Name
Lindie Ward

What is your specialty area?
Textiles, lace, dress and shoes.

How long have you been working at the Museum?
Since 1990.

What is your favourite object in the collection?
Very hard to answer. Often an object is really memorable when you uncover its story – a bit like a treasure hunt! I have always had a soft spot for an anonymous, but exquisite, Art Deco beaded bag in the collection and was thrilled to discover, on the web, that it was very rare and designed by Maria Likarz-Strauss, an important Austrian designer of the Vienna workshops whose work was not represented in our collection. Another favourite is the Bosdyk dolls house I recently acquired. Everyone is excited by its 20 rooms and 2,000 meticulous pieces that took 8 years to make!

What piece of research or exhibition are you most proud of in your career at the Museum?
Through curatorial work and exhibitions you are continually being educated, in the most interesting way, about fascinating people and about our history. After a while, isolated pieces of information start to join together into a wonderful, connected whole. A recent project that has been most rewarding is the Australian Dress Register, which will document dress in regional and private collections in New South Wales. Through this team project we have developed a wide range of web resources to assist those working in regional museums and galleries, advising how to assess significance, care for, photograph and display costume in collections. The satisfaction with this project comes from setting up a formula that can be useful well into the future and will document community history.