Because every holiday for us is potentially a busman’s holiday — there is art everywhere  – it isn’t unusual for my husband and I to check into a hotel and immediately make ourselves suspicious to the staff. Without removing anything from the walls or touching the frames we nonetheless make ourselves conspicuous, craning to see how artworks in the common areas and in our room are attached to the walls. We can’t help it; this is how we are wired (pun intended). We’re always on the outlook for interesting solutions, and any new hardware or technologies that might be in play. Glamorous as it is to be mistaken for art thieves, our interest lies in how artworks are put up, now how we can take them down!

I should be clear that we are not looking to sell our services to these establishments. Most hotels and conference centers buy art in bulk and install in bulk, an entire floor or even the entire hotel at once. The vendors who do this type of installation typically do so under contract and frankly at a rate per piece which is below what we charge to install fine art. There are of course exceptions including boutique hotels, corporations, and law offices etc. who purchase and display truly fine art, and hire us to install it. But large hotel chains, not so much.  Nor does  our crew of installers with master’s degrees in art, some of whom teach at the college level, want to go to a hotel for four weeks and install lithographs of tulips and swans. Maybe in Hawaii. But even there, probably not. It’s a different culture and the demands of the workplace and the knowledge required in each case, as similar as they seem (putting up art) are actually quite different. But I digress.

So we have seen a lot of approaches to installing art in public places, some brilliant, some silly, most standard and unremarkable. But recently we ran into something entirely new: we entered our room and immediately saw that every painting was screwed to the wall with four or more shiny metal screws put right through the frames — and not tiny screws either. In some cases these were gilt frames. Expensive or not, most likely not, it was still jarring  and made us wonder if this hotel, a nice one, had for some reason a major problem with theft of southwestern themed amateur art. Or fear of earthquake perhaps? Something must have possessed them to go to this extreme of ruining the frames, not to mention the aesthetic senses of the onlooker, in favor of securing the art.   

Having explained our interest to the owner (this was a small hotel) he said, first, that we were the only guests ever to inquire — figures! And second, that theft was not the issue, or earthquake, but crookedness in another sense. The pictures, originally hung on wire, were always getting knocked off of kilter, and he was tired of paying staff and taking his own time to straighten them. Times ten artworks per room times however many rooms — adds up. So having had enough at some point, they simply nailed and/or screwed all the paintings to the walls, end of problem, done.  

Needless to say there are there are a number of less drastic possible solutions,  although perhaps none cheaper, which don’t ruin the frames and allow for removal or repositioning  with less trauma to plaster or drywall. We will discuss some of these approaches such as security mounts in an upcoming blog post. We certainly sympathize with the need for alignment — the world is pretty much divided into two groups, those who can’t be in a room with an askew painting without breaking into hives, or straightening the painting properly, and those who are fine with it or don’t notice. For the former, like the hotel owner, and who also clearly owns the building and so won’t catch hell from the landlord, this was an immediate and inexpensive fix which only disturbed, apparently, us. Those screws ! Right into the wood frames!  Pretty big screws ! After a couple of glasses of white wine out by the pool we managed to overcome our professional horror and enjoyed our stay. We slept without fear of anything coming down on us in an earthquake, except perhaps the walls themselves with those paintings of ponies and pink mesas everlastingly attached….

Betsy Dorfman

We get requests on a regular basis to send boxed or otherwise “softpacked” artworks via package services such as UPS or Fed Ex, or by freight, to various destinations.

Our answer in 99% of the cases is, no. We don’t ship softpacked art by freight service, period. Or, (with apologies to O.J.) if it’s freight it needs a crate! For starters, the package services don’t differ from freight in terms of handling; they are freight.

Freight handling is rough and tumble, or can be. We get crates in regularly that have footprints on them from being “stood” on, sometimes a whole line of footprints showing the crate was walked on most likely to reach other objects in a truck. If that container had been a softpack or box — curtains.

Most freight shipments are handled multiple times enroute, are fork lifted to and fro, and may get conveyor belted as well. The extra foam padding used within a properly built crate gives far better “shock” protection than a standard softpack. If you have ever seen the result of a cowboy driven forklift tine striking a cardboard box, it isn’t pretty. With a severe blow even a crate might be breached, but the chances are better for a positive outcome.

In addition, freight shipments are generally not “tied in” within the transport vehicle or aircraft. Which means they can shift, turn over, or other items can lean against them or fall on them. Thus, the more rigid the container the better. 

Moreover, crates can be constructed using various tricks of the trade along the top or bottom which make them suitable to ride only one way i.e. in a given orientation as to LWH. While this is not foolproof, and we never rely on freight carriers to ship art that might be damaged if turned from the vertical, it is more possible to secure the orientation of larger crates than boxes or cartons. Any small box or package shipped via freight is guaranteed to be turned this way and that, no matter what orientation marks appear on the exterior.

There are exceptions to the  freight=crate rule. Several companies sell prebuilt shipping containers or “strong boxes” composed of heavy corrugated cardboard, seriously foam lined, and sometimes incorporating additional puncture proof linings. These offer protection approaching that of a plywood crate, but are more crushable, still. And there is the occasional very sturdy artwork that can survive double boxing in a foam lined box.

Your local pickup guy may hand carry your box out to his truck, and may lovingly place it in the proper orientation, but it’s not going to be handled that way for the rest of the journey, chances are. We see packages every day which are handed to us upside down, or where “fragile” markings are ignored with parcels tossed casually into trucks despite cautionary labeling. A crate offers superior protection outside and in and gives what can be an art saving margin for error. 

If you stick with our rule of thumb you have a far better chance of your shipment arriving in good condition. 

Betsy Dorfman