Chandra Obie Linn is the Conservator of Textiles at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Obie started out as a costume designer, earning a B.A. in drama from Vassar College in 2005, before going on to earn an M.A. in textile conservation from the Textile Conservation Centre at the Winchester School of Art, England (2007). After graduate school in England, she worked briefly in New York City before heading to Canberra, Australia, to work at the National Gallery of Australia. At the NGA, Obie focused on costumes of the Ballet Russe, Southeast Asian textiles, and sometimes contemporary Aboriginal art including a possum-skin cloak and batiks.
CAM brought Obie to Cincinnati where she assembled the first textile conservation lab at CAM. Obie has worked on several notable projects including samurai armor, contemporary fashion and fiber sculpture, and the Joseph Urban bedroom. She has been a professional member of the American Institute of Conservation (AIC) since 2015. She has published and presented to various groups including AIC, the Midwest Region Conservation Guild and the North American Textile Conservators’ Conference.