KIRBY
PRESERVATION
textile • costume • mountmaking
preservation • collection management
for inquiries, contact us
Stacey L. Kirby, owner of Kirby Preservation, is a preservation specialist and mountmaker
based in Durham, NC with more than 20 years of experience caring for textiles, costume,
beadwork, cultural objects, and contemporary art in museum, institutional, and private collections.
Kirby Preservation provides specialized services for the preservation, care, and display of
historic and contemporary textiles and objects, including condition assessment and documentation,
textile stabilization and repair, surface and spot cleaning, collections care, environmental monitoring,
custom mountmaking, exhibition preparation and installation, and storage and display solutions.
Stacey has particular expertise in textile and costume mounting, hand-stitched stabilization,
custom supports and hanging systems, mannequin modification and fabrication, and the mounting
of complex three-dimensional and mixed-media objects.
Stacey spent 12 years working in the Conservation Department at the North Carolina Museum of Art and the
textile conservation lab at the North Carolina Museum of History. At the North Carolina Museum of Art,
she collaborated with conservators, curators, registrars, designers, and exhibition staff on the care, mounting,
preparation, installation, and maintenance of the museum’s collections, including African,
Egyptian, Judaic, contemporary, decorative arts, and outdoor sculpture. At the NC Museum of History,
Stacey assisted former Head Textile Conservator Anne Peranteau (who moved onto the Te Papa Museum, NZ)
with custom mannequin construction, mounting of costume, custom dyeing of fabrics for treatment,
and minor textile conservation treatment of history costume.
In addition to her 12 years of apprenticing under textile, objects, sculpture, book, paper and
paintings conservators, Stacey has specialized preservation and conservation training includes
Textile Preservation and Advanced Textile Preservation with Harold Mailand through the
International Preservation Studies Center and private instruction in the conservation of
African beadwork at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. Additional
professional training includes museum mannequin construction with NMAI’s Mountmaker
and Specialist Shelley Uhlir, mountmaking and installation with mountmaker Bill Mead,
costume display, preventive conservation, environmental monitoring, and the safe handling, storage,
and exhibition of historic textiles and costume.
Through Kirby Preservation, Stacey works with museums, universities, municipalities,
historic sites, artists, and private collections. Clients include the Nasher Museum of Art at
Duke University, Ackland Art Museum at UNC–Chapel Hill, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art,
Cincinnati Art Museum, Biltmore Estate, 21c Museum Hotels, Victoria and Albert Museum,
San Antonio Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art and Frist Art Museum.
Stacey holds a dual Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Journalism and Mass Communication,
with a concentration in Graphic Design, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her studies included costume construction, draping, and flat patterning through UNC’s
Department of Dramatic Art, with additional study in fashion history and material culture
at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, and art history and fashion at
the Lorenzo de Medici Institute in Florence, Italy.
Contact: stacey@kirbypreservation.art
Stacey is a member of the American Institute for Conservation, Textile Society of America, and Costume Society of America.