Chandra Obie is the first textile conservator at Cincinnati Art Museum and also in private practice as Obie Textile Conservation, LLC. She studied costumes while earning a B.A. in Drama at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and went on to earn her M.A. in Textile Conservation from the Textile Conservation Centre in Winchester, England (now the Centre for Textile Conservation and Technical Art History at Glasgow University). Obie worked as a Kress Fellow in textile conservation at the Textile Conservation Lab at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City before being awarded a contract to work at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Australia. There, she primarily worked on two major exhibitions including Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume and Life, Death & Magic: 2000 Years of Southeast Asian Ancestral Art. After returning from Australia, she worked in private practice in Helena, Montana, and carried out conservation treatment and consultation for the Montana Historical Society for Native American textiles and historic clothing. She has also worked on The First Lady Ida McKinley Dress Restoration Project in Canton, Ohio, and on the Bonnie Cashin collection at the School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP) Library, University of Cincinnati. Obie has worked to build CAM’s first textile conservation studio space and oversaw a major upgrade for storage of large, rolled textiles. She is currently working on the care of a pair of 19th century kimonos for upcoming exhibitions.