Shirley Ellis

Bio

Shirley came to the ROM in 2003 when the focus of her work was devoted to the new Michael Lee-Chin Crystal which was part of the Renaissance ROM expansion project.  Today her work still revolves around the many galleries in the Lee Chin Crystal that display textiles, whether it be in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume, Sir Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery, Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific, or the Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples.  She works on a variety of textiles and costume from all parts of the world and ages from Before Common Era to present day.

Shirley received a Master of Art Conservation degree from Queen's University in Kingston and also draws strongly on her education in clothing and textiles from the University of Alberta.  Her varied training has included internships at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City; the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels, Belgium; the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum, Turkey and Canada’s Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria.

Prior to the ROM, Shirley worked with the Clothing and Textiles Collection and Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta where she taught course and labs in textile conservation, conserved the Collection, participated in exhibit installations and ran the textile conservation fee-for-service for the public and institutions.

Her recent project, the conservation of a red ensign (flag from 1812) for the Sovereign Allies/Living Cultures: First Nations of the Great Lakes was complex requiring suction cleaning and stabilization incorporating a combination of adhesive backing with nylon tulle and stitching.