Belmont Mansion, Watkins College of Art host Creative Professional Lecture Series event to kick off Women’s History Month
In celebration of Women's History Month, the Belmont Mansion hosted a special event in its Grand Salon highlighting the vital contributions of three female craftsmen who have been instrumental in the restoration of the mansion's historic billiard room. The event, presented in partnership with Watkins College of Art’s Creative Professionals Lecture Series, showcased how these women combined artistry and scientific techniques to preserve one of the mansion's most treasured spaces.
A Collaborative Restoration Effort
Myers Brown, executive director of Belmont Mansion, opened the event by emphasizing the institution's commitment to women's historical contributions.
"At Belmont Mansion, we place special emphasis on women's history, highlighting not just the historical female figures, but also celebrating the women of today who are instrumental in preserving and restoring this historic building," Brown explained.
The mansion’s billiard room, which had previously served as staff offices, has undergone a five-year restoration project that is now approximately 95 percent complete.
"What you're going to see is probably the most authentic recreation in this house," Brown told attendees, noting that during the restoration process, they were able to uncover original wallpaper, pieces of floor cloth and other architectural features from the 1860s.
Three Skilled Craftswomen
The event featured three female specialists who each played distinct roles in the billiard room's restoration:
Elizabeth Williams: Pattern Reconstruction Specialist
Elizabeth Williams, a 2008 Belmont graduate with a BFA in Design Communication, brought her expertise in patternmaking to the project. As owner of New Hat, a Nashville-based custom wall covering and surface design business, Williams was tasked with recreating the billiard room's original wallpaper.
Working from small, damaged fragments of the original French wallpaper from the 1860s, Williams had to meticulously analyze the pattern and fill in missing sections. "This pattern can't be found anywhere," Williams explained. "We'll never actually know until someone finds an image of the original one what actually goes there."
The wallpaper, featuring a yellow background with gold foil details in what experts identified as a "Napoleonic color way," was produced in London by artisans using traditional printing methods to maintain historical accuracy.
Reflecting on the historical pattern she worked with, Williams shared, "I just love the process, honestly. It's so elegant. It makes you realize how gifted the artists were in history... I don't know if I could have even come up with anything like this, because that's not the visual language that I swim in. It's very feminine, it's very delicate, it's extravagant.”
Grace Abernathy: Historic Floor Cloth Recreation
Grace Abernathy, who holds a Bachelor's in Art History and a Master's in Historic Preservation from Clemson University, recreated the room's floor cloth — a painted canvas floor covering that was common in the 19th century.
Working from a cleaned 17-foot section of the original floor cloth, Abernathy studied the pattern intensively before creating linoleum blocks to print the complex design. "The hardest part was trying to figure out the design and trying to make it repeat," she shared, noting that the original pattern had irregularities that needed to be standardized for the recreation.
Her process involved sewing together canvas pieces, applying multiple base coats and meticulously printing each color layer using techniques researched from historical accounts of floor cloth production.
Kelly Ciociola: Conservation Specialist
Kelly Ciociola, with a background in art history and a master's in industrial preservation, focused on conserving and analyzing the original floor cloth fragments. Using both mechanical cleaning techniques and scientific analysis, she helped determine the original colors and techniques used.
"Some of the colors are soluble right down to water," Ciociola explained, which required careful cleaning methods. She also employed UV light analysis to reveal aspects of the pattern that were no longer visible to the naked eye, and she conducted paint analysis to identify the layers of materials used in the original.
On the mindset required in conservation work, Ciociola remarked, "We always joke, if you don't have that fear of messing it all up, then I don't trust you as a conservator, because you have to always have that sort of self-doubt in what you're doing. You have to question everything you're doing."
Career Paths in Preservation Arts
During a Q&A session, the women shared insights into their career journeys, revealing their individual paths to their current specialties:
- Williams never imagined making custom wallpaper while studying design communications at Belmont but discovered her passion after being asked to create wallpaper for Nashville’s Dozen Bakery.
- Abernathy initially planned to become an archaeologist before discovering her talent for graining (creating faux wood finishes) while volunteering at a state park.
- Ciociola combined her love of art history with hands-on work, finding conservation to be the perfect blend of "art and history and tactile, with a little bit of chemistry." “Every project is a new puzzle, and that really appeals to me,” she said.
The Intersection of Art and Science
The event highlighted how historic preservation requires both artistic sensitivity and scientific precision. From analyzing paint samples under microscopes to researching historic printing techniques, the women demonstrated how their specialized knowledge bridges multiple disciplines.
For Abernathy, studying the original graining in the mansion provided powerful insights. "It's just really meaningful to look at something that somebody did so long ago, and you don't know who they are, but based on copying what they did, you can start to actually figure out things about them,” she remarked. “For me as a historian, that's amazing."
The restored billiard room, which Brown suggested was originally a "man cave" with military-themed paintings and gaming equipment, now stands as a testament to both the mansion's 1860s appearance and the skilled women who made its authentic restoration possible.
For Belmont students, particularly those from Watkins College of Art, the event offered a valuable glimpse into specialized career paths where traditional craft techniques meet modern conservation science — preserving history through the skilled hands of contemporary female artisans.
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