Caring For Textiles finds the delicate balance between original work and restoration In 1977, filmmakers Allie Light and Irving Saraf released the documentary Possum Trot: The Life and Work of Calvin Black with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It’s a treasure and a treat; take a few minutes and watch it. In it, you’ll […]
Preserving The Clothing of Diplomacy
Celebrating French/American Relations Through These and Other Objects in the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in the Hôtel Rothschild Collaborative blog by Elizabeth Wise, Kaitlyn Munro, Katherine Hill McIntyre, Julia BrennanAll images are courtesy of Caring for Textiles unless otherwise noted. The Lights that Guide Us: A Celebration of Hôtel Rothschild et son Jardin Pontalba & the […]
Through the Onlooking Glass: A View to Open Conservation
The goal of open conservation labs is to “connect with art, science, world cultures, and history in ways that engage and delight,”
The “Star-Spangled Banner” of Frederick Maryland: Part One
By Kaitlyn Munro Oh say, can you see” this remarkable flag? I think sometimes people tend to think of flags as ordinary textiles in the sense that we see them everywhere; outside office buildings, schools, homes etc. Though they remain symbolically powerful, we think of them as universally alike. When a flag tells an interesting […]
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum Launches New, Moving Exhibition Of Victims’ Clothes
On Monday, December 27, 2021, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum launched a new, moving exhibition of victims’ clothes—Remembering S-21 Victims through their Clothes: Textiles Preservation at Tuol Sleng Museum. The exhibition is the culmination of four years of focused conservation triage, treatment, and training in order to preserve the clothing and textile […]
Textiles on the Range
By Julia M Brennan American quilts are truly a local art form and very much alive. In the little Western Slope Colorado town of Palisade (population 2,700) which is famous for its peaches, I found a quilt maker who has been creating rag rugs and quilts for the last 50+ years. Even now with limited […]
Ladies, Mothers, Daughters: Let’s go Vote!
A First Woman Voter: Legare O’Bear by Julia M Brennan One of my most favorite jobs as a textile conservator is surveying massive collections. The work is slow and meticulous, and I never know what I’ll find. So, today, I want to share this story that reveals how a textile led me to a remarkable […]
Puppet Masters: Conservation in Miniature
In the first partnership of its kind, I led the The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles in Bangkok and the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Museum in Taipei for a puppet textile conservation training workshop. In the lively one-week session, conservators Nuchada Piranprasankit and Yaowalak Bunnag, from the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, and I trained staff […]
Let’s Hear it for the Boys #3: The All-American Installment
The final post in Julia’s three-part series dedicated to the gentleman. If you missed my first two posts on ‘man-centric’ textiles (or if you just loved them so much and you want to reread) – you can find the first post here, and the second post can be found here. Over the years, Caring for Textiles has […]
The Technological Significance of Textiles
Today I’m thrilled to share with you an amazing article by critically acclaimed author Virginia Postrel. An exploration of the technological significance of textiles, Virginia examines fabric’s cultural importance – whether buried in antiquity, hidden in our language, or glamorized in glossy periodicals. It’s a fascinating read that is sure to leave your head spinning! […]
