FINE ART SHIPPING was recently privileged to provide packing and crating services for the ART in Embassies program, which exhibits works of American artists in the public rooms of embassy residences around the world. Yes, Virginia, a government program that actually and directly supports the arts, and has done so since its inception in 1964. Way to go, State Department!

Artworks are loaned by artists, corporations, museums and private collectors, and the AEIP pays the costs of packing and shipping to the destination city. Further information on the program is available at : http://aiep.state.gov/index.cfm

The site also supplies guidelines for artists interested in submitting art to their Registry. For students and other art hungry travelers, the website contains a listing of what works are currently on exhibit in which cities, together with artist statements and details of the pieces on view. This is a great way to support American artists and to beat the lines and entrance fees encountered at so many better known exhibition venues.

Betsy Dorfman

Over the years we have had a couple of instances where artworks or valuable objects were mistakenly left in crates or packages and almost, or actually, discarded. I hasten to say these were not containers that we had packed, but items received by us packed by other customers or shippers. In one case a work on paper was sandwiched by the sender between cardboard sheets with no labeling on that package whatsoever. Inside and resting against the back of the crate it was readily mistaken for…well, a piece of cardboard. And recently when preparing to discard boxes returned from a jobsite we found a number of expensive glassware items and a silver tray which the customer’s staff overlooked when unpacking. Oops.

Whether hiring a professional company or doing it yourself, all containers with multiple contents should be accompanied by a packing list or pack list. Sometimes this is pouched on the outside of the container, but for maximum safety we like to put a copy inside the package. With crates we often glue them inside the top. With a pack list, the person unpacking knows exactly what to look for within the box. They can check off pieces as they unpack and make sure that all items are accounted for before discarding the package.

In addition, all packages within a box or crate should carry a clear label to distinguish between packed items and incidental packing materials. We often write “art inside!!” on portfolios as well as label them with the artist and title of the contents. A few seconds with a red marker can literally save a small or thinly wrapped artwork from accidental destruction or loss. Your packages should not be mysterious.

And then there are the “non art” components which often accompany shipments. Artists are notorious for this. They will send us a lovely crate with carefully packed and labeled art within, but fail to alert us to look for that little bag of screws, or that wood cleat they tucked up in the northwest corner which they hope we didn’t think was part of the crate, or the little packet of folded mending material that is hugely important to the installation… Once again common sense dictates that anything which needs to be found needs to be findable. And all items including incidentals need to appear on pack lists. Otherwise we may not recognize what is integral and what is not. The folded material in one artist’s crate might be something leftover that they used to fill negative space, or it might be critical to the artwork. We should not have to guess.

At our warehouses, we have a standard rule that all boxes are broken down fully and all accompanying “trash” paper, bubble wrap, or plastic etc. is searched again to make sure no objects are commingled in the packing. With crates, interior foam and loose spacing or lining materials are fully removed so that the crate is inspected right down to the wood before it is marked as empty. Every art handler has a story of the “empty” crate that wasn’t. Packing lists may not entirely solve this problem, but they help. After all the most basic goal of shipping is to have the receiver, not the dumpster, receive what the shipper shipped.

 Betsy Dorfman

In the not too distant past our customer service folks, with degrees in things like medieval literature and art history, were forced to rely on various musty charts, formulas,  incantations and dart boards in order to produce crating cost projections. Sometimes reality obliged and we came close; sometimes not. On average, we weren’t. But with the arrival of  crate wizard Chris Barber, all we have to do is send an email and wait for his reply. Here’s more from Chris on the nuts and bolts of his creation:

Depending on how comfortable you are with creating and managing a partially automated system, a custom estimate and cut-list program can be a ridiculous time saver for your crating department. My “crating engine” uses mostly simple math functions in a simple database application. With it, I can estimate the cost and dimensions of a crate and have a formatted cut list ready to print for the craters in as little as fifteen seconds. Unusual crating circumstances only require a couple minutes of data entry before the results can be sent to customer service representatives or printed for execution. The same artwork specs and basic packing approach are automatically forwarded into several crate shell styles simultaneously, from slat crates to our highest-level travel crates. Every square inch of building material is automatically added up and priced, both for estimates and for the actual price of the built crate.

But whether you have your own crating program, or whether you do all of your math with pencil and paper, the big unknown for crating estimates is labor. Any given builder will have good days and bad days. Averaging their past performance won’t always give a perfect estimate, but it will take their history into account and mitigate guesswork based on misleading examples. Naturally, the more examples of past performance you record, the more likely you are to approach a good reliable mean.

The other sticking point in estimating labor is the duration/volume ratio. For obvious reasons, this ratio is not a straight line, but a curve. The smaller the cubic footage of any style of crate, the more minutes it will take to build per cubic foot. Likewise, the same curve levels off to nearly flat in the upper size range. I’ve plotted these curves for my lead crater so that I can make a reliable prediction of his performance on any style of crate, regardless of the size job. Even if you do everything else in your head, an accurate time curve is an elegant alternative to guesswork. Of course, this isn’t limited to crating. It can be applied to any production task with a similarly predictable set of actions. Here’s how to make your own:

Step 1. The first thing you will need is the raw data. Start recording exactly how long it takes you or your staff to build crates. Start a separate log for each crater, and each style of crate that crater produces. Every log should include a series for minutes and a series for cubic feet. Then make a third series, dividing minutes by cubic feet. I put these series in columns; so if cell A3 = minutes, and cell B3 = cubic feet, cell C3 = A3/B3. You will only use the second and third columns in the next step – cubic feet & minutes/cubic foot. Here’s an example log for “B-crates” with two hypothetical craters, one a faster builder than the other:

Soon you should have enough data in those series to get reasonable estimates. The data collection is an ongoing process, however, and your logs should be updated regularly. Older numbers could be dropped eventually to account for your crater’s growing experience and speed, but the aim is to collect as much information on each builder as possible. This is not to spy on your crew. It is to accurately predict the time it will likely take this person or that to build the next crate.

There are two ways you can process your database into functional labor estimate curves. First I’ll show the quick way, and then I’ll explain what these numbers mean by showing the chart method.

Step 2a. Find the “power trendline” of each crating log you have made, and multiply it by the estimated cubic feet. I’ll explain what the power trendline is in some depth below, but for now you can just treat it like a magic spell. If you aren’t a math geek and don’t care how, why or whether this really works, you can stop reading at the end of this step.

The fastest and most efficient way to process a given crater’s average curve on a given style of crate can be done in five math functions, and will fit on a spreadsheet the size of a postage stamp.

cell A1: =[length]*[width]*[height]*1/1728 [estimated cubic feet]

cell A2: =EXP(INDEX(LINEST(LN(y),LN(x),,),1,2)) [coefficient A]

cell A3: =INDEX(LINEST(LN(y),LN(x),,),1) [coefficient b]

cell A4: =A*(x^(b)) [trendline equation]

cell A5: =[cell 1]*[cell 4]*1/60 [labor estimate]

A1) The first cell should simply display the cubic footage of the crate being estimated. The least fussy way is to link this function to three blank cells somewhere else where you enter the crate’s L, W, & H. Those same three blank cells can be linked to every curve you make (since you need a separate curve for each crater on each style of crate).

A2) The second cell should return the value of A to be used in the equation in cell 4. This cell should contain the exact function shown, but in place of x, link to the whole cubic feet series in your crater’s log (B3:B14, to use the slower crater shown above as an example). Likewise, y must be linked to the whole series of data in the minutes/cubic foot column of your crater’s log (In this example; C3:C14).

A3) The third cell should return the value of b for the equation in cell 4. Treat series variables x & y the same way here as you did in cell 2.

A4) The forth cell should contain the function shown, but replacing x, A, b with the results of cells 1-3 respectively. Caution: in this equation, x refers only to the cubic footage of the crate being estimated. It is not the same variable as in cells 2 & 3.

A5) The fifth cell is the product of the values returned in cell 1 and cell 4, then divided by 60.

You can use these five steps to bypass the charting step described below and get your trendline equations straight from your database. But the chart actually shows what these numbers mean, and I prefer to see graphic representations of the curves anyway.

Step 2b. If the step described above seems too cryptic, the numbers involved can be more readily understood by graphing them. The program I use allows me to insert a visual chart into my spreadsheet, define the x & y parameters and link them to the two relevant series of data. This is pretty basic, and I’m sure that it’s a universal feature in spreadsheet applications. The type of graph you want is an x-y scatter chart. Your chart’s values are simply: x = cubic feet, and y = minutes/cubic foot. Once your graph is linked to those two series, you will see points plotted in the field – each point representing the crater’s performance on a specific crate.

The more information you have (and the more consistent your crater is), the more it should suggest the hint of a curve starting in the top left corner and ending in the bottom right. Now you can give the graph a trendline. The trendline extrapolates an average curve from your unwieldy cloud of points, in a visible line. You may need to choose from several types of trendline. I prefer what my application calls the “power” type, which appears to produce the most realistic curve, leveling off dramatically as it approaches zero on each axis. The “exponential” and “logarithmic” types both trace the trendline right off the chart at each end, and there’s no way a large crate will ever take negative minutes to build. Nor will a small crate ever have negative dimensions. The “linear” type overrides the curve that I believe is there. The “moving average” type defeats our purpose entirely. The “polynomial” type creates a dip in the middle ground that doesn’t make sense to me. Even if I wanted to address the handling logistics of larger crates, this potential issue is completely unrelated to the polynomial equation.

As you can see above, there is less data from the faster builder, and the blue curve is barely visible. This makes the blue trendline less reliable in the extreme size ranges; particularly the smaller sizes. This problem can be addressed quickly by giving that crater a very small crate to build and a very large one. Getting just a few points plotted past the margins of that crating history will give the blue trendline a wider range of accurate predictions.

Step 2c. Once you have your trendline plotted, tell your graph to show the trendline’s equation (which is hidden by default). Each trendline is described by a math equation reflecting the moving average of your plotted data. The power trendline equation should look like this:

y = Ax^b

The values of x and y are still cubic feet & minutes per cubic foot respectively, as the chart suggests. The coefficients “A” and “b” come directly from the trendline, which in turn is a biased average of the data your chart illustrates.

Step 2d. Now here’s the nice part: Your trendline equation can be recuperated back into the spreadsheet for the purpose of estimating labor. Once you estimate the cubic footage of your prospective crate, you can simply multiply it by the trendline to get the most accurate possible labor estimate for any given crater. The spreadsheet function for this looks a little tricky, but here it is using the same variables, A & b, as my example of the trendline equation above:

=A*(x^(b))

So if your trendline shows the equation: y = 35.956x^-0.789

…the spreadsheet cell representing it should say: =35.956*(x^(-0.789)).

If your trendline shows the equation: y = 5.5678x^-0.2912

…the spreadsheet cell representing it should say: =5.5678*(x^(-0.2912)).

Note that to make either of these examples functional, x must refer to the cell that displays the crate’s estimated cubic feet. The current value of x must be folded into the trendline equation before it can return a relative unit of duration/volume adjusted by the crate’s size. While the trendline equation merely displays the coefficients A & b, the spreadsheet cell as typed above will return the actual value of y — as long as x points to the cell displaying the current value of x and the function begins with the equal sign. Once you have a spreadsheet cell representing the trendline linked to the variable cubic footage cell, all you need do is multiply the two cells. Keep in mind that this will result in minutes; so if you prefer estimated hours, just divide the result by 60.

So to mentally separate this step from the raw database illustrated above, let’s skip over (arbitrarily) to column H on our example spreadsheet.

The blue and orange numbers in this screenshot represent the faster and slower craters, like in the curve chart. The top number in each set is the cubic footage of the crate currently being estimated. This cell changes with every estimate, as it is the product of the crate’s length, width & height, divided by 1728 to convert from inches to feet. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the cell displaying orange cubic footage is in position H4 on the spreadsheet. The next cell down, H5, is the trendline equation for that crater, with the current cubic footage plugged into it. So in place of “x” in =A*(x^(b)), the function says H4. And in place of “A” and “b”, the function shows the actual trendline coefficients. In this case what I actually typed into cell H5 is: =70.254*(H4^(-0.656)). Refer to the orange trendline on the chart to see how I got A and b. This is a functional version of the trendline equation, responding automatically to the cubic footage displayed above it. If the cubic footage dropped, the result displayed in cell H5 would rise appropriately for the crater in question. The next cell down, H6, is the product of the first two cells, divided by 60 to convert from minutes to hours. This is the estimated hours it will likely take that crater to build that style of crate at that particular size.

Step 3. Update and fine-tune your logs. Some spikes may occur that throw the whole curve out of whack. They are usually in the negative direction – like when a crater made a big mistake and spent a lot of extra time correcting it. I toss the worst spikes. I would rather take the hit when random problems happen than let them affect every estimate. Such large spikes are very rare, and I’ve only eliminated about four crates from my whole database for that reason.

Packing estimates: Of course, packing a crate involves many more variables than building it, so you should keep building time and packing time separate in your database, charts and equations. I don’t even use packing curves myself. I use a flat time for each type of flatwork, sometimes adjusted a little for size, and estimate all dimensional items in my head.

There are many different ways you can approach the problem of labor in estimates, depending on how tight you want your estimates to be. Plotting curves is admittedly a bit anal, but quite easy to set up. And it only improves over time as you add more information.

-Chris Barber

Carole Choucair Oueijan, Layaleena, 48 x 72, smalti, 24 karat gold smalti, granite, marble, onyx, crystallino, mother of pearl, fresh-water pearl, hematite, coral, jade, quartz

I always crate artworks from the inside-out; at least in my bean, in the design stage. But the actual building can vary. Sometimes it can proceed in any order, and sometimes the crate must be built before the art is approached. It depends on whether the artwork is packaged in soft materials separate from the crate, or whether it must be built directly into the crate with a cushioned wood structure. When it’s the former, I occasionally prefer to pack the art before the crate is started. This is hardly necessary, but it can save a little desk time when dealing with a number of irregular shapes that aren’t so irregular that they require much planning ahead.

This was one of those jobs that fell into that little gray area. It just made more sense to figure out how large the package would be by packing it. The piece was composed of twenty-odd irregular sections of mosaic of variable thickness. It would happily ride flat in a stack of foam-welled trays. With such a simple packing approach, it was more efficient to sort the elements by relative size and shape in “real time,” as it was being loaded onto trays. I started with a rough guideline of 36″ x 24″ trays, and from that starting point my crater found that he could fit all elements onto 13 trays at 32″ x 24″. I’m starting to make it sound more complicated than it was. Before I knew it, the trays were packed and I had a nice boxy package to measure for the crate.

Our thanks to Carole Choucair Oueijan for her permission to include images of her artwork. Layaleena, an Arabic/Lebanese word for “Splendor Nights”, is a commission piece installed in a home in Greece. In this scene the goal was to reflect the magnificence of the Lebanese nights and lifestyle of the past. Layaleena is made out of 21 pieces and took 10 months to complete.

-Chris

Today we crated an antique object so dripping with inherent vice that I wanted to just give it a good shake and ship whatever remained in hand. It was a lacy assemblage of stressed wood with flaking paint and gold leaf, forming some kind of elaborate staff.

I thought that only wizards had these, and I must say; any wizard would be proud to lean ponderously on such a grand walking stick. I was disappointed to be informed that it was not, in all likelihood, the former property of any such character; not the least because it debunked my theory that it was the gradual (and sad) fading of magic that was causing the many unsecured parts to slowly lose their unlikely relative positions and settle into a more natural relationship with gravity.

I do admire a clever bit of woodworking, and in all fairness, it isn’t the staff’s fault that it was never meant to lie prone like a saucy odalisque; much less freighted that way. But long story short, this thing was screaming to be shipped upright – not only for the fragility of its overall construction and distribution of weight, but also for the specific joins used in assembling some of the wooden nuggets.

That some of the said nuggets were quite loose is an understatement. They were ready to leap away from the piece like rats riding the explosion of a sinking ship’s boiler room. But for a variety of reasons, shipping upright was no more an option than not shipping it at all; the latter being a suggestion I slipped anonymously under the general manager’s door this morning before tip-toeing away.

When that plan didn’t work, I was forced to ship the piece in a horizontal attitude. The point of all this is that sometimes you have to just do what you can to make sure the thing is as safe as possible within the tight budget. So here’s what we did:

A cavity pack was pointless, as we would have had to float so many little parts and still catch the more solid areas at all of the correct angels in a Swiss cheese version of (a negative image of) the piece. So vertical guillotines it would be. The staff’s lateral, vertical and axial movement was eliminated by guillotines along the shaft.

One more guillotine on the crown’s widest point took much of the crown’s weight, and also eliminated any possibility of spinning in place thanks to the hexagonal tier.

Tall, tapered bumpers reached up from below to take the weight of each successive tier in the crown.

Belts and straps of Tyvek held the loosest pieces in place while holding the tiers down against their bumpers.

Finally, a safety bumper of softer foam was placed ½” away from the tip of the staff, just in case several other axial stoppers failed.

I still wouldn’t drop this crate from the top of a tall thing, but I can strap it to  a unicorn and wave goodbye to it with confidence.

-Chris

As crating manager, I sometimes get a self-satisfied chortle out of packages sent to me from various sources, private and professional. With the Tour de France 2009 in mind, this one was more amusing than most. And also more annoying.

The front wheel of my bicycle was recently crushed in a collision with a car on my way to work. It being a lightweight road bike c. 1986, I figured I’d maintain the vintage and save money in the same stroke by getting another set of French mid-80s wheels. I love eBay.

I guess it’s good that Mavic wheels are known to be pretty much bomb-proof, because the package in which they arrived was barely fit for a local delivery. The front wheel (the one I need right away) has damaged spokes, but they can be replaced. I hope that’s the only reason why the rim looks almost as bad as the one that got run over.

The thing is, these wheels are really strong; so what went wrong here? Let’s take a look.

1. Though made for shipping wheels, the box was recycled from an earlier use. There’s a different brand printed on the outside, and what passed for interior packing had clearly lost its shape prior to this use.

2. Even if new, this type of packaging is designed to be supported by other significant factors; like bundling them in large numbers on a shipping pallet. It was clearly not designed for overseas travel on its own.

3. Due in part to the used packaging, the three parts being shipped were not adequately secured inside the box. A small bag holding the steel skewers was tossed in loose to jump around inside the box, and the hub of each wheel was jammed into the spokes of the other.

As a result, the box got crushed. The cogs of the rear wheel arrived poking a 5″ diameter hole through the box, and three spokes had somehow snapped off of the front rim.

As a bonus, the shipper decided to use stamps to send the box to California. From France. I hate eBay.

So how would I have packed this, assuming that a crate was not an option?

…Let me stress that the following solution is not something that we would do here at Fine Art Shipping. Unless the client was renting a dedicated shipping container to be loaded by us, we would insist on a full wood crate for international shipping. But let’s just say that I wanted to ship the wheels back on my own dime, while trying to mitigate further damage. Due to their odd size, I would start with a custom box, built from a couple sheets of double-wall cardboard.

1. I would cut two panels of 3/8″ plywood to reinforce the interiors of the two large walls of the box.

2. Then I would surround the wheels with 2″ bumpers of Ethafoam. I would stack another 1″ of foam on these bumpers and slot them for the wheel rims. This would keep the wheels separated and secure in their cushioning.

3. Finally I would bag and secure the third part – the skewers (wheel axles) – well away from the wheels. They could be embedded in the bottom foam bumper, or the bag could be screwed to the plywood sides.

C‘est la vie.

Hey, lookit these pretty stamps.

-Chris

1. “Things taste better in small houses,”quote attributed to Queen Victoria – it’s true

2. Space is relative. A clear patch of deck = a ballroom, once you have achieved the proper frame of reference

3. Sunsets are the best entertainment, especially the summer replacements

4. You can brush your teeth with 3 tablespoons of water, or none

5. Most raw fruits and vegetables don’t need refrigeration

6. The same folks who ruthlessly cut you off on the highway in their BMW’s will jump to assist if you need help docking; it’s a different culture

7. A Kindle is a necessity

8. Small paintings make big statements

9. Just because you can buy a huge yacht and, literally and legally, drive it away (or into) the dock with no license or training required, doesn’t mean you should.

10. The best antidote to a city job is a marina address

 Betsy Dorfman

When we advertise for art handlers there are inevitably calls and emails in response saying essentially: “I’m not exactly sure what an art handler is or does, but I know I would be super good at it!” Well, you might — most art handlers are trained on the job and people from all sorts of backgrounds have succeeded in the role. But it isn’t an easy job and it takes the right blend of skills and personality to make the cut.

In the next few posts we’ll take a look at art handlers and art handling; the more the public understands what we do and why and how, the better. And perhaps there are some future art handling superstars out there in cyberville waiting to be discovered!

So, for starters, what is an art handler?

An art handler typically works for an art services, transportation, or storage company and performs some or all of the following tasks:

• Drives a truck, either locally or long distance between cities
• Picks up and delivers a variety of artworks including paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works of all descriptions
• Inspects artworks to determine how, where, when, or if to touch them and how to pack for transport
• Understands how to properly wrap, load, span, tie in artworks within a truck to keep then safe and stable during transport
• Selects proper archival and other packing materials depending upon the medium, surfaces, condition and fragility of the works in question
• Packs and crates artworks of all descriptions
• Interacts positively with a typically educated, professional, and often opinionated customer base in the field
• Installs artworks professionally in settings ranging from corporate to residential, including selection of proper hardware and exercise of aesthetic judgment as needed
• Prepares condition reports and photographs artworks as needed
• Completes critical paperwork such as inventories and bills of lading with accuracy and attention to detail
• Has the “people” skills and situational awareness to work with a partner or larger crew in a seamless way, taking leadership and direction as needed to complete the task at hand
• Is familiar with basic art terminology and art history

Not all art handlers necessarily need to drive trucks, crate, or install artworks; in larger companies there are departments and an art handler may never be required to drive a large truck, make a crate or softpack paintings. But the wider the applicant’s skill set the more valuable he or she is potentially to any employer.

It should be noted that art handling in a for profit competitive business like art transportation is quite different from the job of a preparator or art handler in a museum or gallery setting. There is a tremendous emphasis on dealing with the public and many services of necessity are are performed with third parties looking on. Ever put a $5 million dollar painting into a crate with a room full of museum staffers looking on? Or install a painting on a 20 foot white wall in a living room overlooking the ocean with the owners of the artwork, gallery representative, art consultant, and artist all offering input and suggestions?

It takes a certain personality and sense of forward motion to get the job done both safely for the artworks and expeditiously enough to keep the company in business. Time counts, and the extra caution slow motion rules which are standard operating procedure in some institutional committee cultures simply don’t apply. Many otherwise talented art handlers can’t make the shift to the “for profit” culture or are fine working alone in a shop but not comfortable out in the field with onlookers checking their watches, asking questions, and sometimes second guessing methods and materials. Whatever their other qualifications, art handlers who are loners, can’t do paperwork, or who fail to develop a good “art side” manner with customers don’t last long.

Betsy Dorfman

The most recent and local controversy over museums de-accessioning artworks involves a decision by the Orange County Museum of Art to sell multiple artworks to a private collector. Having learned of this transaction only after the fact, the Laguna Art Museum lodged a protest, upset that they were not offered an opportunity to acquire the artworks in advance of the offer to a private citizen.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/06/ocma-sells-paintings-to-private-collector-prompting-criticism.html

Without knowing the details, and having a working relationship with both museums, we have no interest in taking sides, except to say that hopefully the new owner of these artworks will see fit to lend them early and often. As is obvious the basic difference between works held so-called publicly, in museums, and those held privately, does often come down to a matter of access. But there are museums who hold art off public view and, likewise, some private lenders whose artworks are out on loan more often than not. Some lenders loan freely, some sparingly, and some grudgingly. In 25 plus years of dealing with lenders and borrowing institutions we have pretty much seen it all. We thought you might enjoy a peek into this process which is not as cut and dried as you might suppose.

In some cases purchasers of high end artworks agree to loan the work to bona fide requestors as a part of the acquisition process. In other cases no guidelines apply and it is simply up to the borrowing institution to contact owners of prospective works and convince them to participate. Such convincing can be a simple phone call or a long process involving delicate negotiations over many weeks or months.  Luckily, that’s not our turf.  If these efforts are successful a loan agreement is drafted which sets forth various stipulations such as term of the loan, conditions of transport, insurance, etc.  We generally come into the picture once the loan agreements are in place; we receive an inventory of artworks and a corresponding list of lenders. It is our responsibility to contact the lenders to arrange packing and transport to the exhibition venue. On paper, this is all very organized. In real life, not so much.

Hi, this is FINE ART SHIPPING and we’d like to arrange a date this week to pickup the Prestigious Artwork which you are kindly lending to the Prestigious Museum Exhibition next month.  Hello ?  Hello?

Some lenders, having agreed to the transaction some time ago, change their mind or, let’s say, their enthusiasm diminishes once the reality of giving up the artwork becomes apparent through our phone call. We leave messages, they don’t call back. Or they do call back, and claim the loan agreement is faulty in some way. More delay. Or, the artwork it turns out has been taken to their ranch in Montana, and the caretaker can only be reached there on alternate Thursdays by meeting him in town at the feed store. Where there’s a lack of will there’s no way.

Other lenders could not be more helpful, but experience separation anxiety once our art handlers actually arrive to collect the piece. In one case, a lender actually cried, seeing the bare space left on the wall where her favorite “child” had lately hung. We moved another favorite over from an adjoining room to compensate, calming her down and making the room livable again. At the other extreme, we’ve shown up only to be waved into the living room with an offhanded “take whatever it was you came for…” as the housekeeper or spouse went on with more pressing business.

I once had the personal trainer of a lender who was out of town sit me down at a table and go over every comma in the loan agreement, occasioning many calls back and forth to the museum representative, before “Hans” would release the piece. We were supposed to wrap the painting, but I was so fearful Hans the Inquisitor would change his mind that I simply picked it up “naked” and carried it out through the lobby. The (by now new) security officer on the desk apparently had no problem with a person he had never seen before carrying a valuable painting off into the sunset.

Then there are the occasional lenders who try to get our crews to do extra work, tacitly or even not so subtly expecting that such activity will be billed to the borrower or organizer of the exhibition. Take the artwork off the wall? Sure. Put another painting quickly in it’s place? Reasonable, if essentially a switch of like sizes. Bring the two heavy framed antique mirrors and the chandelier in from the garage and install them “so the room will look nice again”?  I don’t think so. Upon return from exhibition, some lenders see this as a chance to re-position all the art in a room or to have us unpack and install a few new paintings that have arrived in the meantime. Generally this works out, and lenders are able to separate (and be willing to pay for) services beyond what is included in their agreement with the borrowing institution. Sometimes the institution agrees to pay even for quite outlandish “extras” based on the deep pocket status of the benefactor in question. Basically, “do whatever they want and try to get the hell out of there” is the instruction, delivered with a sigh. Every art handler has stories of moving the refrigerator out to the pool house, or switching dressers in upstairs bedrooms, all in the normal course of putting a 20 x 20″ framed artwork back on the wall in the den. Lenders have to be made happy, on this the art world depends.

Betsy Dorfman

Every once in a while, a crate will pass through our warehouse with those air-filled plastic feet, each in the shape of a torus with one flat side, such as Skid-Mates by Hardigg Cases. They come in several densities to support different loads, indicated by a color code. These “donuts” are occasionally used in lieu of skids in the art shipping industry (more often in the general shipping industry), presumably to add that extra bit of cushioning between the crate and the floor, or to create forklift access for loads shipped without pallets or custom skids.

For each plastic-footed crate that comes and goes without incident, one or more have shown up with a crushed or missing foot; sometimes more than one. An incomplete set of feet obviously makes for an unstable crate. Those aren’t much fun when they are tall, thin and six hundred pounds or more. This can be especially serious for anything that shouldn’t be tilted, much less rocked back and forth throughout its transit. For this reason, I like to keep a few different types of donuts around the crate shop. When a crate passes through with such a problem, I simply slap a new one on wherever it is needed.

That said, I am of the opinion that plastic donuts have no place in custom art crating. By “custom” I mean crates that you design and build to unique specifications; as opposed to prefab crates and pallets for, say, a beer bottling plant. Any crate that doesn’t pack an artwork sufficiently on the inside is in trouble before it’s built, and needs to go back to the drawing board. Why not design an adequate crate and then add a little extra cushion to the outside? Because that can easily lead to taking the donuts into consideration when designing the interior packing in a crunch. Such a thing might never occur to you or me, but somebody out there is doing it right now because they are on a budget and in a hurry. If your custom art crate needs donuts under it, you’re doing it wrong. There are better ways to give your shipment multiple and separate levels of cushioning.

But donuts are not merely unnecessary on a good art crate. There is a reason or two not to use them. As I mentioned before, they come with different load strengths so that you can take the crate’s weight into account when balancing the sturdiness needed with a bit of cushioning. But what if your crate with well-balanced donuts is dropped on one edge or corner, temporarily putting all of the weight on fewer donuts? Or what if another company’s crate is stacked on top of yours? Or two more? It would seem that the feet of higher densities would be the safe bet in terms of avoiding donut failure, but that would often as not eliminate most of the cushioning for which you have chosen to use them in the first place. However unlikely the scenarios above might sound, the fact remains that I see at least one of a set crushed more often than not.

Even when none of the donuts are damaged and they are doing their intended job, the exterior cushioning they provide can cause a tall and heavy crate to feel unsteady before any of the feet leave the floor. If a transport is not properly loaded with this in mind, it leaves the crate free for all kinds of motion during transit. Hollow feet designed for specific load ranges can always be exposed to unexpected and adverse conditions during shipping.

Finally there is the potential for damage of a more violent kind. In contests with forklifts, donuts always lose. Wooden skids can also be knocked off by wayward forks, but only if the crate is too heavy to be pushed away by the forks (or it is pinned in place by something like a wall), and if the skid is also broadsided by the shock. But in most cases wood skids are placed perpendicular to logical forklift access; giving a full-length beam of solid wood nowhere to go. So the shearing of a properly assembled wood skid is relatively uncommon. Custom skids also look better, as they can be designed as a solid, seamless part of the crate rather than just being pinned on as an afterthought.

In my opinion, donuts go with coffee – not fine art shipping.