Caring for a flag that flew over the Constitution
June 29, 2016 | In the PressFrom The Andover Townsman (http://www.andovertownsman.com/news/local_news/caring-for-a-flag-that-flew-over-the-constitution/article_cb755e55-29c0-5569-ae2b-13e2df2a5450.html)
Just in time for Independence Day, a taste of pre-Civil War American history has made a pit stop in Andover, at least temporarily.
A rare 19-star flag that once made its home on America’s first battleship, the USS Constitution, is being preserved by Museum Textile Services.
The flag, owned by former U.S. presidential candidate H. Ross Perot, was given as an 80th birthday gift from his son, Ross Perot, Jr. in 2010. It’s slated for long-term display at the Perot Companies Corporate headquarters in Texas, once completed.
“American history is preserved and venerated through its national symbols,” said Ross Perot, Jr. in a statement. “What greater symbol can there be than an American flag that flew over the USS Constitution nearly 200 years ago?”
Director and Chief Conservator Camille Breeze and her team, including fellow conservator Morgan Carbone, are tasked with restoring and preserving the flag, which is 16 feet, 8 inches wide and 10 feet, 6 inches high. They are hoping to bring the 9-striped flag to its former glory.
“It is a great historical coincidence that this particular flag is being worked on in the Boston area while the U.S.S. Constitution is presently in dry dock for maintenance and repair at the Charlestown Navy Yard,” said Breeze. “The flag was likely not flown over water or in battle, but would have served as an important patriotic symbol while the boat was out of the water.”
The Perot flag may now be their largest project, as far as Carbone can remember.
They have their work cut out for them, as every little detail matters.
Their goal for the flag is to improve its preservation level by removing pollutants, stabilizing it with a minimum of hand stitched repairs, correcting distortion using water vapor, and realigning it. The process, Carbone estimates, can take weeks. They’ll be completing half of the work in Andover, and the other half at the flag’s home in Texas, where Breeze and her team will travel with it.
“It’s going to be a tough balance, because we’re doing half of the treatment on site,” Carbone, 25, explained. “So here, we’re going to surface clean, we’re going to be humidifying the object, and you can do that with cool water or warm water. And that’s going to help realign the billowing that’s going in this really rich, wool fabric.
“We’re also going to pick a background fabric, a show fabric for the flag, and prepare it by sewing a seam, figuring out where that seam should lie on the panel. We’re going to figure out how much padding we need, just remeasuring the object here, making sure the panel is the right size, that type of thing.”
That, alone, is only the beginning of the process. Once Breeze and her team roll the flag up and get it to Texas, they’ll work with overlays and underlays to stabilize certain areas of the flag that are particularly tattered. After that, they’ll test colors for the right reds and blues, and meticulously hand stitch where need be, such as with the stars that need repairs.
If anyone is up to the task, it’s the staff at Museum Textile Services which includes Breeze and Carbone, both of whom studied art history, and went for their master’s degree in textile conservation at the Fashion Institute of Technology. They will also be aided by part-time assistants.
