Fieldwork- MHJ and Comet Tapestries
Textile Conservation Out and About
The Textile Lab at St. John the Divine has a variety of clients with a variety of needs. Sometimes this includes going out in the community for site visits. These are two such examples- remounting artifacts at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and visiting the United Jewish Appeal to access the site for the long-term display of the Comet Tapestries.
Valerie Soll and FIT Intern Jules hanging the Comet Tapestries in the Comet Apartment. Photo Credit: Margaret O’Neil
Valerie Soll and Margaret O’Neil measure a wall at UJA as a possible place to hang the Comet Tapestries. Photo Credit: Marlene Eidelheit.
Where would you hang the tapestries?
In 1968-1969 Holocaust survivor Shoshana Comet woven five tapestries in order to process the horrific events of her childhood. She never woven another piece again and went on to become a psychotherapist. After her death, her husband Ted Comet began to provide tours of her work, which currently hangs in their Upper West Side apartment, to showcase how art can be a powerful tool to process trauma. Click HERE for more info from Ted himself.
After over fifty years of hanging in the apartment, the tapestries were cleaned by the Textile Lab at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The last of the pieces was reinstalled in Ted’s apartment in May right after Ted’s 99th birthday. Because Ted is getting older, he is trying to find a permanent home for his wife’s work. He tasked the Textile Team with going to the United Jewish Appeal’s offices in Midtown to assess the space for the permanent installation of the tapestries.
There are three spaces- the boardroom, the hallway, and the staircase. Which would you pick? Click HERE to download the full site visit report.
The Board Room
The Hallway
The Staircase
Ultimately, I liked the staircase best for it visibility but less human contact potential. Ted was most drawn to the hallway for its high visibility and potentail for in-depth viewing. He also wants a plexi-glass shield or case of some sort.
Museum of Jewish Heritage
On May 8, 2023 Marlene Eidelheit, Director of the Textile Lab at St. John the Divine, and Margaret O’Neil, third-year graduate intern, traveled to the Museum of Jewish Heritage at 36 Battery Pl, New York, NY 10280 to unmount and remount six objects from the exhibition The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do. The exhibition opened in the summer of 2022 with all the mounting happening in the previous mounts. The museum has been retrofitting the mounts in the show since opening.
Download the full report HERE. Please note there are images of Nazi flags in the report.
Remounted Torah textile and MHJ. Photo Credit: Margaret O’Neil