History Colorado Center, Denver, CO

History Colorado Center in Denver, Colorado is home to the Woodard Collection of Rio Grande textiles. From the same family, the Luther Bean Museum received the Woodard Collection of southwest pottery, retablos (Hispanic sacred paintings on wood), and antiques. Part of the internship was to visit museums with collections similar to ours and to learn how they manage various aspects of their collections. I contacted History Colorado and met with Bethany Williams, Collections Manager. In advance of our meeting, she sent me a document listing the Woodard Collection textiles with photographs, so that I could choose several to view during my visit.

We started in the cavernous room that houses a large portion of their textile collections. Climate is controlled at 70 degrees F with 40% humidity. Rows of huge rolling racks hold the textiles on separate rods. The textiles are rolled around an archival tube with archival tissue paper to avoid dye transfer from one part of a textile to another. The rolled textile is then wrapped in a layer of plastic and the ends of the plastic are secured with cotton twill tape.

In another large room, I viewed three Rio Grande textiles from the Woodard Collection. The tag attached to the textile has extensive identifying information in addition to the accession number. It includes a photograph, a description of the object with colors, the object dimensions, the donor and date, and instructions on how to store the object.

For pest management, they use sticky traps deployed at entrances, corners, and at intervals, and regular spraying for ants and spiders. When needed, live traps are used for mice. If evidence of moths or carpet beetles is found, they freeze the textiles and then vacuum both sides using a Nilfisk vacuum with adjustable suction and a screen at the nozzle.

History Colorado displays textiles using a cotton muslin sleeve through which may be inserted a metal rod or magnets. They are moving to using slant boards at a 30-degree angle to help support and to avoid the stress of gravity on the textiles. Their slant boards are fabricated of low-VOC MDF wood with a layer of Mylar between the MDF and the textile. We also reviewed collections documentation and management on the Argus database system, which enables public access to search their collections.

We were fortunate to work with Tom Worley from Facilities Services and met with Tom initially to discuss options for mounting hardware and hanging methods for the Rio Grande textiles. Because the textiles would be mounted high up on the stairwell walls, and installation would take place from the top of a ladder maneuvered on the stairs, the choice of hardware was important to accommodate ease of installation of the hardware and the textiles.

Wood cleat mounting hardware mock-up

Tom got back to us with a mock-up for a wood cleat mounting hardware system. The narrow strip of wood is the cleat that is attached to the wall. It has a mitered 45-degree angle that slants downward to the wall. The wider strip of wood, which would have Velcro hook strips attached with stainless steel staples, also has a mitered 45-degree angle and nestles down into the cleat. Jeanne, our Conservator, approved this hanging method, but not oak, the wood suggested by Tom. Oak is highly acidic, and even if sealed, can be harmful to the textiles.

So I set out to research woods with an appropriate pH. A document of exhibit materials from the Canadian Conservation Institute included a chart of a wide variety of woods and their pH, as well as wood sealants. Next, I looked at the Workshop Companion website and their chart of the mechanical properties of woods, including wood density and strength and the ease of use with power tools. By comparing the two sources, I chose several possible woods. When I ran these by Tom, he found that they were either very expensive or difficult to get in our rural location, so I made another round of searching. We decided on maple wood and I gave Tom the preliminary textile measurements so that he could order the materials. Final measurements for fabrication would be not available until the sewing of the Velcro/twill strips to the textiles was completed. Those accurate measurements were important, as the wood cleats had to be only 3/8” longer than the Velcro/twill strips.

Tom Worley of Facilities Services

The last step of this part of the exhibit design was to determine the placement of the textiles on the stairwell walls. Tom again helped us by bringing a 4 ft by 8 ft sheet of heavy cardboard reinforced with thin wood strips to act as stand-in for the textiles. On the ladder, he patiently shifted the cardboard up, down, and sideways until Tawney and I were satisfied with the placement, and then measured the placements for each textile so that the wood cleats would be centered and installed at the correct heights.