Current Exhibition
Work
Spicer Art Conservation, LLC was a
part of several Native American exhibitions. Each one is
briefly discussed below.
Trail of Red Jacket
Thaw Collection
Uncommon Threads
Trail of Red Jacket
The Trial of Red Jacket, at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical
Society opened in October 2010. The exhibition
displays their broad and diverse Native American
collection, from local Seneca and Iroquois to Plains
Tribes across the United States.
During cleaning of a heavily soiled leather
jacket.
Plexiglas mounts and supports
were made for each of the pipe bags and headdresses.
Mannequins were also made for the jackets and coats, as
well as reproductions.
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Thaw Collection
Artifacts from the Thaw Collection of American Indian
Art at the Fenimore Art Museum have been selected to
travel the United States that began in the spring 2010.
The treatment of the artifacts require stabilization of
a variety of materials, compensation for loss, and mount
development. More can be read in the curator's blog notes. The exhibition was
at the Cleveland Art Museum. It then went to the
Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of
Art, and is now heading for Dallas, TX.
A leather shirt from the
collection before treatment.
Consolidating flaking and powdering paint in a solvent
chamber.
Glass bead cleaning.
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Uncommon Treads
Uncommon Threads: Wabanaki Textiles, Clothing
and Costume open in May 2009 at the Main State Museum, and to begin
traveling in both the US and Canada starting in 2011.
Many of the textiles, especially the glass bead and
quill-work decorated artifacts, were treated by Spicer
Art Conservation, LLC over several years of preparation.
Mounting of the artifacts were designed to lower the
risks of handling, creating the use of magnets to secure
the artifacts to the removable display decks.
Examples of the mounts for the exhibition. Artifacts with
cavities were secured with magnets embedded into the mount
trays.
Image of the exhibition while on view at the Maine State
Museum, Augusta, ME.
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