Carmela: Hi, I’m Carmela Mollica and I’m the textile conservator here at the Museum.
Jess: My name is Jess Wignall. I’m a paper conservator. Carmela: Becoming a conservator for me was that love for anything
fabric, I suppose. Jess: There are so many things that I love about my job. The objects, mainly. The Museum’s
collection is so wonderful. Carmela: The crafts, the sewing, the garment construction
and the history of costume was my love. Jess: A lot of the time I love to see the objects once they’re on
display and I go back to when I was working on it and learning the intimacy about the object
and becoming really familiar with the way that it was constructed and put together, and also
the passion that was involved in making it. Carmela: The paper and textile team work on a very large
range of material, from the very ordinary to the very special items, anything from a Miss Australia
crown through to a newspaper. Jess: I work on lots of different types of paper objects in the Museum
and they vary from books to documents, newspapers and photographs. Carmela: To become a conservator I did
undertake special training. I did a Bachelor of Applied Science in the conservation of cultural materials.
Jess: You have to have lots of good hand skills, patience and passion. Carmela: Textiles are not just
fabrics, they’ve got metal and buttons and bone and other components, so the course allowed me to have
a better understanding of those materials which brought in the science of what chemicals to use
to treat these these items. So it gave a broad understanding, and then I went into the
speciality of textiles. Jess: Paper object being put on display needs quite a number of things to have done to
it before it gets on the wall or in the showcase. Firstly, after condition reporting and making sure
that the object is stable enough for display, we need to get it into a window mount. A window mount
is used in between the glazing and the object so that there’s no damage occurring, either through
contact which can cause condensation or friable material being squashed against it.
Carmela: Costume covers a wide range of materials, from a lovely feathered hat to pair of silk stockings or 1870s
a bustle, which assists when creating that lovely shape, which is one of my favourite periods in costume.
Jess: The window mount has a beveled angle cut into it, usually so that the the Museum
lighting doesn’t cause shadows on the object. It’s a visual, a really nice visual thing.
Carmela: Well, recently we acquired a set of jockey silks that the jockey that rode Makybe Diva, who was a racehorse
well-known to the Australian public. They – the jockey silks – arrived to us framed, which isn’t quite the
way we were wanting to display them, so at that point my observations were to remove them out
of the frame, which also revealed adhesive and staples which would cause further damage long-term.
So the treatment involved was to release the adhesive, remove the staples and then prepare them
for the way we wanted them on display. Jess: We cut mounts at the Museum currently with this awesome machine
but previously we had to cut them by hand which was a very long and tedious process, and often
mistakes were made, which the machine does not do. It cuts straight and it cuts on bevels, so we can
do outside edges and inside edges, and it rotates on a head so it can do fancy corners as well.
Carmela: The Oaks dress, which is a 1870s garment, well, you could tell it was well worn and there are a number
of elements that needed to be looked at closer. So as a conservator your sets work as a detective in
some ways we are investigating the damage. Where has it come from? What aspects of it need to
be dealt with? In the Museum catalogue it was classified as a riding habit. Looking at it closely,
it was a silk garment, the 1870s style, which had this amazing bustle on it – a beautiful detail that
made me think, well, a riding habit you would normally sit on a horse and the garment, the
fabric, would have to withstand, you know, jumping on a horse and galloping around. At that point I
did some research and really discovered that, no, that aspect of it being classified as a riding
habit wasn’t the true definition of a riding habit. So that was quite an interesting aspect
of my work as a conservator. Jess: When we hinge an object for framing or window matting we use a
Japanese tissue and a handmade wheat starch paste to make sure we don’t have any impurities,
and this paste is used on very small hinges that are located at the top of the object behind the
window. As a practice, we hinge objects into a window rather than sticking them down because
if you stick it down it can potentially cause major distortions and irreversible damage to
the object. Paper is something that you really need to touch and feel and become quite intimate with
when you’re working with it. There’s a very delicate and fragile nature about paper that
requires hands and hands only. Carmela: As a textile conservator I think I’ve got the best job in
the world, actually. It’s a fantastic job, or profession, to get into, for me, and I’m sure
there’ll be lots of people out there who would enjoy that as well. Just getting up in close and
personal with items, the problem-solving that’s required to develop a treatment, to see it in a
box and think, Oh, my goodness, you know, how can I get that onto a mannequin? And going through those
steps, and finally walking through an exhibition and seeing that item, or the costume, for example,
on a mannequin and thinking, Oh, I actually had something to do with that. And bringing your
family across and and seeing items that you’ve worked on. So it’s just absolutely fantastic.