MPF Conservation restores, conserves and preserves all types of textiles in their studio in Portland Oregon, this page discusses tapestry and woven items.
A small modern hanging textile
we repaired and cleaned, right.
Mark Adams’ “RANUCULUS” Tapestry Conservation
We had the pleasure of conserving the wonderful floral Mark Adams Tapestry named Ranuculus, shown above. The tapestry is 70 inches wide x 78 inches tall.
Mark Adams was born in Fort Plain, New York. Adams studied art, including stained glass and painting, and apprenticed with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 and Hans Hoffman. Though as an artist he is possibly best known for his watercolors, his interest in tapestry began through visits to the Cloisters and through collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Above, the damaged edge and interior of the left-facing orange and red flower.
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The tapestry was suffering from rips and many separations; the latter if left untreated would eventually lead to more tears. Our client was wise to pay attention to the piece, and sent it for conservation and cleaning before it became a major undertaking. During our assessment we tagged each area that needed treatment: pulled stitches, separations or the beginning of a potential tear, missing stitches.
The bulk of our treatment would be hand-stitching the parts that were separating or had separated, and missing stitches. Because of this process, as we discuss various treatment examples shown below you will see the assessed image needing reparation, an example shown left.
The goal of the treatment was to stop further degradation in any form.
To view the entire post, click here.
Above, the textile after conservation. This is the color of the textile.
I had the privilege to conserve a portion of this unusual textile artwork created by Suzi Piegols, a well-known Oregon textile artist, shown left with a quilted piece of her own. Her daughter commissioned the work for her mother’s piece before it was transported to their new home.
The textile was terribly damaged on the right facing side, shown left below in before images.
Before treatment, left, after treatment, right.
Above, the front of the textile; below, the back of the textile.
To view the entire post, visit Suzi Piegols’ Textile.
Before, left, and after, right and top image.
French Art Deco Tapestry circa 1900
The Art Deco Tapestry was cherished by our clients. It had been previously repaired, possibly several times by different people. New rips/tears and other areas needed treatment in order to be stable enough to hang. Approximately eighty areas of repair were identified.
Where there were previous repairs, these were inspected, often disassembled, and repaired properly, example shown below. Broken warp yarns were infilled by the recreation of warp with matching thread which anchored into the historic tapestry. Weft losses were then infilled using matching yarns; repairs were hand-stitched.
Tattered fringe on the edges was left as is, unless a simple repair was needed. Terminating edges were stabilized to prevent future unraveling of historic yarns.
The piece was carefully cleaned before returning to our clients for them to hang in their historic Portland home.
Below, details of the beautiful textile after treatment; click on thumbnails to see entire image!
Before, left, and after right.
Two Family Tapestries from La France Jacquard Pictures circa 1910
Our clients were gifted with family tapestries from the turn of the century. Unfortunately, when La France Jacquard Pictures initially framed them, they did not put the tapestries under glass, which allowed them to accumulate a century of grime.
We hand-washed the tapestries to remove the grey-green grime buildup, then blocked them for framing. Our clients decided to place them in new frames under glass, however, we cleaned and touched up the historic frames which are part of the tapestries’ history, shown below in images before treatment.
Two other tapestry installations are located in Institutional locations.
Click on links below to visit these pages:
There are two more artists’ woven textiles on the State of Oregon Capitol Building page, examples above.
Four historic textiles were assessed in the foyer and can be found on the Amasa B. Campbell House page, above.