Online workshop on mannequin making

MS 243: Making Museum Quality Mannequins
Instructor: Helen Alten
Price: $475
Dates: Sep 7 through Oct 8, 2010

Taught by Helen Alten and Northern States Conservation Center

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, was
    instrumental in developing a state-wide protocol for disaster
    response in small Minnesota museums, has written, received and
    reviewed grants for NEH and IMLS, worked with local foundations
    funding one of her pilot programs, and is always in search of
    the perfect museum mannequin. She has published chapters on
    conservation and deterioration of archeological glass with the
    Materials Research Society and the York Archaeological Trust,
    four chapters on different mannequin construction techniques in
    Museum Mannequins: A Guide for Creating the Perfect Fit (2002),
    preservation planning, policies, forms and procedures needed for
    a small museum in The Minnesota Alliance of Local History
    Museums' Collection Initiative Manual, and is co-editor of the
    penultimate book on numbering museum collections (still in
    process) by the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma. 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.


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 24:14
                  Distributed: Monday, August 30, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-24-14-021
                                  ***