Artex Day (Smithsonian pick-up day)
 

Hi All,

I want to share that it was exciting to have Artex, the premium art movers and handlers in the land, to pick up Apotheoun for the next leg of the National Portrait Gallery, portrait competition. They need to see the actual art now; I understand about 100 pieces. Artex has an itinerary for four local competitors today on this run. I have no idea who these other artists are.

I briefly was employed by Artex, and feel strongly they have the most professional operation going, and many centralized bases and hubs across the country, to their advantage. That's a nice truck in the shots below, with a climate controled interior. These guys did further packing of Apotheoun once it was inside the truck.

In the mean time since last posting, I have updated the framing and varnished Apotheoun with Gamvar to spruce it up, in the event it goes all the way and gets exhibited in July.

Wish me luck some more! Feedback on the framing is fine by me.

Best,

Garth

ARTEX website.

Thanks for sharing Garth!
I sure hope they packed it a little more than that! :bewildere :cool:

Terri,

I wrapped the poly sheeting you see myself in advance of the pickup. That common material is totally inert and harmless. These guys added layers of bubble wrap then added a custom fitted corrugated cardboard shell. This is called soft packing. It was secured in the truck behind several more protective sheets of corrugated cardboard and strapped securely. I used to do moving and have no problem with this practice. It will be fine!

Garth

edit: Yikes! 7,000 hits as of today.

Garth,

It

Hi Allan,

I made the frame.

This is basically the same frame as before with an extra strip of 1 x 3 maple added to the outside. Then yes, I painted it! (and rubbed and buffed paint off, and added more paint, etc. oil paint.) Does it look okay in the little picture?

Thanks,

Garth

I think that it is better than if the paint was put on totally even. Now it looks more like the paint in the painting itself, same vibrations.

You are the master and entitled to decide for the painting, including the frame, that

Thanks for your affirmative vote of confidence, Allan!

The paint on the frame is quite uneven, and mostly translucent, letting the maple wood peek through. The warmer tints are from the wood, while the paint is a grayish-buff-ochre-(some colbalt turquoise green hints here and there too) related to the paving in the painting. The framing seems cleaner to me as a statement with the painted surface. I just didn't want a perfectly painted surface fearing it would then look too plastic in appearance. Maybe I'm partial to the mysterious graining of wood, so that I could not quite completely lose it.

Garth

Garth,
I understand why you chose the wider frame. It

Hi Allan,

Perhaps you are more verbally articulate and insightful than I have ever been in defining to myself what I was after in the framing. Lebensraum is a new word to me. In its pure sense (and not the Nazi association), you may be close to the mark. There are several bodies cut at the middle and disappearing off to the sides. Psychologically, it may seem more comforting with more of a visual buffer between the painting and the wall environment it hangs upon.

As for the color, I wanted a close relationship to the paving, but not the same color. I like the frame lighter than the paving; why, I am not sure, but a darker frame puts everything into a different value context, with everything glowing too much. With this relationship, it seems to emphasize for me, the chiaroscuro of the boy's body, being the contrast between the light mass and shadow mass; and the shadow may appear more shadowy in context, without a darker frame overpowering it.

As for the extra space I added with the extra strip of wood, I was not happy with the proportional relationship between the frame and the spacing and cadence of certain elements in the painting, and I wanted to change that. Widening the frame by 3/4 an inch seemed the best option to me. Adding more would not have worked well either, making the painting seem too lilliputian in a huge frame. I was looking for a balance comfortable with the painting, and I'm happier with the current solution. Now the space above the upper elbow of the boy does not clash as much with the frame, to me.

Garth

Garth,

I was actually thinking of your changing of the frame, and the color of it ,as an extension of the lebensraum of the color of the painting itself. This related to the topic about "Optical Red".

I agree that shapes can be too close to one another and in that way block the free expression of the limb , or whatever.

But more interesting is the unintended restriction of a color if it is not allowed to fill its full potential.
In the case of your painting, it could be that the shadows would look too pale if you used a too dark frame, as you mentioned.

The reversed example, how to emphasize a color, or light, is to extend the effect of it beyond its borders. That was my first idea when I saw your post at first.


Allan