Renée Dancause

Conservator (Textiles), Treatment and Collection Care – Textiles, Paintings, Polychrome Surfaces, Heritage Furniture and Wooden Objects Division

Main areas of work and/or specializations

• treatment of flat textiles
• treatment of costumes
• treatment of costume accessories

Biography

Renée Dancause graduated with distinction from the University of Alberta with a B.Sc. in Home Economics. Her course of study was clothing and textiles, with a specialty in the conservation of historic textiles. Renée worked in museums in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec before accepting a Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) textile fellowship in 1994. She has been a conservator at CCI since 1995. She consults on and undertakes the treatment of flat, oversized and three-dimensional textiles and costumes.

Renée writes articles on various topics relating to the treatment of historic textiles, teaches workshops with CCI staff for museum personnel across Canada and mentors interns. Her experience with the treatment of historic textiles extends to the following topic areas:

• wet and dry cleaning,
• custom dyeing of support fabrics,
• adhesive treatments,
• loss compensation techniques,
• pressure mounting,
• mounts and mannequins,
• fibre identification and
• poultices and the use of a suction device for localized stain removal.