Art and Materials Conservation Commons^™

Retreating From Wax: Investigation And Re-­‐Treatment Of A Painting Exhibiting Strange Surface Effects, Anne D. Schaffer

Art Conservation Master's Projects

Surface hazing occurring on a recently treated painting called into question the methods used in its treatment, and offered a rare opportunity for research, analysis, and reflection on the field of paintings conservation. Portrait of Millard Fillmore was treated in 1996 and given a rather interventive and innovative treatment that utilized a great deal of wax to re-.‐line the canvas and to fill losses. The canvas was lined to fiberglass and backed with Mylar, and a complex varnish schema was used: three varnishes were applied, all of which were soluble in low polar solvents. Suspecting that any …

Conservation Treatment And Study Of An American Double Portrait From The 1830s, Christine P. Romano

Art Conservation Master's Projects

This paper presents the material investigation and conservation treatment of an unattributed naïve double portrait painting from the 1830s. Using imaging and analytical techniques, including ultraviolet and infrared imaging, x-radiography, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF), Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (PyGC/MS), and cross-sectional analysis, the materials and painting methods used by the artist are explored. The goal of this study was to gain an understanding of the materials that would have been available to an artist of limited training, and to develop a conservation treatment sympathetic with the age and condition of the painting. Findings include the …

Not Quite Black And White: An Investigation And Treatment Of A Louise Nevelson Collage, Michal Mikesell

Art Conservation Master's Projects

A severely damaged collage dated 1974 by the American sculptor, Louise Nevelson, was treated at the SUNY Buffalo State Art Conservation Department with the goal of restoring it to an exhibitable condition. A brief survey of other Nevelson collages from a similar time period in the artist’s career was conducted to inform the treatment process and provide definitions for an exhibitable condition of the treated collage. Material analysis and characterization provided information about the paper, dyes and adhesives present in the collage, which influenced the treatment course and recommendations for long-term care and display. Treatment consisted of separating the collage …

Decorating With Dna: Analysis And Treatment Of A Victorian-Era Hairwork Wreath, Janelle Batkin-Hall

Art Conservation Master's Projects

A framed hairwork wreath in the style of mourning art, and belonging to the author, was initially investigated through a Buffalo State College Independent Research Project (CNS-615) to identify and characterize the fabrication materials used in its construction. Thirty-one material samples were collected and analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM), X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF), and X-radiography. Fabrication materials include human hair; textiles are cotton, silk, cuprammonium rayon, and possibly polyester Dacron; dyes contain aluminum, iron, tin, and copper mordants; colorants and pigments are zinc, copper, arsenic, manganese, iron, and smalt. As part of a Senior Specialization …

The On-Site Analytical Study, Photographic Documentation, And Conservation Treatment Of An Egyptian New Kingdom Child Coffin, Nicole Peters

Art Conservation Master's Projects

The caveats associated with archaeological conservation often include the provision of optimal photographic documentation techniques and the presence of analytical equipment and expertise required for in-depth material analyses on site. These tools can influence and inform an intensive conservation treatment in a limited period of time. A team of five conservators and specialists were assembled to aid in the on-site conservation treatment of an Amarna Period decorated child coffin. During which time, complete photographic documentation, wood species identification, plaster composition analysis, X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry, polarized light microscopy, and conservation treatment commenced. Collaborative research and examination resulted in a holistic and …

Technical Study And Conservation Treatment Of A 17th Century Panel Painting Attributed To The Circle Of Orazio Gentileschi: Madonna And Child With Two Angels, Julie Ribits

Art Conservation Master's Projects

This specialization project encompasses the technical study and conservation treatment of an early 17th century Italian oil on wood panel painting loosely attributed to the Circle of Orazio Gentileschi: Madonna and Child with Two Angels. This painting previously had only a small amount of related information with regards to provenance and attribution, and the goals of this technical study and treatment were to determine a possible date of manufacture as well as to learn more about the artist’s materials and techniques in the hopes of establishing a better timeline of production. X-Ray Fluorescence, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared …

Prints After Drawings -The Treatment Of Five Prints, Michiko Adachi

Art Conservation Master's Projects

This project researched the printing techniques used in prints after drawings while treating five prints after drawings. The five prints after drawings were from Italy, France and England, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. The different tonal techniques used in the prints as well as the historical background of each print were examined.

Blanket Statements, Issue 124, Summer 2016

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 124, Summer 2016

Mr. Jonathan P. Berger: Gentle Conflations, Jonathan Patrick Berger, Mr. Jonathan P. Berger

Graduate School of Art Theses

Sentimentality is a critical aspect of human existence because it is human-natural, agendered, and provides ground for gentle conflation of the domestic sphere and the roles within it. As an artist, I am able to utilize sentimentality to open possibilities and welcome, instead of molest, viewers into contemplation with the assumed norms of domesticity.

With its origins founded in the Age of Enlightenment, sentimentality was a praiseworthy endeavor, one based on intelligence and contemplation. I define sentimentality as the emotional intellect’s way of encoding or decoding the soft emotions surrounding and within objects, people, times or ideas. Soft emotions are …

Thrills, Spills, And Unacknowledgments, Caitlin Aasen

Graduate School of Art Theses

Through the use of stains, resulting from a process of water and pigments, I showcase the metaphorical importance of stains within our lives. Nature, the everyday, and our bodies have always been an inspiration to my process. Instances such as looking through car windows at the colors rushing past, becoming one, as I travel 60 miles per hour. These moments of moving colors that blur the line between object and pigment are where I find inspiration formally and conceptually. These instances of blurs happen constantly in our lives. Not just because we are moving so fast, but because we can …

Full Issue, The Anthology

The Anthology

This is the entirety of the 2015 Winthrop Anthology issue.

Promoting Conservation: An Investigation And Treatment Of Seneca-Iroquois Moccasins, Nicole Passerotti

Art Conservation Master's Projects

In 2016 there are currently 566 federally recognized American Indian Tribes. Of these hundreds of tribes only a small portion operate tribal archives, libraries and/or museums. An even small percentage of these tribes are able to address conservation and preservation needs of their collections. The Seneca Iroquois National Museum (SINM) located in Salamanca, NY is currently building a new Cultural Center to help promote, protect, and safeguard their historical artifacts. By strengthening ties to the SUNY Buffalo State College Art Conservation Department in Buffalo, NY the caretakers at SINM will have access to current preservation information, state of the art …

Interview Panel With Adam Erby, Emilie Johnson, And Teresa Teixeira, Adam Erby, Emilie Johnson, Teresa Teixeira

Madison Historical Review

No abstract provided.

The Paragon Concept, Dakota Burwell

The Anthology

Artwork

Blanket Statements, Issue 123, Spring 2016

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 123, Spring 2016

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 28:1 — Spring 2016, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America: Newsletters

Letter from the Editor

Volunteer Opportunity: TSA Is Looking for a New Proceedings Editor

Letter from the President

Textiles Close Up Report: Art of the Zo: Textiles from Myanmar, India, and Bangladesh, Chin Weaving at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

R. L. Shep Ethnic Textile Book Award 2015 Nominees

Ossabaw Island, Indigo, and Sea Island Cotton: Two Ways to See a Georgia Barrier Island

Peer-Review Process Yields Range of Exciting Exhibitions for Biennial Symposium

Book Reviews:
Symbols of Power: Luxury Items from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st Century
Textiles of the Banjara: Cloth and Culture of a Wandering Tribe
The Handbook …

Review Of Designing Identity: The Power Of Textiles In Late Antiquity. Edited By Thelma K. Thomas, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Designing Identity: The Power of Textiles in Late Antiquity. Edited by Thelma K. Thomas, with contributions by Jennifer L. Ball, Edward Bleiberg, Kathrin Colburn, Helen C. Evans, Christine Kondoleon, Brandie Ratliff, Thelma K. Thomas, Elizabeth D. Williams. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, 2016. 152 p. ISBN: 978-0691169422

This beautifully illustrated book, edited by textile historian Thelma K. Thomas, Associate Professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, advances scholarship on textiles of Late Antiquity with interpretive essays by curators, conservators, and historians. As a scholarly contribution offering …

Author Guidelines: Biennial Symposium 2016 Proceedings

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Instructions for submission to the biennial symposium proceedings

Lasting Impressions: Indian Block-Prints And Global Trade, Eiluned Edwards

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

"Above the proficiency in making cotton textiles, India’s crowning textile accomplishment was the patterning of this cloth with brilliant fast dyes."

Textiles are among India’s most successful exports and the enduring popularity of block printed cloth has sustained a centuries-old craft that survives and even thrives in the digital age. Block prints have been integral to the dress codes of the subcontinent as well as serving domestic and ritual functions. (figs. 1-2) They were also embedded in the material culture of diverse nations through centuries of international trade. So what has enabled their longevity and global reach? This paper explores …

Exploring Color Interactions Illuminated In Goldwork Embroidery, Katherine Diuguid

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Unexpected things happen when you mix colored threads with metal threads in embroidery--the metals cast their reflections onto the threads, changing the perception of the colors to the viewer. The expectation is for the metal to reflect the light. The excitement lies in the unpredictable nature of how the reflections affect the perception of the surrounding colors and how these perceived colors change as the metals age. Color theory principles are seen in their extremes when mixed with the metal threads. The natural reaction when approaching gold is to assume it is a yellow, making purple its complement according to …

Sacred Currency: The Value Of Textile In Colonial Andean Painting, Gaby Greenlee

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this 18th century colonial Andean image painted in the former Inka capital of Cuzco, Peru, a wreath of flowers encircles a small female figure sitting upon a richly textured seat (Figure 1). She wears clothing that connotes distinction; her features and gestures are as delicate as her garments yet her eyes are fixed and discerning. Our eyes are drawn to her eyes. What does she see? What is her role? We also turn these questions on ourselves: what do we know about this figure that gives the painting meaning? We tend to interpret the work through her identity.

However, …

On Textile Fragments Found At Karadong, A 3rd To Early 4th Century Oasis In The Taklamakan Desert (Xinjiang, China), Sophie Desrosiers, Corinne Debaine-Francfort

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In 1993 and 1994, the Sino-French archeological mission in Xinjiang led by Abdurassul Idriss and Corinne Debaine-Francfort,1 excavated the site at Karadong in the heart of the Takalamakan desert, on a former delta of the Keriya River, whose headwaters are in the Kunlun Mountains at the Tibetan border, and which vanishes in the desert sands. At one time, it continued north all the way to the Tarim River, thus forming a communication link with the Kucha region. Older deltas visible on satellite images have been explored and two related archeological sites have been consecutively excavated to the northwest of Karadong: …

Mexican Ikat And Transatlantic Trade, Alejandro B. De Avila

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The earliest text known so far in the Americas was engraved on a potsherd found in Chiapa de Corzo in southern Mexico that has been dated to around 300 years before our era. The script appears to represent a language in the Mixe-Zoquean family (which developed historically along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec), and it has been proposed that the inscription on the clay reads as follows: “The pleated cloth got dyed. The thing that is made of pleated cloth has been cut.”1 If this interpretation holds true, the text must refer to a textile that was patterned by means of …

America’S Indigo Obsession: From Colonial Plantations To Contemporary Diy Ethos, Sonja Dahl

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This research project is, as the title implies, quite broad. It has grown from stories shared generously with me by many of indigo’s proponents today, as well as the stories compiled in the historical and ethnographic research of scholars such as Andrea Feeser1 and Jenny Balfour Paul.2 This paper was originally written for oration, and what I offer here is a transcript of this talk as performed at the Textile Society of America’s 2016 symposium, Land, Labor and the Port in Savannah, GA, October 2016. It is an open reflection on some of the stories and broader themes I’ve encountered …

New Tools In The Box: Traditional Methods, Contemporary Materials And New Techniques On The Atlantic Coast A Round Table Discussion, Memory Holloway, Laurie Carlson Steger

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported on the new interest in fiber arts, with the claim that this interest has seen a revival in the hands of contemporary artists exploring bold new forms. “The emergence of fiber art,” states Glenn Adamson, director of New York’s Museum of Art and Design, “is not just the reappraisal of an historic textile movement, rather a much more broad-based interest.”1 The fiber artists on this roundtable addressed two topics related to this broad-based interest, one on formal experimentation, the other on their geographic placement as artists on the Atlantic coast, particularly in and around …

Field To Bag, Bag To Field: Feedbag Production And Distribution In Rural America, Heather R. Buechler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

sack- noun a large bag made of a strong material such as burlap, thick paper, or plastic, used for storing and carrying goods.[English Oxford Living Dictionaries.com,]

A popular object among collectors of agricultural ephemera, the printed agricultural sack—both textile and paper—used for the distribution of agricultural goods, is an object with a rich history. Previous research published on these ephemeral objects has typically examined their use and reuse in American households as clothing, quilts, and other domestic goods, or their significance in the World War I Belgian War Relief under the Herbert Hoover administration. This paper poses approaches to the …

Bombay To Bauhaus: Design Influences In Churchill Weavers Textiles From 1922-1949, Sarah Stopenhagen Broomfield

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Churchill Weavers, a nationally known handweaving center founded in 1922 in the Cumberland foothills in Berea, Kentucky, created a marketing niche by promoting the Modernist look in its textile products. Modernist textiles focused on woven structure, texture, yarn and fabric properties as the major design elements. Bauhaus artists codified and disseminated a theory of modern textiles as Europe rebuilt in the interwar period, while in America Modernist textiles were commodified as a marketing trend in early 20th century consumerism. Eleanor Churchill, co-owner and the company’s first designer was influenced by textile designs from India, from Modernist textiles, and from Swedish …

Transnational Influences On Louisiana Samplers: Traditions, Teachers, Techniques, And Text, Lynne Anderson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Louisiana’s early history is colored with multinational interests and domination by a succession of nations speaking diverse languages. Although “discovered” by the Spanish in the 1600s, the French were the first to colonize the area, founding New Orleans in 1718 with financial support (and administrative control) from the Company of the Indies. New Orleans became Louisiana’s colonial capital in 1721. Most of the earliest immigrants to Louisiana were either French military personnel or French Canadian adventurers and traders. Their number was augmented by the forced immigration of criminals, prostitutes, and those incarcerated in French workhouses. By all accounts this made …

“The British Are Coming! A Contraband Cloth Tsunami Flows Over Maya Handicrafts And Homespun In The Kingdom Of Guatemala, 1760-1820”, Heather J. Chiero

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Latin America today has a lower perceived place on the global scale of development in comparison to other Western regions, however incorrect that assumption may be. And, Central American nations, in particular, seemingly fulfill that notion. One might ask, why did the nations of Middle America not become industrialized at an earlier point in their histories? If those nations had at their disposal adequate land, natural resources, and labor, as well as ports for exit for their products, why did they not advance in the 18th and 19th centuries alongside other northern hemispheric nations? This research paper investigates the thriving …

The Legacy Of Yarn Dyed Cotton Lungis Of Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu: A Case Study, Vasantha M. Dr.

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Woven cotton textiles of India are ancient, diverse, and steeped in tradition, an amalgam of different ethnic influences, much like reflection of the country itself. Having had the advantage of possessing a unique raw material for more than 5000 years of recorded history, she has been a benefactress of her rich cotton textile heritage to the entire world. In a world where the trends are dictated by the mass producers and the consumers no longer make out the difference between the hand crafted and the machine made, it is a miracle that these textile traditions have been persistently passed on …