As the Isabel Bader Research Fellow in Textile Conservation at Queen’s University, January through March 2013, Patricia Ewer is researching a new way of evaluating the condition of textiles in museums and galleries. Her project involves developing a risk management system that will bridge preventive conservation, treatment conservation and exhibition planning. In doing so, Ewer addresses possible misconceptions about textiles as being difficult to display and the downsizing of museum textile departments. As part of her residency, Ewer is working closely with the Queen’s University Collection of Canadian Dress at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and sharing her professional and academic expertise with Master of Art Conservation students.

Patricia Ewer recently co-authored and edited (with Frances Lennard) the book Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice (2010). She has served as Senior Conservator for the Midwest Art Conservation Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and as Treatment Conservation Manager at Historic Royal Palaces, Surrey, England. In 2002–2003, she was a Mellon Fellow in the Conservation Laboratory of the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Atlanta and in 2002, the Quinque Fellow in Conservation and Preservation, Burrell Collection, Glasgow, Scotland. A long-standing member of the American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Ewer studied at the University of Minnesota, and has held conservation internships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She is also owner/conservator of Textile Objects Conservation LLC, in Mound, Minnesota.

The Isabel Bader Research Fellowship in Textile Conservation is a research opportunity that promotes investigation in textile conservation and costume history. Through the generous support of Dr Isabel Bader, the Fellowship links two of Queen’s University’s most unique resources: the Queen’s University Collection of Canadian Dress at the Art Centre, which comprises over 2000 articles of fashion from the early 1800s to the 1970s, and the Master of Art Conservation Program, which offers Canada’s only graduate degree in conservation theory and treatment.