Paid Post-graduate Interns at CCI — 2010
Clare Lewarne

I graduated from the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario with an Honours BA in Classics and Art History in 2005. My love of museums and textiles then led me to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, where I began an MSc program in Textiles and Clothing. During my studies I worked extensively with the university’s Human Ecology Clothing and Textile Collection, a teaching collection comprising some 18 500 artifacts that is unique in Canada. I also interned at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where I helped conserve and prepare textile artifacts for the newly opened “crystal” galleries. My thesis research explored practical ways to identify rayon fibres in dresses from the 1920s and 1930s and characterized the nature and use of early rayon in the collection.

Prior to my graduation in August 2009, I presented a paper on my thesis research at the 35th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property (CAC) in Vancouver, British Columbia (May 2009), where I was thrilled to receive the CAC Emerging Conservator Award. Shortly thereafter I also presented a poster at the 7th North American Textile Conservation Conference in Quebec, Quebec (September 2009).

I am extremely excited to be working in CCI’s Textile Lab. During my 1-year internship I will be assisting in the following conservation treatments:

• two flags — the 3rd York Militia King’s Colours and Regimental Colours — in preparation for the upcoming centenary of the War of 1812
• a large needlepoint picture depicting a young Queen Victoria and two children, which belongs to the Glanmore National Historic Site of Canada in Belleville, Ontario