Museum Services

I worked with the Aga Khan Museum of Islamic Arts making mounts for their permanent collection as well as many of their touring exhibition objects. As well for Massey Hall, following their renovations, toward their architectural history display and music history exhibit. I have found this work with museums and cultural institutions to be some of the most emotionally rewarding in my career. Not least in the trust placed in handling and caring for the objects, but also in thinking of the craftsman’s hands that created the objects were akin to mine, imbued with an attention and care to the object though separated by decades, centuries or millennia in some cases. In the gallery I have included two mounts that were particularly meaningful to me.

The turquoise Ewer (AKM540) was possibly a pilgrim flask that was made in Syria or Iran in the 9th century. It is an incredibly fragile artifact with raised and flaking glaze around the handle and neck. The Ewer has a distinct glaze drip on its bottom, opposite of the handle it was likely hung on to dry and fire. It was a bit of a puzzle to mount, as this glaze drip was simultaneously the most stable and most vulnerable point in the artifact. As you might imagine, it took a bit of considered smithing to match the complex geometry of its bottom.

The Oliphant (AKM809) is a 11th to late 12th century ivory carving suspected from southern Spain, crusade era,
the silver mount was stylistically from England and dated 1620. At some point over the next 400 years, the silver talons mount became bent in such a way that would not allow it to rest securely for display, it was then my task to support it all, mostly invisibly, with a brass mount in 2018.

If you need an object to safely and securely rest ‘just so’ let me know and I can make it happen.