Dialogue with the Director Archives Dialogue with the Director

Director Saralyn Reece Hardy speaks with Sharon Shore and Mary M. Dusenbury.

During the last week of installing the Spencer's blockbuster Asian textiles exhibition Flowers, Dragons, & Pine Trees, the museum brought in textile conservator Sharon Shore to oversee the final steps. Shore, whose company, Caring for Textiles, is based in Los Angeles, has worked with the museum since 1991 on various projects, including some delicate conservation jobs. In the Kress Gallery, with the installation proceeding around them, director Saralyn Reece Hardy sat down with Shore and Mary M. Dusenbury, guest curator of Asian art, for a conversation about the challenges of mounting a large exhibition of textiles.

Saralyn Reece Hardy: Obviously, a lot of the textiles in this show have presented special challenges, but they also have been pleasures to work with. Can you talk about some of those pleasures and challenges?

Sharon Shore: This panel (Panel with Cranes and Irises , Japan, Meiji period) for instance, was sent to my studio in Los Angeles--it was one of 11 pieces that were sent to me--and the reason I worked on them there rather than here was that the work was so complicated. I would have needed to transplant my entire studio otherwise. On this embroidered panel, the borders are probably older than the image, and were very fragile.

In conservation, we don't take away the parts that are fragile and old and falling apart. We try to stabilize them and save them because that's part of the record of what the piece is and what it's all about. In restoration, one might restore this by taking it away and putting new fabric there. So there's a real difference between the two points of view.

We try to save, protect and stabilize all the original materials, including this border. When it arrived it was literally powdering and splitting, and I had to figure out what to do. There were some other problems with the embroidery but they weren't as challenging as the border. So when you ask about challenges, this was a big one.

SRH: Can you describe the process?

SS: I decided that I had to remove the borders--not to discard them, but to treat them. So I removed each border section, and a piece of cotton fabric, chosen carefully for color to blend in with the border, was placed behind the border.   So there are lots of losses that you don't notice because of this fabric behind the border. And that was very tedious. You obviously have to handle it very carefully. Then a very sheer silk called crepeline (kray-pell-ene) was placed over it. So each border section is completely encased. If you get really close you can tell. Then they were put back in their original position, using their former stitch lines as a guide, and sewn down to re-complete the whole format that was there before. So although we did clip and pull out some original stitching that attached the border to the seam, it was a compromise we considered necessary in order to save the border.

SRH: So there are decisions that you have to make all the way along about where you stand with this particular process.

SS:   Yes. You're asking what is the right thing to do, based on all the methods and techniques that a conservator might consider. What's the right one for this particular piece?

SRH: What are some of the questions you consider in that process?

SS:   It's a very good question. One would be to ask if the treatment is right for the owner of the textile, which is usually an institution. Is it reasonable within what they have as a budget?   It's a whole consideration of so many things that people probably wouldn't realize. Are the materials right for the type of environment it's going into? Are they right from the point of view of conservation, meaning are they chemically stable and inert? Is the treatment that you've chosen visually appropriate? I mean, this is slightly different looking because of the crepeline. Is that OK? Have we done the right thing?   In the end, when it all comes together, you know if you've made the right decisions, but it's a lot of decisions that add up to that one answer.

SRH:   I'm assuming that when you're making decisions like that you're having a dialogue with the curator. I know that you and Mary have been working together on this for a long time. Can you two talk a little bit about what your discussions have been over the years relative to this show?

Mary Dusenbury: Well, starting back before I ever met Sharon, I was looking for someone I thought would be most appropriate for the museum and for this collection--a conservator of the philosophy of doing things that could be reversed whenever possible. And not all conservators have that philosophy. Sharon came to us recommended by a curator who I respected a lot at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And we sort of went from there.

SRH:   As a curator, what's the importance of having that reversal option? Why do you value that?

MD: We don't know, with some of the materials we're using now, what will happen to them in 100 years because they haven't been around for 100 years. We have many things in the collection that were inappropriately conserved earlier in the 20 th century, when people didn't know what was going to happen with the materials. They had good intentions, but for example, they would glue a piece of textile or a Japanese print to a piece of cardboard without realizing that cardboard was acidic and would start eating through the print or textile, or that the glue they used could not be removed. So those pieces are really compromised, and not knowing what will happen in the future, it seems best in general, whenever possible, to do something that could be taken away later.

SS:   This is a tiny bit tangential to the question, but it has to do with our working relationship. We both have a joy of curiosity about and discovery of the meanings of the textiles. And there are times when the conservator is in a position to see things that normally wouldn't be visible, like a signature for instance. And it's really exciting when you're working with a curator who has told you "I'm not sure about this. I think this is by this artist, and I would love to know if you find anything." And if I do find something, I feel like I'm helping solve that mystery, that art historical investigation. It's a little but important part of what the whole thing is about, when you have a really great relationship with the curator who you're working with, and I think we do. It's been great.

SRH:   You're describing a process of inquiry and sharing of information towards something that is called meaning, right? This is one of the aspects of museum work that is so compelling and moving. I'm very excited about this exhibition because it brings our collection to our audiences with multiple layers of meaning. The meaning of scholarship as it relates to conservation and curatorial work has great importance for the Spencer right now. What does it mean to be a scholarly museum that is of interest to the public?   Could you, Mary, talk just a little bit about the aspects of organizing this show that have perhaps had the most meaning for you and might have meaning for our audiences?

MD:   As you said, every textile in this collection has layers and layers and layers of meaning. The amount of material and technical information they embody alone is stupendous--the result of more than 10,000 years of human history. Then you layer onto that the meaning for the maker and the meaning for the wearer, who sometimes is the same person, sometimes is a member of the maker's family, sometimes is in Kashmir trying to work fast enough to be at the fashion market in Paris, sometimes an imperial court workshop making an official costume for somebody who will represent imperial authority in the boondocks.

SRH: Can you show me another textile that you embodies this dialogue we're having?

SS: I was thinking of one of the household furnishings (India, 19 th century, silk embroidery), which were so challenging. It's sort of deceiving in how simple it looks. First of all, it's made from recycled pieces that were originally not made to be a panel like this, or a household hanging--maybe over a doorway, maybe on a wall. So it originally had another context. It also was made not to be precious "art" but made rather simply--it still was made with great care, though, in the sense that it was an embellishment that people cared about. At the very edge there are several layers of fabric to make that edge. The borders are sewn with a running stitch in a contrasting color. The whole thing is like that. An artisan weaver did not do the construction of it necessarily, but it was done with care, and it was an important part of how an interior looked.

When it arrived at my studio, this final pale green border had many areas where it looked like an explosion had happened. So there were gray areas of loss with nothing there, and ragged edges. It was really sad. It also had a lot of soiling over the center part. If you look really closely, you can see there is new looking pale green silk in those losses. That's something I don't think of as restoration; I think of it as passive fill. You're filling in the design so it reads as a whole, unobtrusively, and honoring what you can figure out is the original intent of the piece. It's very important that you consider that, in my opinion. Then we overlay the whole thing with that really sheer silk--green-dyed with special archival dyes. From a distance you can't really tell, and it's made whole enough that it can be shown and can make its statement about what life was like and what this is all about.

MD: Another thing I like about the way Sharon works is the work is so meticulous and so careful that you don't really notice it. But if you look very closely you can tell that the piece has been conserved. It doesn't deceive the viewer at all. And there are some dealers and conservators--not all of them--who would do something to fool the eye. For example, if one of these flowers had been missing, or up here where perhaps little bits of color are missing, instead of adding the color back in or the flower back in, I expect that Sharon would suggest and we would choose in consultation to back it with a yellow backing so that it was stable and that your eye didn't jump to the hole, but that every bit of design that you see was actually original.

SRH: Can you talk just a little about why you both are in that particular mode of making decisions? What is it philosophically that brings you there? Because it strikes me that you are acknowledging the moment that the viewer is looking at the same time that you are trying to acknowledge the original making of the work. So it's somewhere in that space.

MD: That's a very interesting question because it's not as simple as when it was made and the viewer now. The piece has a history from the time someone made the first fiber or reeled in this case the first silkworm to make the silk that went into this. This piece was originally a headcloth that covered most of the body, and then as it became fragile, it was given additional borders and used within the house. Other pieces, such as the little child's dragon robe, had another life, a very obvious history, in a Western child's dress-up chest.

To go back to the Indian household furnishing we were discussing, it was in Sally Casey Thayer's collection. We don't know exactly what she did with it, but at the time she was collecting, many people were using them as piano covers or some kind of decoration within the house. So we don't want to scrub out or erase part of the history while we preserve another part of the history. Somehow, we want to preserve all of that. With the child's garment, it was very difficult because there were very rough Western mending stitches and we could tell that by the type of stitch and the type of thread. So a big question for us was deciding how much of that to preserve and how much to reduce. It was very glaring, and the piece needed stabilization.

Perhaps we should look at the dragon robe and Sharon can talk about her decisions with that piece. The damage that appeared to have been done by someone playing dress-up in this country was in lower left portion of the garment. It was very, very obvious, and it no longer is. The piece is much more stable and it almost looks, as do many of the pieces Sharon has worked on, as if all of the sudden it has new life, it has come to life.

SS: Again, my goal is to make textiles with a long history of use look stable. That means many things to me, but again it's not to make them look new, or like they haven't had any wear or history of being worn, but rather to make them stable. And that has to do with the meaning. Does it still read as the whole thing that it was intended to be? And what I found along the hem and in several places were places where people had tried to mend this--I decided it was at least three different times, maybe more. If I were to pull this back, you would see layers of light blue silk that were used to mend the lining, patches really, with different colors of thread used to sew those patches on. There were darning stitches--the same type of stitches you would use to mend a sock--going through this weave, and this isn't painted or printed, it's actually a tapestry weave. So to do that is very damaging. Someone loved it, but most of the repairs were not done by a conservator but rather by someone who was trying to make it wearable. They were repairing it not to be an art object but to be an article of clothing. They obviously cared about it.

So first of all, I had to think long and hard about what would happen if I removed those mending stitches. They had broken through the weave, and indeed, when we took them out, there were little exploded tapestry yarns sticking up that we had to lay back down in their original pattern and then couch down using extremely fine silk thread. That worked for the front. In the back it was very extensive, and I chose to remove only the most obtrusive mending stitches and lay a very fine kind of net over the areas of damage that would protect it. If you look at the back very closely you will see that most of the mending stitches are still there.

MD: The other thing about the history of the object and our charge as a museum and our interest as curators in holding the history of each object is that when Sharon works on the object, she takes photographs before and very careful notes, so that although you no longer see those very obtrusive and very damaging rough darning stitches, there is a record, and a record of when the darning stitches were taken out.

SS: That way there's a record of how it looked, what I did, why, with what materials. In fact, part of the report is a treatment sample sheet, and it has small patches, like the sheer silk I talked about, taped on with archival tape. And that goes into the document record about the individual textile in the registrar's office. As Mary pointed out, if, 50 years from now or whatever, this was to be examined or worked on again, there's a record, and that makes me feel great.

MD: If those people who are our successors 50 or 100 years from now discover that there was a problem with the material that we now think is stable, there is a record of which garments have it, and exactly where on the garment that piece is.

SS: And a sample that can be tested, so the test would not have to be on the textile. It all may sound pretty farfetched, but if I had that documentation when I started working on a textile, it would really be wonderful. It would make my decisions much easier and clearer.

MD: Perhaps we can look at one of the large pin-mounts to see how detailed a process it is to present these textiles. I think it's very interesting that there is a diagram recording where each pin is placed in a textile, the great care that is taken to place the pins exactly.

SS: For example, a textile like this embroidered Kashmir shawl, even though it is quite large, when you look to install it for public view you must take into account that is also quite fragile, it has prior repair and it is going to be in a short-term exhibition--which I would consider this to be, at three or four months. The thinking among conservators of textiles now is that rather than stitching this to a cloth-covered mount, which involves making a lot of intrusive stitches through the fabric, that it is OK to pin it to the mount using entomology pins.

We do this in teams of two. One person places the pins and the other person, using a photo diagram of the piece, records exactly where the pins are located. In this diagram you can see where the pins are more closely spaced at the top and more widely spaced toward the bottom, and that's obviously because of gravity. The choice of location is very specific. The pins are placed, if possible, between yarns, not through embroidery, through seams where there's already a tiny opening. They're in a vertical direction only because that way they're less likely to turn and poke through the textile. Often we don't pin at the bottom so that as this hangs--and you'll notice it's at a slight angle, to help with gravity because it will move a little bit--it can be adjusted. The people who helped with these pin mounts know about that, and they know what to do. And it's so neat, because they were mostly graduate students. The second person of the two-person team totals up the number of pins, records the initials of everyone who worked on it, and date the sheet. That way, if there's a question or if something happens to this and the staff wonders how that was done or if there was anything special about this textile, they have this as a record, and someone will remember out of the group. It's all part of the effort to make sure it is mounted safely during the exhibit.

MD: And then when it's taken down, there's a record of where every single pin is, and they will be counted at the end before it is lifted off the mount to make sure that no pin is left somewhere.

SRH: There's so much public work to a museum, and that's what most of us see: what's the new big blockbuster show, what are the sound bites for the exhibition. But it seems to me that an equally important, quiet role for the museum is to engage in the kind of work that we are with this exhibition, including the conservation of these textiles.

SS: Well, this is an emotional response, separate from the technology of conservation, but I think one reason why Mary and I have both been drawn to working with this kind of material within a museum context is because we find textiles to be the most intimate and warm aspect of the arts that we collect and value and consider as fine art. And it has to do, for me, with the fact that they often were worn, they were used, they were repaired lovingly. That's an indefinable thing in terms of the science of conservation, but it has to do with why I love this, and I feel wonderful when I'm able to help something be exhibited that previously couldn't have.

MD: I'd like to open up the question a little more broadly and not just talk about textiles. I think a textile, like any work of art, holds a tremendous amount of information--technical, material, historical, social, philosophical--but beyond that, many works of art are very beautiful and they speak to us on many layers--our intellect, our heart, our emotions. I've been going to museums since I was a very small child, thinking about what I saw, and going back to discover new things, to see pieces that spoke very deeply to me, to look at them again, and to find more and more meaning relevant to me in different ways and at different times of my life.

We have those things now only because someone cared enough to make them, to pay for them being made, and since that time, to care for them. I'm delighted to be in a position where I can preserve and care for some of the things that are in our care here so that our children and grandchildren and their children can have the same wealth of meaning and beauty we have had in our lives.

SRH: This particular project is interesting as we stand here at the South Balcony overlooking the Central Court. On one side of us, is this room full of student work, of indigo dyed textiles. And on the other side of us is this wonderful textile exhibition that is packed with history. Is there something you feel you can say about your interests both in the contemporary maker and the historic maker?

MD: Oh yes. I think there are very close connections. Even when artists are not making work that looks in any way like anything else we've seen before, something has fed them very, very deeply. It's who they are. It's the place they grew up. How they grew up. It's the world around us. But so very often it's also works of art that they have grown up with, that they have seen in museums or in temples or in cathedrals. And it has been very exciting to watch student response to this exhibition that hasn't even opened yet.

Mary Anne Jordan and David Brackett, who are faculty in the textile design department, thought that maybe over winter break they would have two or three students who could do these shibori indigo-dyed work. Instead, over break, they had 17 students who produced probably hundreds of yards of carefully tied and dyed fabric. And a few of those same students have also helped Sharon mount this show.

SS: I was very pleased that they were interested. They're interested in the textiles but they're also interested in the techniques I'm employing, asking how I get it to look this way, like nothing happened. And they're really, really excited about the use of new materials in mounting the textiles, and techniques like the pin mount. They just loved it. What they're bringing to help me isn't just a volunteer pair of hands, but a background in textile history, a background in weaving. I've had a marvelous time. They have brought a lot to this, a real interest and a curious intellect.

SRH: We're talking about a variety of continuums here.   One continuum has to do with pulling the thread between the past and the present and even out into the future as we involve students. And then the other thread that has to do with rigorous scholarship that connects in addition to broad public involvement and interest. If we as a university art museum can place ourselves in the very middle of those kinds of threads, where they make something, how fabulous is that?

OK. Final words. Many of us are coming through this exhibition knowing much less about these textiles than either of you do. I'd love to ask both of you if you can give simple instructions for looking at this exhibition. Not simple revelations, but how would you tell visitors to look.

SS: I think Mary should answer this question because part of my job is to make this look as if nothing happened. So if they see any of the details that we've talked about, that's great, but my intent is for them to come to the space and experience the textiles, and that can mean a lot of different things to different people. And in fact, and I mean this semi-humorously but in all seriousness, do not touch the textiles. The fact that we wear those funny looking plastic gloves when we handle these is actually very serious because these textiles can't take more abuse. They get to rest. Their only job is to just look beautiful. Their days of being touched are over.

MD: I think I would suggest to people that first of all they just look. Linger by pieces they find intriguing and beautiful, and look deeply. Then, if something interests them, we have tried to put a little information around the galleries to give a bit of history, a bit of context, for each piece. But the most important is just to look very deeply.