MS243: Making Museum Quality Mannequins
Dates: Apr 12 - May 7, 2010
Price: $475
Instructor: Helen Alten
Description:
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:
1. Introduction
2. The Case for Support
3. Measuring
4. Choosing a Mannequin Style
5. Materials
6. Subtractive Constructions
7. Additive Constructions
8. Casting and Molding
9. Examples of what works and what doesn't
10. Stands, Appendages and Realism
11. Undergarments
12. Attaching it in the exhibit
13. 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
http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html If you have
trouble please contact Helen Alten at
[log in to unmask]
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
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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