Textile Conservation

Frances Lennard worked as a textile conservator for 15 years, at the Textile Conservation Centre and in private practice with Fiona Hutton, before moving to the academic sphere and becoming the convenor of the postgraduate textile conservation programme at the University of Southampton and later at the University of Glasgow. Her research focused on conservation treatment and interdisciplinary practice; she is particularly interested in the treatment of woven tapestry, painted textiles and Pacific barkcloth. She became an Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow in 2021. Patricia Ewer, the principal of Textile Objects Conservation, LLC, has over 35 years of international experience in treating textiles, as well as managing, developing and staffing conservation projects of all disciplines. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation, the organization she has been a member of since 1989. She is co-editor with Frances Lennard of the 2010 text Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice. Laura Mina serves as Conservator of Textiles with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. Previous institutions include a joint appointment with Winterthur Museum and the University of Delaware, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She received her BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and her MA in Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice (conservation focus) from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has led multiple workshops on the use of gels for textile treatments.

1. Textile conservation within the cultural sector; 2. Treatment ethics and decision making; 3. Conservation and community partnerships; 4. Interventive conservation; 5. Preventive conservation; 6. Applied science in conservation; 7. Education of textile conservators; 8. Ongoing professional development.