Good afternoon, MuseumLers – Dave explained it
perfectly! Thank you, Dave.
Regards,
Meg
._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
______
Margaret (Meg) Geiss-Mooney
Textile/Costume Conservator &
Consultant
who works on a lot of quilts
Professional Associate, AIC
From:
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009
8:32 AM
Cass,
Try to think of conservation as you would a trip to the emergency room if
something needed repair on you. It is almost impossible to predict what damage
may occur and what the cost would be due to the fact that a conservator has to
respond to the specific issues. It is best to simply state that the other
institution will be responsible for the costs of conservation should damage
occur and that your institution has the right to choose the conservation
professional doing the work. Insurers tend to only cover the market value of an
object (this means a recent or updated appraisal) and sometimes the cost of
conservation will exceed that - so if the quilt has a higher intrinsic value to
your institution then you are right to want to put in the requirement for
conservation. Most conservators in private practice have a small fee for
examinations and proposals and then an hourly rate for treatment, You can go to
the web site for the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and use their
free Guide for Services to get a list of qualified textiles conservators in
your region.
http://aic.stanford.edu/public/select.html
This also means that you should do due diligence and document every inch of the
quilt on both sides and also require a facilities report, and you can stipulate
things like environmental parameters and lighting conditions for exhibition.
Cheers!
Dave
David Harvey
Conservator