Dakota Hoska is Associate Curator of Native Arts at the DAM and Danielle Stephens is a Senior Interpretive Specialist at the DAM.
As part of a Bank of America Art Conservation Project, the Denver Art Museum recently completed conservation work on a group of Pueblo of Acoma textiles.
The DAM’s curatorial and conservation teams (including Marina Kastan (Mellon Foundation Textile Conservation Fellow, and Allison McCloskey, Senior Textiles Conservator) worked collaboratively with cultural advisors from the Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico, to review, assess, and advise on the long-term care of 12 textiles in the DAM collection. These textiles, which entered the museum between 1936 and 1983 through purchase or gift, are mantas, which were worn by women as an everyday garment and in social and ceremonial contexts, and "capes" that were commissioned and worn in ceremonies.
Based on the dialogue, conservation treatment was thoughtfully undertaken. While these works are important to the museum’s ability to share narratives of the Acoma culture with its communities and visitors, their most significant value lies in their importance to the Pueblo of Acoma people. The traditions of weaving and embroidery are an important part of Acoma culture, and garments like these still play a crucial role in certain Acoma ceremonies today.
The museum is committed to making items in the collections accessible to their originating communities. As stewards for these significant textiles, and with a responsibility to the people of Acoma, it is important that the DAM addresses conservation needs in a collaborative manner—now and in the future.
These textiles will be displayed at different times in Denver and at the Haak’u Museum at Sky City Cultural Center in New Mexico.
Video and Photos
DAM staff in consultation with representatives from Pueblo of Acoma as part of a conservation grant collaboration project in partnership with Bank of America.
Acoma cultural advisors Prudy Correa and Elvis Howeya and DAM conservators Allison McCloskey and Sarah Melching examine an Acoma cape, ca. 1820-1840, from the DAM collection.
DAM Textile Conservation Fellow Marina Hays, Associate Curator of Native Arts Dakota Hoska, and Acoma cultural advisors Lilly Salvador and Elvis Howeya examine an Acoma manta, ca. 1860-70, from the DAM collection.
Denver Art Museum staff and Acoma cultural advisors met in Denver to view and discuss Acoma textiles in the DAM collection. Here, an Acoma cape, ca. 1830–1850.
Marina Hays, Andrew W. Mellon Textile Conservation Fellow, works to stabilize an Acoma manta from the Denver Art Museum collection.
The mantas are woven from natural or dyed cotton and wool, with characteristic embroidered borders. Each manta exemplifies traditions and techniques that embody the Acoma Pueblo practice of cooperation between male weavers and female embroiderers. Lolita Torivio, manta, 1941. Cotton and wool. Denver Art Museum, Native Arts acquisition funds, 1942.327.
Acoma artist, "cape", ca. 1820–1840, cotton and wool. Denver Art Museum, Native Arts acquisition funds, 1942.325.










About Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project
This project was made possible through a grant from Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project. This project provides grants to nonprofit museums to conserve historically or culturally significant works of art that are in danger of degeneration, including works that have been designated as national treasures. Since 2010, Bank of America has provided grants to museums in 36 countries for more than 200 conservation projects comprising thousands of individual pieces. Pueblo of Acoma textiles were among a select group of 23 Art Conservation Projects announced in 2022 by Bank of America, with recipients based in 13 countries and nine US cities.