[NHCOLL-L:4461] Mannequin making online course

[Helen Alten]

MS243: Making Museum Quality Mannequins **NEW**
Dates: Aug 31 - Sep 25, 2009
Price: $425.00
Instructor: Helen Alten
Location:  www.museumclasses.org

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>http://www.collectioncare.org/tas/tas.html 
If you have trouble please contact Helen Alten at helen at collectioncare.org


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, was instrumental in developing a state-wide protocol for 
disaster response in small Minnesota museums, has written, received 
and reviewed grants for NEH and IMLS, worked with local foundations 
funding one of her pilot programs, and is always in search of the 
perfect museum mannequin. She has published chapters on conservation 
and deterioration of archeological glass with the Materials Research 
Society and the York Archaeological Trust, four chapters on different 
mannequin construction techniques in Museum Mannequins: A Guide for 
Creating the Perfect Fit (2002), preservation planning, policies, 
forms and procedures needed for a small museum in The Minnesota 
Alliance of Local History Museums' Collection Initiative Manual, and 
is co-editor of the penultimate book on numbering museum collections 
(still in process) by the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma. 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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