WINTER 2013

Members’ MagazineART • TRADITION • CULTURE • INNOVATION

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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

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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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