New SoHE curator ready to teach, reach out

Maya Lea, the new curator of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection in the School of Human Ecology (SoHE), dove enthusiastically into her position from her first day on the job.

Arriving at the start of the summertime Grandparents University program, Lea was asked at 8:45 a.m., “Can you teach embroidery at 9?” The extra activity would enhance the experience of one group of grandparents and their grandchildren participating in the program, while another group focused on the week’s primary activity: silk-screening. Lea jumped at the chance to share her expertise and had a great time in the process.

Co-hosted by the Wisconsin Alumni Association and the UW-Extension Family Living Programs, Grandparents University offers three one-week sessions in a variety of campus disciplines. Diana Zlatanovski, assistant curator, initiated the collection’s participation in the program for the first time in June. Grandparents and their grandchildren studied some of the collection’s silk-screened pieces, then worked together to design a T-shirt pattern that they silk-screened onto matching shirts that they could wear.

Lea, who inaugurated studio art classes for adults in her last position with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, embraces her new role in Madison as “a dream come true, a fulfillment of 30 years of aspirations.” “I’ve never been anywhere where there’s been such strong institutional support for an entrepreneurial curator. Everyone’s bought into sharing the rich resources of the collection with the outside world,” she says.

This is not Lea’s first experience with the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. She installed an exhibition about Victorian-era mourning attire titled “Widows’ Weeds at Human Ecology” in 1984, researching and writing all educational materials, and organized a related symposium.

Her passion for sharing the collection meshes perfectly with its mission: “The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection furthers the understanding of human beings within their material and social environments through the study of textiles of artistic, cultural, and historic significance. Our mission is to provide educational resources both within the university and beyond.”

Lea wants to use the Internet to make the collection available for the first time to anyone anywhere around the globe — not only to UW–Madison. Publishing digital images of objects in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection will enable any researcher, artist or enthusiast to access its treasures.

“Digital dissemination is perfect for a collection that we can’t often exhibit,” Lea says.

In addition to making the collection accessible — both electronically and through expanded on-site programming — Lea lists three other priorities:

n preparing for the move into the new Human Ecology building addition

n integrating the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection and its affiliated Ruth Ketterer Harris Library into a new Textile Study Center; and

n making both scholars and the interested public aware of the both the collection and the Harris Library.

Getting ready for the move into new facilities presents a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” according to Lea.

“For the first time, the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection will have dedicated space for state-of-the-art textile storage, and the Harris Library will double in size,” she says. “We will at long last have space to display our holdings in ongoing, informal exhibitions in our public area, in addition to a well-equipped workroom for research and collection maintenance.”

So far, Lea and Zlatanovski, who functions as the collection’s manager, have a general idea of the collection’s new quarters and are pleased.

“We’ll be working in space that we’ve helped design,” Lea says. “Our thrust here now is on getting our ducks in a row for the new building — determining what kind of shelving, lighting and so on now and in the future as the collection grows. And of course we’re exploring the nitty-gritty logistics of securely relocating 13,000 fragile, precious objects.”

In preparation for the move, there will be limited access to the collection for approximately two years.

“During the downtime, we’ll do our best to keep out materials used in their classes and by our faculty,” Lea explains. “We’re a study collection, and that’s important to us.” To facilitate the move, the collection is not accepting new acquisitions until its new facilities are completed.

This hiatus will give Lea and her staff an opportunity to explore alternative ways of connecting people to cloth.

To learn more, visit Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, which is being updated. Lea is also starting an e-mail list and looking for a few good volunteers for both the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection and the Harris Library.

About the collection

The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, a part of the School of Human Ecology, contains some 12,000 textiles and costumes representing countless eras, places and techniques, making it one of the largest university textile collections in the United States. It was founded by Helen Louise Allen, a professor on campus from 1927–68. She was an expert in the history of textiles, interior and weaving and embroidery techniques, and using historical and anthropological perspectives in the study of textiles. She developed a private textile collection to support her teaching and research, and that collection eventually became the basis for the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. Allen’s work, papers, artwork and photographs are also part of the collection.