The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection

Farewell

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:59:00 +0000

Hello everyone. Today I write with a bit of news...I will no longer be working at the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. I have very much enjoyed my time here and have been lucky to work with such a great collection. Thank you all for following along and for having such interest in the HLATC and our relocation.

Moroccan Slippers

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:28:00 +0000

HLATC 1985.14.6, Slippers (babouches), Morocco, 1975-1985

One of my most recent photography projects was a group of footwear from Morocco. This heavily decorated pair of slippers (babouches) was likely created for wear at a special occasion, such as a wedding.

Notice how the slippers don't have backs, very similar to shoes we would call "mules." These slippers were made by the Berber people, traditionally a Muslim culture. The shoes not having backs is likely to allow for easy removal upon entering the Mosque for daily prayer.

An added benefit of backless shoes is allowing for more air circulation, keeping the wearer cool in the heat of Morocco!

Technology Enhanced Learning

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:58:00 +0000

HLATC LKOPO98, String Bag (bilum), New Guinea, Early to mid 20th century.

Some of our recently added database images were taken as part of the UW Technology Enhanced Learning Project. Artifacts selected, in collaboration with faculty member Diane Sheehan, for inclusion in the project were geared towards the Design Studies course in Off-Loom Textile Construction. Photos of the selected textiles were taken by the DS Department's very own Lori Ushman and the textiles were also researched and cataloged in detail by Betsy Tuttle. The end result is a great subset of the collection for the Off Loom Textile Construction students to work with, allowing them to closely analyze the textile's structure and techniques prior to seeing the piece in person. It also has the fringe benefit of making the pieces available for everyone else as well, browse the entire set here.

Learn more about this bilum string bag from New Guinea here and read a little about the meaning behind the bilum here.

Imaging Project

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Hello and welcome back! Now that the move is over, I have been looking for other HLATC projects to share with you here. One of our big projects for the next couple of years is to work on a backlog of imaging. It is a great advantage that our temporary storage space has a separate area spacious enough to allow us to continue photographing the collection. New images, in addition to scans of previously taken slides, will allow us to bring more of our collection to you through our online digital collection. I thought you all might enjoy it if I featured some of the pieces we photograph here on the blog. Do I hear a resounding yes?

It seems fitting to begin with a piece, LPUS427, designed and created by Helen Louise Allen herself. It is an experimental weaving from the 1960s, created as a sort of sampler of different weaving techniques. Made from bast fibers, the piece has an almost rope like texture.

Worn Through

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:38:00 +0000

Recently Heather Vaughn of the blog, Worn Through: Apparel from an Academic Perspective, contacted us for a little interview. The blog's primary focus is the academic and museum worlds of dress studies and they recently have been exploring issues related to moving museum costume and textile collections. This is where we make our grand entrance! I was excited to share more information about the HLATC relocation with the Worn Through community. Please check out their blog as well as the HLATC feature. Thanks to Heather and Worn Through for the opportunity!

Now what?

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:57:00 +0000

So our first move is complete and you might be wondering...now what? Well, we have a lot of work to do before our second move! I'm certain the next move back into our brand new building in a couple of years will be here before we know it. Planning that move back into our new permanent storage location will likely be more involved since we won't have the luxury of a year of unpacking, which is about how long we had for the packing. Laying out permanent storage configurations and assigning permanent locations will also be a huge and very time intensive part of this final move project.

In the meantime, I will also be doing a lot of photography of our collection, in addition to planning our new storage and classroom spaces and a lot of curatorial catchup.

I imagine this blog space will evolve into something a little different than just a move blog until we're back in the thick of moving. So, I thought I'd ask you, our readers, what would you like to see?? I'd love your input. Feel free to comment below or email me directly at zlatanovski@wisc.edu

Move Recap #1

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:25:00 +0000

Rich Reinke and Linda Zwicker, still smiling!

Okay we are back up and running here at the HLATC. Hooray! I will get right to sharing the fun photos of our move days with you. First up, the moving of the rolled textiles.

The oversized rolls, covered in tyvek, were removed from their wooden racks and were carefully secured on the moving truck individually. Thankfully, this did not represent the majority of our rolled textiles. Most were able to be moved in groups within their storage racks. The tubes were secured onto the racks (as you've seen illustrated in earlier posts) and the full racks were inserted into custom made, covered moving carts, which were then secured on the truck.

Those carts were then moved over to our new space and the emptied into the custom built temporary racking system while waiting for the cabinets to be brought over.

Bringing the cabinets over is where things got interesting. We're not sure how the cabinets made it into our tiny storage space many years ago, but it was fairly evident that they weren't coming out through the usual door we use to access the space. The door into our storage area had a tight turn to get out and there was no chance the cabinets were going to be able to make that turn.

So once the room was entirely emptied of textiles, we came to what we'd been excitedly planning for: the day we knock the wall down. In reality, it ended up being the day the UW Physical Plant staff cuts out the door frame, which wasn't quite as exciting and dramatic, but much cleaner and less disruptive.

Our storage space had in fact been three separate rooms at some point in the building's past and those additional doorways remained in the hallways. Once the space became HLATC textile storage, those doors directly into the hallway were locked and blocked off by cabinets. It turns out, we just needed to widen one of those doorways just a little bit and the oversized cabinets could make it through.

And down the stairs it goes!

Once our metal cabinets were also carefully maneuvered out of the building and installed at the new storage space, the regular rolled textile racks were then taken out of the temporary shelving and placed back in their metal cabinets.

Mission Accomplished

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:00:00 +0000

We did it! The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection relocation has been completed. So many people worked so hard on this project and I just want to say thank you thank you thank you for everyone's help. We couldn't have done it without you.

Blueprint Fine Art Services did a beautiful job crating and boxing our oversized pieces. The force behind the relocation, C. Coakley, did a great job and were an absolute pleasure to work with. Rich Reinke, Coakley's on-site leader for our move, was integral to the relocation going as smoothly as it did and he without a doubt deserves a round of applause. Particularly for maintaining a positive attitude for weeks on end!

I suppose I should also say thanks to mother nature for limiting the blizzards to non-move days. You've got to love these midwestern winters!

I will have many more photos of the move process as well as our new spaces just as soon as I find the box I packed the flash card reader into...

Things are movin'

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:38:00 +0000

Hello! Wow, has it really been almost a month since my last post? My apologies. As you might guess, things have gotten really busy around here. December 11th officially kicked off the HLATC move and we've made some amazing progress. I will have some great updates (with photos!) to share with you all very soon, so please stay tuned!

In the News

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:00:00 +0000

All photos in this post by Jeff Miller

The HLATC move was recently covered in the story, A World of Textiles, a Sea of Boxes by Wisconsin Week. A big thank you to Susannah Brooks for writing the story and to Jeff Miller for the photography. Jeff came by the day we were packing the opera quilt into a box, so you can get a sense of just how large that piece really is!

Rolled Textiles

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:16:00 +0000

As you can tell from my less frequent posts, things are really getting busy around here! Prep work has begun for moving approximately 1,500 rolled textiles that are currently stored within cabinets. Here you can see Rich and Matt from C. Coakley working in storage.

The plan is to secure all of the rolled pieces onto their current storage racks and move the racks intact. First, those red plastic caps are inserted into the ends of the rods, eliminating the little bit of space between the rod and the bracket, so now it fits very snugly. Cable ties then secure the rod onto its brackets and the brackets onto the frame.

There are also "bumpers" being created from archival storage tubes cut to specific sizes. Those will be placed between the rolled textiles and the ends of the rod, eliminating any horizontal movement of the textiles. The racks will then be slid onto custom created rolling carts for transport. Once the cabinets are reinstalled into our new storage space, the racks will slide right back into their cabinets. Pretty creative, eh?

Opera quilt

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:34:00 +0000

HLATC E1242A, Opera quilt, France, 1897-1900

Intricately embroidered vignettes decorate the front of this European bedspread, which dates to the turn of the 19th century. The amazingly detailed embroidery is credited to the hands of six French nuns, who worked diligently on the piece for three years. The level of detail is so fine that a few of the embroidered women are actually wearing real beaded necklaces.

This impressively sized bedspread (10 ft x 9 ft) is called an Opera Quilt because the scenes depicted on it are from operas playing around the time the quilt was made. The six operas represented: Boheme-1896, Manon-1884, Aida-1871, Cavall Rustice-1890 (Cavalieria Rusticana), Tosca-1900, and Strategia Damore-1896. The images used for the opera 'Tosca' were copied from a series of promotional postcards printed in Italy, probably the year of the premier, 1900. It is likely the other images are also copied from similar postcards.

The quilt is said to have won first prize at the World's Fair in Paris in November of 1900. This gives us some insight into the year the piece was created, as we know that it was finished no later than 1900. Also, since the opera Tosca did not premier until the year 1900, it is likely the quilt was begun earlier and the last vignette added was of Tosca, in 1900.

Archaeological Textiles

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:58:00 +0000

WFSA3091, Chancay, Peru, 1100-1400A.D.

These incredible archaeological textiles from Peru are among the oldest pieces in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. The fragment shown above, WFSA3091, is absolutely breathtaking in person. The image has not been enhanced in any way, this is the true color of the textile. Dating to between 1100-1400A.D., this slit tapestry weave fragment was woven on a backstrap loom, likely by a member of the Chancay culture in the Central Coast area of Peru. Textiles are among the most fragile of artifacts, making it truly remarkable for pieces this old to have even survived, much less retained the vibrant colors of their natural dyes.

WFAS3091 detail

WFAS 3091 detail

WFSA1848, Peru, 1000-1476A.D.

1996.1.2, Paracas, Peru, 600B.C-200A.D.

WFSA3094, Chancay, Peru, 1000-1476A.D.

In the eighties

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:37:00 +0000

If only I was talking about the weather. Fall has descended here in the Midwest, which means it is 50 degrees and raining. It also means we have almost arrived at our big move date! The collection is now eighty percent packed. EIGHTY!! This is great news. And secretly (or not so secretly, since I'm posting it on a blog) we are actually further ahead than the numbers indicate. You might remember from my previous post that we have a significant number of rolled textiles that will not be boxed and therefore aren't being counted in our tallies. So, our progress is actually closer to 90%. Add in the handful of pieces that we are having custom boxes and/or crates built for by fine arts shippers and my goodness we're just about done! Ofcourse, it is always that last 10% that seems to take the longest, so we're not claiming victory just yet.

Here you can see Tara working with some of the rolled textiles that will actually be boxed. We are sorting them by size to make securing them within a box a little easier.

Supplies & Resources

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:06:00 +0000

Packing 13,000 textiles takes A LOT of supplies. To date we have used hundreds and hundreds of archival boxes in addition to thousands of sheets of acid free tissue. Tyvek, muslin, twill tape, coroplast, ethafoam, and many others have also made appearances in this packing show. Gaylord Brothers, an archival materials supplier, has been our source for all of our packing materials. If you ever need a large quantity of supplies, I highly recommend contacting their bids department. They eliminated the need to shop around for the best price on every single supply and having a great account representative has made the ordering process a breeze. Less time spent on purchasing leaves me more time to spend on packing and that's a very good thing. Many thanks to Michelle from Gaylord!

Recently, I searched for resources discussing appropriate materials to be used when packing artifacts, so I could share them with members of our move team. This online publication from the Canadian Conservation Institute is really great as is this list of materials from PACIN: the Packing, Art Handling, and Crating Information Network.

Bonnie Cashin Pink Leather Coat

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:35:00 +0000

While packing some of our costume collection this past week, Laura noticed some debris in the pocket of the piece she was working with. Upon further inspection, we discovered it was tobacco left behind by the previous owner/wearer. The tobacco had likely been in the pocket for over 30 years! The piece was isolated from the Collection while we inspected it for any signs of insect infestation. After determining that there were no insects, the tobacco and a few scraps of cigarette packaging were cleaned off of the piece.

The coat, HLATC BCC27, is a pink leather Bonnie Cashin design created in collaboration with Philip Sills. Bonnie was an American designer, well known for her work for Coach, where she introduced the metal fasteners which you often associate with Coach products. You can see examples of the metal hardware she is so well known for on this jacket, which dates to the 1970s. Learn a little more about Bonnie in this great post on the FIDM museum blog.

Hattie Carnegie Hat

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:20:00 +0000

HLATC 1991.22.8
How does one store a feather hat? In this case, the hat, HLATC 1991.22.8, is a 1950s hat from milliner and fashion designer Hattie Carnegie. The feathered brim makes storing the hat especially problematic.

This hat is often chosen by our 3D patternmaking class for analysis of its form and construction. Considering its relatively frequent handling, we wanted to create a storage method that would allow us to pull the hat from its storage cabinet and display it, all without having to actually touch the piece. We museum people love that sort of thing.

Tara Genske was up for this challenge and the hat become her project. Instead of ordering a custom sized box for this piece, she worked a little magic on an existing one. Since the box needed to be extra deep, Tara extended the height of the sides with pieces of archival board.

The next obstacle was what the hat would sit on. It needed to be elevated high enough to keep the feathers from touching anything, but not so high that it was unstable. Using muslin and blocks of ethafoam Tara constructed a hat stand which was attached to a piece of coroplast board cut to the size of the box bottom.

One layer of coroplast board ended up not being sturdy enough for the weight of the piece, so she used two with a another piece of sturdier board sandwiched in the middle. Tara finished off the coroplast platform by threading loops through each side for handles.

Now when the piece needs to be displayed for a class, we simply use the handles to pull the entire tray out of the box, never having to touch the hat. We imagine all those little feathers are thanking us.

Piña tablecloth

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:48:00 +0000

HLATC EAE1355

Handmade in a European convent in the 1950s, this tablecloth, HLATC EAE1355, shows an incredible attention to detail. While the center square is woven, the edging shows more intricate techniques such as needlelace and drawn thread work. Each of the scallops along the edges is approximately 3" in length and the patterns are infrequently repeated.

Another interesting aspect of this piece is that it is made of piña instead of the more typical linen. Piña is a natural fiber made from the leaves of pineapple plants. It is most commonly used in tropical regions such as Hawaii, the Philippines, Indonesia and India, where it is produced and more readily available.

Tjap blocks

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:09:00 +0000

HLATC 1990.4.53

A few interesting batik printing tools have come out of storage for packing this past week. The tjap (pronounced like "chop") printing blocks seen here are from Indonesia, dating between 1900-1950. These blocks are made of copper strips and wire but tjap blocks can also be made of wood.

The process of batik printing involves laying down a layer of wax as a resist to the dye that is applied next. After the wax is removed, the pattern is visible in the spaces where the wax prevented the dye from seeping into the fabric. The application of the wax can be done by hand or with tools such as these tjap blocks. The blocks are dipped in the wax and then pressed onto the fabric. The invention of the tjap revolutionized batik production by making it possible to create high quality designs and intricate patterns much faster than one could possibly do by hand.

To safely pack the pieces we cut blocks of ethafoam and created wedges to immobilize the tjap blocks within archival boxes. The ethafoam was wrapped in a type 16 Tyvek, which is a more papery Tyvek, since the edges of the blocks would have shredded any tissue paper we placed near it. There is also a layer of tyvek covered padding on the bottom of the box underneath the blocks, giving them a little extra cushioning.

HLATC 1990.4.56

Detail of HLATC 1990.4.56

HLATC 1990.3.6

HLATC 1990.3.6

Detail of HLATC 1990.3.6

End of summer days

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:32:00 +0000

Left to right: Diana, Aurelia, Tara, Laura, Maggie

As a little thank you for all their hard work this summer, the packing team went out for a treat this week. The weather outside was perfect, so we walked up to the Babcock Dairy store for some ice cream. We followed that with a leisurely stroll through the beautiful Allen Centennial Gardens. Where some of us, namely me, marveled at how much nicer the Allen's vegetable gardens are than our own.

Left to right: Laura, Aurelia, Maggie, Maya, Tara

Unbelievably, summer is just about over and today is our last day with Aurelia. Secretly, we're trying to keep our jealousy in check as she heads off to the French countryside for a year! She will be diligently working the entire time though, as she always does. We're really going to miss her and wish her the best of luck.

Visible Progress

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:31:00 +0000

This is what progress looks like. Empty cabinets! Empty drawers! Shelves are full of packed boxes. It has been a very productive summer.

One of the wildcards still being figured out is the best way to move all of our rolled textiles, which account for a little bit over 10% of our collection. We are currently researching a system where the rolled textiles can be immobilized on their rods and the entire rod (with textiles) will be lifted out of the drawers. The tricky part is finding out where to put those rods full of textiles in the interim. Ideally, they would be loaded into an enclosed unit that could be wheeled out of the building onto a moving truck, making their move smoother, safer and easier. This unit would also need to function as a temporary storage system while the cabinets are removed and reassembled in our new space. The especially tricky part? Try not using wood to build something. Creative solutions welcome.

Crazy Quilt

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:03:00 +0000

This past week, we've packed up our quilt collection, which includes crazy quilts such as this one, HLATC QPUS148. Crazy quilts, which gained popularity in the 1880s, are often pieced together from scraps of fabric belonging to family and friends, making them a lovely keepsake.

The maker of this quilt is Maude Cowen and her initials as well as her wedding date, June 19,1909, can be found embroidered on the piece. Maude used scraps of fabric from clothing belonging both to her and to her daughter, including pieces from Maude's own wedding gown. The quilt dates to 1933.

The photo below shows some of the preservation issues of crazy quilts. Using many different types of fabric means the surface of the quilt can deteriorate at dramatically different rates. Some fabrics are fairly stable, though crazy quilts tend to incorporate a lot of silk pieces, which are often very fragile. As the bottom half of the image illustrates, one scrap of the quilt can be in excellent condition while the one adjacent to it is completely deteriorated. Factors, aside from fiber content, that can affect the deterioration rates of fabric scraps are: the age of that specific scrap, any treatments the fabric may have had in the past (i.e. weighted silks) as well as what type of garment the scrap originally was a part of. For example, if the scrap was cut from a well worn silk shirt, which likely would've had been damaged by sweat and frequent washing, versus a piece of cotton fabric from a rarely worn skirt.

Chinese Garments

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:25:00 +0000

These beautiful Chinese silk items were brought out for packing this week. Both are ceremonial garments dating to the late 1800's. The detail images below show the elaborate embroidery of traditional Chinese motifs in silk thread and metal wrapped thread.

Details of HLATC 1989.1.1, Court Robe

Detail of HLATC 1997.9.1, Dragon Jacket

Team Tyvek

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:51:00 +0000

A huge thank you goes out again to the Tyvek Team (left to right): Barb Tensfeldt, Judy Sidran, Barb Borders, Chris Motl, Teddy Zehner and HLATC staffer Maggie Ordon. Our tireless volunteers have been busy cutting and sewing tyvek sleeves for all of the HLATC's oversized rolled textiles. So far, they have created over 200 sleeves. No easy task and we definitely couldn't have done it without them!

The Bell Pull

noreply@blogger.com (HLATC) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:38:00 +0000

HLATC 1999.7.4

While we are primarily a "flat" textile collection (few garments) we do have our fair share of three dimensional objects. Most are tools used in creating textiles or they are objects which a textile is a part of, such as this Victorian bell pull, HLATC 1999.7.4. It was evident as soon as this piece came out of storage that it was going to need more than tissue paper padding to pack it safely. The bell pull was a packing challenge with its delicate, beaded textile element combined with very heavy and fairly sharp edged cast bronze pieces at either end.

To protect the textile from the metal, our first step was to pad out the spaces between the bronze ends and the textile with pieces of ethafoam wrapped in tissue. We used the ethafoam instead of just straight tissue pillows because the heavy, sharp edges would have torn through just tissue.

Next, we needed to immobilize the heavy bronze ends. This was done by placing the entire piece onto a piece of coroplast which had been cut to the exact size of the box it was to fit into. Slits had been cut in predetermind spots allowing us to thread cotton twill tape through them. A trusty paperclip worked beautifully for threading the twill tape through the slits.

The cotton twill tape was used to tie down the bronze ends, securing them to the board.

A layer of padding beneath the entire piece and a layer of padding covering it were all tied into place and voila! Our immobilized bell pull is ready for its box.