In Memory of Margaret Ballantyne
We are deeply saddened by the passing of Margaret Ballantyne, a cherished member of the Textile Museum of Canada community and a lifelong champion of textile arts.
It is with sadness and regret that we share the news that Margaret Ballantyne recently passed away at the age of 76. Margeret was the Conservator at the Textile Museum of Canada for over 20 years. She joined the Museum’s staff in 1994 at a critical time in the Museum’s history, as it shifted from a community passion project spearheaded by our co-founders to the professional institution it has become today. She applied her knowledge and skills as a textile artist to her conservation practice, bringing life and stability to many of the most treasured pieces in the permanent collection. For example, her work transformed the Chinese children festival hat collection so these whimsical but fragile objects can be safely displayed and preserved for future generations.
I first met Margaret in 2004, when I became a collections volunteer to gain work study hours required for my fashion design degree. I was still a teenager, interested in the history of textiles and eager to apply what I learned to my own designs. Margaret, who had previously taught textiles at Sheridan College and the Ontario College of Art, saw something else in me. With her mischievous grin and the unsubtle nature that she was known for, Margaret told me that she thought I would be much better suited for a career in museum conservation. It took a few years for me to agree with her, but what was intended to be a single summer volunteering with at a museum transformed into a career in conservation. And I was one of several students Margaret mentored in this way. Her legacy lives on not only in the Textile Museum of Canada’s permanent collection, but also in the conservators she inspired and the students that we mentored in our subsequent careers.
While I have since left the field to pursue a career in academia, I treat my students (who are roughly the same age as I as was when I first volunteered at the Museum) with similar levels of kindness and patience that Margaret treated me with many years ago. As it has been for many staff and volunteers, the Museum gave me a sense of community when I needed it and I’m one of many people who have Margaret to thank for that experience.
— Hillary Anderson
Conservator, Textile Museum of Canada
2012-2021
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