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WINTER 2013
Members’ MagazineART • TRADITION • CULTURE • INNOVATION
106223_magazine.indd 1 11/13/12 2:17 AM
2 THE TEXTILE MUSEUM
FEATURE
In addition to the museum on GW’s
Foggy Bottom campus, The Textile Museum
is gaining a home for the collections at the
university's satellite campus in Ashburn,
Va. This new facility will have many
advantages—greater temperature and
humidity control, centralized storage, better
fl ow for incoming objects to be processed,
and more generally, a situation that will allow
greater access to the many beautiful, rare,
and fascinating objects in the collections. But
before The TM can take full advantage of the
new facility, the collections have to move.
Moving collections safely is a process that
can take years, but The TM is working on a
timeline of about twenty months. In order
to make this possible, it will take creative
thinking to streamline the process. Part of
that thinking is evident in the way that the
Collections Management and Conservation
Departments, specifi cally Chief Conservator
Esther Méthé and Assistant Registrar
Tessa Sabol, have undertaken a complete
survey of the 19,000 objects in The Textile
Museum’s collections. Since January 2012,
they have moved from room to room, using
a custom database built by Sabol to create a
picture of the current status, requirements
for the move, and the future needs of the
collections.
This piece, resting on a board and inside an envelope, might slip during transport. It is logged in the survey as needing to be rehoused, and that should be placed in a standard-size passive mat.
Once the rehousing process is done, the object will be in a mat like the ones above —the piece is layered in tissue, and held in place by the � aps of the mat—and placed in a box.
Inch By InchA basic part of the survey is for
collections management staff to confi rm
the exact locations of all the objects, so that
every piece can be tracked at any phase:
within The TM, to the trucks, and into the
new space. Any confusion in tracking objects
as they are relocated could result in their
misplacement, and render them inaccessable
for years to come.
The assessment of the collections by
conservation staff ensures that objects will
be properly secured for transport and safely
moved. A large portion of the collection is
rolled objects, such as rugs and larger fl at
pieces, which are mostly safe to move as-is.
It is the smaller, fl at textiles that need to
be addressed —individually protected, and
placed in containers for transport.
For the last six years conservation has
been working on a standardized storage
system for objects. This includes acid-free
boxes, which will be used for the move as
objects are removed from the oversized
drawer units (which are too big to fi t through
the doors), as well as for future storage.
The boxes also off er some buff ering against
sudden environmental change, which can be
a real concern, especially when objects are
in transit. “We've proven with environmental
data that these boxes buff er objects against
fl uctuations, which can be harmful," said
Sabol. "Although we are moving to a place
that will have a stable environment, should
we suff er a power outage, for example,
the immediate spike in temperature and
humidity won't aff ect the objects.”
Within any given box or drawer, each
individual object is stored in a variety of
ways. Currently, some are on boards, or in a
muslin envelope, or between layers of tissue.
If the current housing of the object is found
unsafe for travel, it will be rehoused, and for
smaller fl at textiles, much of the time that
means placing it on a passive mat.
Passive mats are made of an acid-free
board with hinged fl aps. The textile rests
between layers of tissue paper, and the fl aps
hold the tissue in place without placing
weight on the object itself. This method is
preferred by conservation as it provides ease
of handling, safe access to the textile, and
suffi cient protection (see photo below).
This is the second part of conservation's
standardized storage. As Sabol explained,
“Conservation has designed a way of
making standard sizes [of mats] for the
standard boxes that we use in storage, so
mats fi t snugly in the box and don’t shift in
transit.” Within a box, mats can be made to
fi t the full box, halves, quarters, etc. There
Above: Intern Amberly Meli and Esther Méthé surveying an object, photo by Claire Marie Blaustein.; Objects in passive mats, photo by Esther Méthé.
Moving The Textile Museum Collections
106223_magazine.indd 2 11/21/12 9:16 AM
WINTER 2013 MEMBERS’ MAGAZINE 3
FEATURE
The survey is an important part of the museum's move, and it is also a chance to look at some of the treasures of The TM collection. For regular updates on what the survey is looking at, visit The TM on tumblr:
textile-museum.tumblr.com
is a maximum size of object for each mat
confi guration, so it is simpler to determine
what size mat an object needs.
In Sabol’s database there are menus
enumerating all the possible variations
for rehousing—every size of standard mat,
possibilities for custom storage, and more. So
by searching the database, staff can see that
out of the total number of objects surveyed
(on this particular day, 11,076), how many of
those need standard-sized (1,676) or custom-
sized (117) mats. Further, and important
to the time-consuming construction of the
mats, Sabol can break down exactly how
many of each standard size of mat is needed,
allowing staff to calculate material usage and
optimize board cutting, reducing expensive
waste.
Mat materials can be calculated in
advance, but the production of mats will
have to wait until space is available. The
twenty-one current storage rooms at the S
Street location are small, with some having
originally been closets and bathrooms, and
none have suffi cient space to accommodate all
the additional mats and boxes.
“Once Dragons, Nagas, and Creatures of
the Deep closes [in January], that space will
be converted into rehousing central,” said
Sabol. As other exhibitions close, those
spaces will also be used to prepare for the
move, both for rehousing the objects and
then for storage, as the rehoused objects
begin to take up more space. Méthé used
archeological fragments as an example:
“Multiple fragments fi t in a box, layered
in tissue…once they get mats, it's going
to increase from one box to four boxes.”
Multiply that growth by the number of pieces
being rehoused, and it is clear why every
space is needed.
Expecting this kind of growth also allows
Méthé to estimate the kind of storage that is
required in the new facilities, which is one
example of how the survey is not just about
the current state of the objects, or even just
the move. It is a mechanism for looking at
what the collections need far into the future.
The future needs of the object are the last
piece of survey data collected. The shortened
timeline means that textiles that could
use additional conservation, but are secure
enough to move, have to be of lower priority
than objects that could be damaged during
transport. When the collection is settled in
the new space, work can begin on conserving
these objects, rather than a time consuming
re-assessment of the collections.
Having such complete data is not only
valuable for knowing which objects need
care, but also in raising the funds needed to
pay for that care. “For each group of objects,
we now know how much material we will
need [to rehouse them], how much it will
cost, how many people we need, and we
can match that to an appropriate grant,"
explained Sabol. "The survey is very of the
moment now, but….we will hold on to this
database, and use it as a tool to plan projects
for the next decade.”
Claire Marie Blaustein, Communications
and Social Media Associate
Right, top to bottom: Carpet, Iran, Kiman, 17th century. TM R33.6.11. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1926. Photo by Irina Rubenstein; Band, India, 18th century. TM 6.49. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers. Photo by Katy Clune; Hat, Peru, Tiahuanaco culture, 700-1000. TM 91.744. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1957. Photo by Claire Marie Blaustein; Mantle fragment, Peru, Ica Valley, Ocucaje. TM 91.906.Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1957. Photo by Katy Clune. Background photo: Measuring a fragment painted in the Chavin (one of the oldest cultures in Peru) style during the survey. Photo by Claire Marie Blaustein.
HELP OUR COLLECTIONS MOVE SAFELYArchival materials for matmaking are extremely expensive, and the costs of moving the collections are the responsibility of The Textile Museum. To make a donation and support the museum’s collections care and other work, turn the page for information about the Annual Fund.
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