[Nhcoll-l] Making Museum Quality Mannequins online course begins March 4

[Helen Alten]

MS 243: Making Museum Quality Mannequins
Instructor: Helen Alten
Price: $495
Dates: Mar 4 through Apr 12, 2013
Location: Online at 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.

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 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.

-- 
Brad Bredehoft for Helen Alten
Northern States Conservation Center
www.collectioncare.org
www.museumclasses.org