Workshop on mannequin making

MS243: Making Museum Quality Mannequins
Dates: Apr 12 - May 7, 2010
Price: $475
Instructor: Helen Alten

A good mannequin makes an exhibit look professional. Unfortunately,
most museum staff do not know how to make a costume look good on a
mannequin. The result is that costumes look flat, provide incorrect
information or are being damaged. Buying an expensive "museum
quality mannequin" is not the solution--garments rarely fit without
alterations to the mannequin. Learn how to measure garments and
transfer that information to construct a new form or alter an old
form so that it accurately fits the garment, creating an accurate
and safe display. Learn about the materials that will and won't
damage the textile. Making Museum Quality Mannequins provides an
overview of all of the materials used to construct mannequins in
today's museums. Learn inexpensive mannequin solutions and how
different materials may use the same additive or subtractive
construction technique. Fabrication methods for many mannequin
styles are described. Finishing touches - casting and molding, hair,
arms, legs, stands and base, undergarments--are discussed with
examples of how they change the presentation of a garment.

Course Outline:

    Introduction
    The Case for Support
    Measuring
    Choosing a Mannequin Style
    Materials
    Subtractive Constructions
    Additive Constructions
    Casting and Molding
    Examples of what works and what doesn't
    Stands, Appendages and Realism
    Undergarments
    Attaching it in the exhibit
    Conclusion

Logistics: Participants in Museum Quality Mannequins work through
sections on their own. Materials and resources include online
literature, slide lectures and dialog between students and the
instructor through online forums.

Museum Quality Mannequins runs six weeks. To reserve a spot in the
course, please pay at
<URL:http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html> If you have trouble
please contact Helen Alten at helen<-at->collectioncare<.>org

The Instructor:

    Helen Alten is the Director of Northern States Conservation
    Center and its chief Objects Conservator. For nearly 30 years
    she has been involved in objects conservation, starting as a
    pre-program intern at the Oriental Institute in Chicago and the
    University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. She
    completed a degree in Archaeological Conservation and Materials
    Science from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of
    London in England. She has built and run conservation
    laboratories in Bulgaria, Montana, Greece, Alaska and Minnesota.
    She has a broad understanding of three-dimensional materials and
    their deterioration, wrote and edited the quarterly Collections
    Caretaker, maintains the popular
    <URL:http://www.collectioncare.org> web site, lectures
    throughout the United States on collection care topics, and is
    always in search of the perfect museum mannequin. She has
    published chapters four chapters on different mannequin
    construction techniques in Museum Mannequins: A Guide for
    Creating the Perfect Fit (2002. Helen Alten has been a Field
    Education Director, Conservator, and staff trainer. She began
    working with people from small, rural, and tribal museums while
    as the state conservator for Montana and Alaska. Helen currently
    conducts conservation treatments and operates a conservation
    center in Charleston, WV and St. Paul, MN.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:39
                   Distributed: Friday, April 9, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-23-39-018
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