Vassar College Costume Collection – Page 5 – the latest news about our research collection of historic costume

February 12, 2011

Blog Redirection

FYI: As of February 12, 2011, we will no longer be posting directly to the separate blog for the Historic Costume Preservation Workshop (HCPW). Since the bulk of that specific project is over, from now on we will post here, on the general blog for the Vassar College Costume Collection (VCCC).

There are still some HCPW posts yet to come, to share some final details, but we’ll post them in both places.

As a result, we are moving the RSS feedburner feed for the HCPW blog to now point to the VCCC blog.

If you have already subscribed to posts about the HCPW, you shouldn’t have to do anything – you should continue to receive posts from us here at the VCCC blog.

Be looking for some posts about our latest project with the VCCC in the next day or two! If you are subscribed and you don’t get the new posts, please let me know so I can fix it.

-Arden
costumeshop <at> vassar <dot> edu

October 28, 2010

» an update from the Vassar College Costume Collection!

It’s time for an update from the Vassar College Costume Collection!

You last heard from me right around our exhibition, “A Glimpse into Vassar’s (Secret) Closet.” So what has happened since then?

When the objects were mounted for the exhibition last spring, I was able to work with Charlie Pane ‘10 to carefully photograph each full costume. Not only did we get high quality full length views of each piece, but each was placed on a turntable and rotated, with a photo taken of each different view. Charlie then worked with these photos to create a QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) file, which allows the viewer to rotate the object and better understand it as if in 3D. Stay tuned for more news about when and where these will be made available online.

Other than that, we haven’t had too much time to work with the collection this fall. Vassar’s new costume designer, Kenisha Kelly, is doing a wonderful job of helping us to recover from the blow of Holly Hummel’s retirement last spring, but we still are very busy with the productions in the Drama Department, and haven’t had much time for research or conservation projects.

But we’ll be sure to make time in the spring! “Glimpse” was such a success that we’re moving forward with another exhibition, from mid-May to mid-June in 2011 (probably 5/13 – 6/15), in the Palmer Gallery in the College Center (same as last year). This will be a part of Vassar’s Sesquicentennial Celebration (150th anniversary), and we will feature clothes that relate to Vassar’s history and to the history of women’s education. We’ll be working on this throughout the spring, so we’ll keep you posted as more details arise.

via pages.vassar.edu

This is a cross-post from http://pages.vassar.edu/hcpw/

May 20, 2010October 21, 2010

A Glimpse into Vassar’s (Secret) Closet

A selection of historic costumes from the collection will be on view in the James W. Palmer III Gallery from May 21 to June 6, 2010. Free and open to the public, the exhibition will open on Friday, May 21, with a reception from 2:00 to 4:00pm. Throughout the exhibition, the Palmer Gallery will be open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00pm; Sunday from 11:00am to 2:00pm; as well as by appointment by calling 437-5250.

Organized by costumer Holly Hummel, Arden Kirkland ‘93, and Candace Schuster of the Drama Department, the exhibition will offer the public a chance to see the results of an NEH funded semester-long process of costume preservation. This exhibition will honor Holly Hummel, senior drama lecturer and costume designer, who is retiring this year. She began organizing the collection shortly after she started working at Vassar in 1981.

May 20, 2010October 21, 2010

Historic Costume Preservation Workshop

An NEH grant allowed Vassar to bring three professionals from the field of costume history to lead workshops for 13 undergraduate students and Drama Department faculty members and administrators. The students, many interested in museum work, received independent study credit for the workshops. Documentation of the continuing work on the collection is available at the website: http://pages.vassar.edu/hcpw/.

Workshop 1 – February 3: Featured textile consultants Jonathan Scheer and Rebecca Chartier of J. Scheer and Co. of Rhinebeck and New York, who introduced participants to the proper handling, storage, and record keeping of textiles and historic costumes.

Workshop 2 – February 12: Featured costume historian Jessa Krick, who taught participants best practices for cataloging historic costumes. She discussed her cataloging work with the Costume Documentation Project for the Brooklyn Museum. Then, working with an object from Vassar’s collection, she modeled how to write a detailed catalogue entry.

Workshop 3 – April 9 – 13: Led by Colleen Callahan, currently of Costume and Textile Specialists in VA and curator emeritus of costumes and textiles at the Valentine Richmond History Center in Richmond, Virginia, was based on successful workshops led by Callahan at Mt. Holyoke in 2006 and Smith in 2008. Participants worked in teams with several objects from the VCCC and performed the necessary sewing to stabilize each object and properly mount it on a mannequin.

Students also had the opportunity to work with Stuart Belli and Edie Stout of the Chemistry department, to learn how to use several instruments that can help with the analysis of textile fibers.

May 20, 2010October 21, 2010

Recent Events

This was another busy semester for the VCCC! Here are some highlights:

• Trying on History – On May 12, we hosted the Project Aware group (6th and 7th grade girls from Beacon), to try on reproductions of historic costumes and to get a sneak peek at some of the costumes in our exhibition “A Glimpse into Vassar’s Secret Closet.” You can see more about similar visits at http://tryingonhistory.blogspot.com/ .

• On April 6, Arden Kirkland ’93, Holly Hummel, and student Chloe Boxer ’12 presented our digital costumes at Vassar’s 8th Annual Teaching and Technology Forum. Links to showcased projects can be seen at http://delicious.com/arkirkland/TTFF10

• In January, curator Arden Kirkland ’93 worked with student Charlie Pane ’10 and Academic Computing Consultant Matthew Slaats to experiment with photography of the costumes using Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) technology. An example can be seen at http://ardenkirkland.com/QTVR/VR/1992-124-q3.html (best viewed in Safari).

• Now it’s time to start planning our next exhibition, to celebrate Vassar’s 150th Anniversary next year!

May 20, 2010October 21, 2010

The Holly Hummel Fund for Historic Costume

Established by students and friends of Holly Hummel on the occasion of her retirement from Vassar College, the Holly Hummel Fund has been created as an expendable fund for resources needed to maintain and exhibit objects from the Vassar College Costume Collection, a research collection of historic garments dating from the mid-nineteenth century. The Fund may be used for supplies, consultant’s fees, or professional development for staff or students. The Fund will have oversight by the Department of Drama with the approval of the Dean of Faculty. The duration and extent of the program will be dependent on funds raised.

Please contact us for more information about making a donation!

January 7, 2010January 7, 2010

VCCC Gets NEH Grant for Preservation

Right before Thanksgiving we found out that our NEH proposal for a Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions was accepted! This grant will allow us to bring three professionals from the field of costume history to lead workshops for Vassar staff and students. Selected students will be able to get credit for participating in this Historic Costume Preservation Workshop (HCPW), by registering for an independent study in Drama, History, or Victorian Studies.

For students who are interested in museum work, this project will provide wonderful hands-on experience with our museum quality objects. Early in the semester, participants will work with textile conservator Jonathan Scheer to learn best practices for proper handling of costume objects and assessment and documentation of their condition. Then costume historian Jessa Krick will lead a workshop in museum cataloging procedures. Throughout the semester, participants will use the skills they have learned to build documentation for the collection. Later in the semester, costume historian and conservator Colleen Callahan will lead a five day intensive workshop for stabilization and mounting techniques to conserve and safely display the objects. She has recently done similar workshops at Mt. Holyoke and Smith.

The work accomplished through these workshops will greatly benefit our digitization and exhibition plans, and will provide us with documentation that is necessary for future grant applications. At the end of the semester, while the objects are all mounted, we hope to photograph them and host a small exhibition to the public. The photographs and other information about the objects will eventually be available to the public online, as part of our digital collection.

January 7, 2010January 7, 2010

Sesquicentennial Preparations Begin

Did you know that 2011 will be the 150th anniversary of Vassar’s founding? Sounds to us like a perfect opportunity to host an exhibition and let our costumes help tell the story of Vassar’s history, and the history of women’s education.
The work from the NEH grant in 2010 will help us greatly to prepare for such an exhibition. Since our resources are very limited, any exhibition will depend greatly on the work of students and the support of the Vassar community.
Stay tuned for more news about upcoming exhibitions!

January 7, 2010January 7, 2010

Thanks to our Recent Donors

We were very lucky to receive several donations of costumes in 2009. Some objects will be accessioned into the VCCC, due to their historic research value. Other objects are also very valuable to us for our theatrical costume collection, used for Drama Department productions.
Unfortunately, our space is very limited! We will have to consider future donations very carefully. We will only be able to accept objects that are not similar to objects already in our collections. Not only is space an issue, but all objects donated to the VCCC require special archival boxes and tissue paper, and our funding for these supplies is very limited.

January 7, 2010January 7, 2010

Looking Back on 2009

This was a very busy year for the VCCC, and it looks like 2010 will be just as busy! Here are some highlights from this past year:
•   Digital Objects in the Classroom (DOC)– Our team at Vassar College received a grant from NITLE to host a workshop, on March 16-17, 2009, to explore the subject of digitizing material culture collections for classroom use. Teams of faculty, librarians, instructional technologists, and media specialists came from institutions across the country to participate. For more information, see http://grou.ps/digitalobjects
•   NERCOMP workshop – On May 19, our DOC team traveled to MA to make presentations for a workshop for the NorthEast Regional Computing Program, also about digitizing material culture for classroom use.
•   Care of Textiles class – in May, Co-Curator Arden Kirkland took an online course offered by the Northern States Conservation Center, to learn more about taking care of textile collections. As a result, we’ve identified some important changes we need to make in our storage area, for the preservation of the objects. Our NEH grant will cover some of these improvements, but it is likely that we’ll need to seek more support for the continued maintenance of the collection
•   Trying on History –In May, we hosted the Project Aware group (11-18 year old girls from Beacon), to look at historic objects and try on reproductions. Then in October, two Vassar classes came to do this activity. Throughout the year, we continued our reproduction project, generously funded by the Carolyn Grant ’36 Endowment Fund.