TEXTILE mounts
During my internship at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Exeter, UK), I was involved in making mounts for artefacts going on permanent display as part of the redevelopment of the African portion of the museum’s World Cultures galleries. Below are a selection of the mounts I produced.
hat mount
This is a fairly basic hat mount made of ethafoam padded out with polyester felt and polyester wadding, then covered with silk and green cotton. Green is the theme of the African display cases and this green cotton was used to cover any areas on mounts that might be visible.
Image 1: Artefact on the completed mount.
Image 2: Completed mount.
Mask Mount
This mount was quite complex to design; it is made to support a wooden mask with a fragile hide covering attached to the top. The mount needs to support the mask without having the weight fall on the hide covering. Composed of two separate pieces, the bottom is made of ethafoam and mat board, padded out with polyester and covered with the display fabric. At a later date, the museum techs added three small metal prongs, one in the mouth area and one on either side of the chin, which allowed the weight to be born by the wooden part of the mask. The second piece of the mount is a loose pillow of polyester wadding with an ethafoam base which slides into the upper portion of the mask to support the hide covering. The entire structure is mounted from below on a metal rod.
Image 1: Mount complete except for metal prongs.
Image 2: Mount in situ, on permanent display.
mannequin for robe
This mannequin was designed to support and fill out a robe. The arms are made of calico stuffed with polyester wadding and the neck and wrists are capped with fabric-covered mat board. As the neck area is visible on display, it was covered with the green cotton.
Image 1: Completed mannequin.
Image 2: Mannequin in situ, on permanent display.
ethiopian airlines bag
This plasticised textile bag had the tendency to collapse in on itself and distort. The soft pillow-type mount, made of calico stuffed with polyester wadding, can be compressed for insertion into the artefact and supports it internally. Two sheets of activated charcoal cloth, with a tissue barrier, were inserted into the bag with the mount to prevent the plastic from off-gassing into the display case. The mount had significant visual impact, greatly improving the bag’s appearance.
Image 1: Artefact without mount.
Image 2: Completed mount.
Image 3: Artefact with mount inside.