Colette Wolff Accession

The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection (HLATC) is a teaching and exhibiting institution in the Center for Design and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The HLATC stewards an encyclopedic collection of over 13,000 textiles for study and use by students, faculty, and researchers. 

In 2022, the HLATC received a large donation of Colette Wolff’s fabric samples, artworks, and archives. Colette Wolff was a textile artist, educator, and owner of a mail-order pattern making business in New York City. She wrote the seminal text, The Art of Manipulating Fabric (1996), which described how to create hundreds of 3-dimensional sewing techniques and was the first resource of its kind. I worked with this accession from start to finish and brought this large donation from unprocessed to cataloged and accessible, exemplify the breadth of my duties at the HLATC. The largest piece of this accession was a group of 259 samples photographed for The Art of Manipulating Fabric.

To make this accession accessible, I created paperwork, cleaned and labeled the pieces, cataloged and photographed the pieces, created database records, and housed them in the collection. The first step in this project was to create the donation documentation including donor affiliation, deed of gift, and inventory paperwork. Next, I needed to organize the samples to assign accession numbers. I matched each sample with its photograph in The Art of Manipulating Fabric and recorded the chapter, section, and technique associated with the sample. Once in order, I assigned accession numbers to the samples.

Then I recorded information about the pieces and took photos for their catalog records. I photographed every sample and artwork so that reference photos are available to users before the pieces can be professionally photographed. I researched Colette Wolff and her career to write her artist biography and describe her cultural significance. I also described information about the pieces like dimensions, materials, construction, structure, technique, and condition. I implemented copy and original cataloging to create 279 database records for internal and external use.

Once the pieces were accessioned and cataloged, they needed to be labeled and housed. I supervised and instructed a team of volunteers on how to safely label the samples with their accession numbers. Then, I spoke with the collections manager and curator to select a method that was safe for long-term storage and accessible for consistent access. I decided to use small archival boxes with tissue between each sample and organized these boxes by technique.

In addition to the samples and artworks that were donated, Colette Wolff’s paper archives also needed to be processed. While maintaining original order, I described the materials and their significance in a finding aid. I used information found in these primary sources to write Colette Wolff’s biography.

Through this project I grew my understanding about each step in the accession process and gained experience working collaboratively and supervising a team. I discovered the significant time and resources necessary for each accession to a collecting institution. It was rewarding to process an accession that will have enduring value for students and faculty at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.