which we moved to last October, will be decked out with many of our current projects, as well as our Andover Figures museum manikins. We will have free conservation handouts, and archival boxes for sale. Refreshments will be served. If you would like to attend the MTS Open house, please RSVP to [email protected]. Our address is unpublished, so you must RSVP for the current location in Andover, Massachusetts. Sorry, the studio located on the second floor and is not handicapped accessible. If you would like to visit for a textile consultation, please email [email protected] or call us at 978-474-9200 to schedule an appointment.
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As a Radar Observer, Brown flew 14 combat missions over the Philippines in a specially equipped B-24 bomber, looking for enemy radar stations. Brown commanded the radar countermeasures for six bomb groups under the Fifth Bomber Command. 1st Lt. Brown was honorably discharged on February 27, 1946. He passed away in 1991 and is interred in Ann Arbor, Michigan. How this flag originally came to be owned by Lt. Brown we may never know. But this flag represents two men from two different worlds, who sacrificed for the preservation of those worlds. This is especially poignant in light of evidence that the flag is battle damaged. When folded small enough to fit into a pocket, the 24 small holes all line up, as if they were made at the same moment from a bullet or other projectile. Museum Textile Services has had the honor of conserving four of these historic artifacts, one from a museum and three from private citizens. Two of the flags were made of silk, one of cotton, and one of rayon. These flags represent the men who carried them in the larger historical landscape of World War Two and were conserved to preserve the legacies of the two men fighting from different sides of the world, for their countries.
The tails are in fairly good condition, aside from degrading silk in the jacket lining and a large tear in the seat of the pants caused by Matt's son's senior prom antics. MTS will first stabilize the tear and then the suit will be dry cleaned. A new button will be constructed to match a missing silk-covered suit button. The suit will be packed in an archival box and safely stored so that future generations will be able to wear John Brown Lennon's tails. Museum Textile Services recently conserved a valance made by author, artist, and lay preacher Sarah Elizabeth (Harper) Monmouth (1829-1887), whose name is synonymous among Canterbury, New Hampshire, historians with the phenomenon of the “Worsted Church.” One of literally dozens of decorative textiles made by Monmouth between 1871 and 1879, this eight-foot-long valence is composed of brushed cotton twill flannel and paper cut outs from printed wallpaper. The effect from just one of these textiles is a bit dizzying and confusing to the eye, so an entire church full of Monmouth's textiles must have been a true Victorian work of art.
The valance was lightly pressed with a warm iron through muslin on the front, and through damp muslin on the back, in an attempt to correct planar distortions and paper folds. The lightest creases released easily, while deep creases around the worst tide-lines had a strong memory. It was while pressing the valance that we detected an odor of urine, so we decided to fumigated the valance with Chlorine Dioxide to reduce the smell. After fumigation, the worst areas of lifting paper were readhered back to the canvas using BEVA 371 film. A strip of BEVA was placed behind the area that needed to be readhered, and the shape of the wallpaper cutout was carefully traced onto the paper backing of the adhesive film. The custom-cut adhesive shape was then tacked to the underside of the wallpaper, and finally adhered to the cotton fabric using a tacking iron at low heat. The final treatment was to repair several holes in the white fabric with cotton underlays and nylon net overlays. After conservation, the valance was rolled on an archival storage tube. We were very excited to have the opportunity to conserve this truly unique object. It was a joy to learn more about Sarah E. Monmouth, who is an inspiration to anyone who has ever found solace and healing in the art of handicrafts.
Summer 2015 saw Museum Textile Services conservator Cara Jordan dedicating most of her time to conserving nine Masonic aprons from the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum in nearby Lexington, MA. More recently, Camille Myers Breeze spent a snowy February day in the museum's work room prepping an additional twenty-four aprons for the upcoming exhibit “The Badge of a Freemason: Masonic Aprons from the Collection,” opening on March 19, 2016. The Scottish Rite Museum, formerly the National Heritage Museum, is one of our longest-standing partnerships, spanning sixteen years and over 100 textiles conserved.
The condition of the aprons treated by Museum Textile Services varied from poor to good, but all of them had reasonable display potential. Many were creased from storage and their ties were knotted, twisted, and torn. Twenty-four aprons needed only contact humidification or pressing, which was done on-site at the Scottish Rite Museum. Nine aprons were conserved at the MTS studio due to their extensive conservation needs. First, Cara Jordan humidified each in a Gore-Tex chamber, which helped to deacidify and rehydrate the fibers, release some of the creasing. Leather aprons were blocked with weights and magnets, while silk and cotton aprons could withstand a light pressing through muslin to release more stubborn creases. Apron ties posed additional challenges to conservators. Some silk ribbon had become highly deteriorated where formerly tied, requiring an adhesive lining to prevent them from crumbling. Where possible, Cara and Camille carefully untied and ironed the ties flat before backing them in key areas with thin silk crepeline coated in BEVA archival adhesive film. The crepeline backing will help to prevent further loss of silk and allow the aprons to be safely displayed and studied.
We are excited to see the aprons on display in “The Badge of a Freemason: Masonic Aprons from the Collection,” at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library.
In order to center the mounted embroidery into the frame, someone had taped it to the back of the gold window mat. MTS conservator Cara Jordan was able to be remove most of the tape mechanically with limited loss of silk. Small areas of tape that were more difficult to remove were humidified, allowing Cara eventually to lift the tape from the silk. In order to remount the embroidery, the orange lacing had to be removed. The thread was cut in a few key spots, after which it was easily unlaced from the silk ground. The orange thread was too weak to reuse, so it was returned to the client. To our surprise, the back corners and an area of deterioration on the front had been glued to the board. Cara successfully released these adhered areas with acetone.
We hope that you are as excited to see this embroidery at the McMullen as we are!
The signatures “BO’BRIEN” and “Lily YEATS” are stitched at the bottom corners of the embroidery. Brigid O'Brien is credited as the designer and Lily Yeats was the maker. Yeats had been involved in the Arts and Crafts movement for many years by the time she made this embroidery. She studied embroidery under May Morris, daughter of William Morris, starting in 1888. In 1902 Lily, along with her sister Elizabeth and friend Evelyn Gleeson, founded the Dun Emer guild in Dublin. Dun Emer focused primarily on tapestry and carpet making. In 1908, the group separated and Lily and her sister founded Cuala Industries which ran a printing press and an embroidery workshop. The embroidery that MTS conserved was created in the Cuala embroidery workshop around 1915.
The Boston College embroidery has several condition issues, including fading due to light exposure, an area of unidirectional loss to the right of the figures, and gummy adhesive tape holding the back of the mounted textile to an acidic paper mat. Stay tuned for our follow-up blog on the textile conservation treatment by Cara Jordan.
Special Workshop: Dating and Identifying 20th-Century American Military UniformsMilitary uniforms are found in almost every museum collection across the country, from small house museums to street-side attractions and air museums. These uniforms are sourced from aging veterans, the descendants of service men and women, and civically minded "pickers." Many families, curators, collections specialists do not know how to identify and give context to the uniforms in their collections, so these garments end up unseen and their stories unheard.
This class is open to museum staff and volunteers, private collectors, and descendants who are seeking to learn the stories that uniforms can tell. Participants can bring one uniform of interest for class exercises. Archival storage boxes and manikins are available for purchase. Attendees are invited to join the instructors after the workshop to share stories and refreshments at a restaurant to be named later. Registration InformationMonday, March 14, 2016 9:30 am – 4:30 pm Museum Textile Services, Andover, MA 01810 Course fee (includes lunch): $50 Limited to 30 participants Click here for the full agenda and registration form Instructors
A lovely, richly colored firescreen has just been conserved at Museum Textile Services, and is a perfect seasonal subject for the MTS Blog as we head into the cold weather. In the 18th and 19th centuries, fireplaces were used constantly to warm the house, bringing bright, hot, roaring fires in the long, dark New England winter. A firescreen protected the faces--and sometimes voluminous clothing--of those sidling up to the fire from its high heat and sparks. For wealthy families, these screens also became lavish decorative objects, stitched and designed with care by the women of the family. This firescreen was made by Abigail Brooks Adams and is part of the collection of the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts. The Adams family produced two presidential couples, John and Abigail Smith and their son and daughter-in-law John Quincy and Louisa Johnson. The third generation of Adams, Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks were also a political power couple, and it was Abigail Brooks Adams who made this beautiful firescreen. You may recall that in 2013 MTS replicated a set of silk bed hangings purchased in France by Abigail and Charles, which we documented in a series of blogs.
From the letters and diaries left behind, it appears the relationship between Abigail and Charles was full of care, affection, and mutual respect. The entry in Charles’ diary from their wedding day on Thursday, September 3rd, 1829, is particularly sweet and humorous-–he clearly had eyes for no one but his Abby. To conserve the firescreen, we first carefully remove the deteriorated watered-silk lining and gently cleaned all elements with a HEPA micro-vacuum. The beads received additional cleansing using swabs and saliva. We were lucky to find a very good match with modern glass beads, which we stitched into place and secured the neighboring thread ends. A few missing crewel stitches were likewise replaced with modern wool yarns. The lining was encapsulated in magenta nylon net and then we stitched it back in place using cotton thread. We were then able to reuse the ribbon with hook-eyes that the Adams National Historical Park is using to suspend the firescreen from an ornamental brass T-bar. Preserving the Abigail Adams firescreen has a nice historical echo, paying homage to this beautiful physical artifact left by a woman who herself worked for historical preservation.
The tenth biennial North American Textile Conservation Conference, Material in Motion, took place in New York City from November 16th through 20th, 2015. Camille, Cara and Morgan attended the two days of presentations, visit with several hundred international textile conservators, and enjoyed three nights of events around the city. The opening reception took place at the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center, located in the 1907 Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House designed by Cass Gilbert. Attendees listened to a key-note presentation by transdisciplinary artist Laura Anderson Barbata, who then regaled us with an amazing, high-energy stilt-walking performance with the Brooklyn Jumbies. Their costumes and dances are the epitome of material in motion.
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