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

We get inquiries regularly from customers looking to gift their empty crates to us. With the implication that, of course, the crates are valuable and it is really the donor who is making the sacrifice. So the least we can do is pick them up for free, how about Tuesday? In the past, waaay in the past, we said yes. No longer.

Having accepted and stored an inventory of “used crates” some years back, we licked our chops and waited for the perfect fits to show up. The caller who would need a crate of a certain size, one we could pluck right out of our inventory, spruce up a bit and maybe re-fit the foam interior, and essentially sell again. Thus offering the customer a reduced rate and creating a happy transaction all around. Except that, it rarely happened. It so rarely happened, in fact, that we ceased for the most part storing empty crates.

Why? Well, first, it just wasn’t economical. Crates are built to house a particular artwork or set of artworks. To fit a smaller work into an existing crate, the interior has to be re-done, old materials stripped away, new foam added etc.– this is both labor intensive and involves the cost of new materials. Even removing old labeling and covering outdated stenciling takes considerable time. Often the “feet” of the crate were loose and had to be replaced, or other wood elements in the crate required reinforcement. In addition, the customer has to pay higher shipping rates for a larger crate, so that has to be considered in the trade off re pricing. Customers do not like to see wasted space within crates — and it is very clear to professionals when crates have been padded to excess.

The bottom line turned out to be that the expense in time and materials to refit an existing crate was substantial, and often building a new one was a better deal for the customer, especially when shipping costs were factored in. And on our side, the costs to pickup, handle, store, inventory and inspect crates to find possible matches was not worth the meagre return.

For many sculptures, installation pieces and other dimensional artworks, a retrofit crate was out of the question. With such artworks the interior of the crate is actually the expensive part, as custom supports have to be designed, fabricated, and secured in the crate to hold all elements of the work in place. To start with an existing crate would be a complication to be overcome, not a short cut.

Finally there can be quality issues with a used crate, particularly one that has been stored for a long time or that has been subject to repeated shipping adventures. Screws can work loose, wood dry out, glued elements come unglued, and the stresses of shipping can work loose formerly tight joints, gaskets, and seams.  Some of the crates donated to us way back when were, upon inspection, trash. Some looked new, but upon handling proved rickety and unlikely to survive further freight journeys without substantial refurbishing. Some had spiders and worse, having been stored out of doors — not recommended.

So our rule has become: empty crates? Thanks but, no thanks. There are exceptions to every rule, and here and there we are able to re-use a recently arrived crate if the stars are in proper alignment. If a really amazing crate comes our way we might keep and admire it for awhile, and have our craters learn from it’s design, but sooner or later out it goes. The only empty crates we store now are those held in storage accounts for our customers. These are typically high end crates built for specific artworks that clients have in their collections, or crates being held for artworks temporarily in town on exhibition. Normally only the most expensive museum quality crates and cases are stored long term; it makes economic sense to store these rather than build new ones. In that case, crates are carefully inspected prior to re-use, and any elements that have degraded are replaced, so they are in “as new” condition when released into the arms of the shipping gods.

 Betsy Dorfman

You may have seen recent news coverage of yacht owners abandoning their boats in these recessionary times, causing a mess for marinas and law enforcement officers who have to deal with the cost to dispose of these in an environmentally friendly way.

Well, less heralded, it’s happening to us here in our fine art storage facility. Owners of high end paintings and sculptures are abandoning these possessions in droves, rather than continue to pay storage fees.

As one collector put it in a recent phone call:

“To continue to pay $125 a month when the artwork is only worth $50,000 – well, you do the math, it just isn’t a good investment anymore. Do whatever you want with the thing, to me at this point it’s just a heartbreak on canvas. And don’t call me anymore!”

Reached for comment, marina owner Fred “Tug” Cruiser, was sympathetic:

“I hear you, believe me. At least yours don’t leak oil. Oh, they do? Never thought of that. Here we have the owners, some of them, deliberately scuttling the boats themselves. Insurance company raises them up to find neat holes drilled in the side etcetera. My advice,  if you’re going to scuttle one of those pictures or statues, first, don’t do it in my marina and, second, don’t make nice little round holes! Get your dog to chew it or something. Have a little imagination for Christ’s sake. Geez, there goes a guy with a drill, sorry, gotta go.”

As you can imagine, there are laws on the books governing the proper disposal of artworks. You can’t just toss them in the dumpster or leave them on the shoulder of the 405 freeway on a dark night, however tempting. And you can’t sell them because, as with yachts, the market is already glutted with people trying to sell better paintings for pennies on the palette and anyway, as a storage facility, you don’t have access to the provenance. Without the provenance, even preschools won’t take them for the nap room. We tried.

As it is today, we can barely get in the front door due to a pile up of Picassos and Pollocks. In the back,  orphaned Boteros have staged a rebellion, shed their crates, and are dancing naked in the aisles. It isn’t pretty.

That’s the situation here on April 1^st, hoping for better days ahead.

Betsy Dorfman