Behind the Scenes with the Collections and Conservation Summer Student

Post by Kim Cielos, Collections and Conservation Assistant – Young Canada Works Summer Student 

It has been an exciting summer as the Collections and Conservation Assistant summer student at the Manitoba Museum. This is not my first job in a museum; previously I had summer positions at the Transcona Museum as a Collections and Research Assistant and at the Winnipeg Art Gallery as a Collection Inventory Assistant. This is however, the first time I have had the chance to undertake conservation-related duties. I work closely with Cindy Colford and Carolyn Sirett who are two amazing people that guided me throughout the summer teaching me about conservation work. Perhaps it’s destiny, but coincidentally, both Cindy and Carolyn have studied (and Cindy was a professor in the Collections Conservation and Management Program) at Fleming College in Peterborough, Ontario where I will be going this going fall. Though I will be taking the Museum Management and Curatorship Program and not the Conservation program, there are some aspects where these two programs intertwine with each other. Thus, not only did I get to experience things before learning them in my program at Fleming, but I got to do, in my opinion, some pretty neat stuff.

I have only touched a tip of the iceberg with what I have done this summer. I have done other conservation tasks like polishing silver medals from WWII and taking photographs of artifacts before and after their treatment, helping to clean a cast iron coat of arms from the HBC Museum Collection, as well as making new custom boxes for artifacts to go into storage. From the collections side, I helped with cataloging artifacts and entering information into the collections management database, and labelling specimens from the zoology collections with their catalouge numbers.

Before and after treatment of WWII medal. It’s a very satisfying seeing how much cleaner it becomes. © Manitoba Museum

The people at the Manitoba Museum were wonderful and helpful in creating an educational and fun experience here. Not only did I get to see the interesting aspects of conservation and collections, but my time here helped me broaden my knowledge about the different roles and career options that are possible in the museum field. I may be going into a general museum studies program, but I feel better prepared for the conservation-related tasks that may come along after my summer at the Manitoba Museum.

Legacies of Confederation: A New Look at Manitoba History, tells many inspiring stories and is supported by several amazing artifacts and specimens. Most visitors to the Museum do not get to see what happens behind-the-scenes in order to prepare our artifacts and specimens for display. Research is compiled, design and layouts are created, condition reports are completed, mounts are built, and in some cases, conservation treatments are performed in order to ensure the safe display of the Museum’s collections.

The ears of the specimen showed the most visible damage in the form of extreme shrinkage, which resulted in a number of tears and splits in the surface. The skin had shrunk so much that the internal structure of the taxidermy mount was exposed.

I was able to repair this damage by cutting the exposed wire framework to the surface of the skin without damaging the hide. I then used a piece of Japanese tissue paper sized to cover the split in the skin and in-painted the tissue with watercolours to match the surrounding hide. Using a conservation grade heat-set adhesive, the Japanese tissue paper was adhered in place and set with a tacking iron. The final touches to the ears included placing a few strands of bison fur from a sample to produce a consistent look to the area.

In addition to the ear repair, a large hole in the neck was infilled with plaster, years of dust and dirt was removed, and the original wooden backing board was consolidated.

Before being selected to be part of the Legacies exhibition, this specimen spent most of its time in storage lying flat. But now, visitors to the Museum can see the specimen as it was intended, wall-mounted vertically.

On the day of installation, it took four installation staff to lift this nearly 100-pound specimen into position – five feet in the air. Today, as a feature piece within this exhibition, the bison head mount demonstrates its iconic significance to Manitoba’s history.

The Museum’s Conservation Department is charged with ensuring the long-term preservation of the Museum’s collections by mitigating deterioration before it begins, and responding to damage when required.