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 have mentioned previously the wisdom of providing the third dimension (the depth) for each two-dimensional artwork to be handled. But equally important is the issue of accurate dimensions. Having correct sizes is critical to crate pricing, and even moreso if crates are to be prebuilt in advance of actually receiving the artworks.

Very often we are provided with dimensions that are ten inches or more off the mark. You artists know who you are… Whether too high or too low, an estimate based on bad information is of little use to either the customer or the vendor. If the “wrong” dimensions are supplied for multiple works, as in a traveling exhibition, then the mistake just compounds and we all might as well just go out for a beer. After work, of course.

Some estimate requestors likely honestly believe that “close” is good enough or that a matter of inches one way or another won’t have a serious impact on pricing. But the truth is that when we design a crate we round up to the nearest 1/8″ inch in most cases. Or for an estimate, perhaps up to the nearest inch. But leeway of several inches? Never. The whole idea of a shipping crate for an artwork is to be custom built to the size of the work. And, believe it or not, too large is just as bad as too small.

When providing dimensions to an art handler the best approach is to supply each dimension labeled as to its correct orientation. For example: L 50 x W 3 x H 80. So if the artwork in question is a photograph that must travel right-side-up, the crating department will know how it must be crated, and any potential shipping issues due to height will be anticipated before it is time to ship the artwork. Send a photo of the work as well where possible, and of course indicate any condition issues that might require a custom or enhanced crating solution.

Guessing at the order of dimensions can be tricky. Many art shippers use art-world configuration of Height x Length x Width. But here at FAS we use the standard shipping configuration of Length x Width x Height in most of our notations, and we always indicate orientation with the letter designations to avoid confusion.

So give accurate dimensions, indicate the correct orientation, and provide as much information as possible about the artworks to be shipped. You will obtain an accurate estimate, and faster, too, as we won’t have to track you down to get more information.

Finally, if you are guessing at dimensions, confess! That way we may be able to offer you a couple of “what if” quotes and there will be less angst all around when that x- plus- ten -incher comes in the door.

Chris Barber & Betsy Dorfman

Upon being asked some requesters seem surprised that the depth would matter. As if, having gone to the bother of telling us that the medium is fossilized possum teeth and pop rocks embedded in resin, how could the depth possibly be of interest? But typically in the end they indulge us and come up with something, oh all right, if you must know…. I have often wondered why this lapse is so frequent, as it seems so logical that artworks, being things, have three dimensions and take up three dimensions in what we like to call real life.

With paintings in particular however, this dimension seems to disappear from the interest radar. Perhaps it is because the depth, measurement back to front, can and does vary with the framing. But that is equally true of the length and height, to some extent. I think the answer more likely is that trained and museum personnel most often think in terms of image size rather than framed size. (Another question every fine art shipper needs to remember to ask!) Image size is their gold standard and depth is not considered. And this omission can and does persist when inventories are passed on for shipping quotes.

Also the depth is generally the smallest dimension of the three and so can seem insignificant. Emphasis on the “seem.” As shippers, we live and occasionally die by volume. Back in my rookie season I worked up a detailed estimate for a multi crate traveling exhibition of sixty or so artworks. Licking my pencil (metaphorically) and conquering my English major’s fear of spatial relations testing of any kind, I grouped the paintings by size, figured my crate dims and was good to go. Except, I failed to ask re image size versus framed size and, worse , I let the customer get away with giving me an “average depth” of 3 inches per artwork. Long story short, the artworks were framed in the most enormous heavy and ornate gilt frames I have ever seen. These babies each needed their own zip code. Every one was 6-8″ inches overall larger than I had estimated including back to front. The real killer, the budget buster, the oh-my-god-you-have-got-to -be-kidding-me element was the depth.

Things I took away from this experience:

• It helps to own the company, because you can’t be fired
• You can’t be fired, but you can be forced to ‘eat’ unusable crates. (No they never come in handy for something else. But we will get to that in another post)
• Average depth is defined as 5″ more than you could possibly imagine
• Customers are very nice except when ten crates turn into twenty
• Fear of spatial relations testing (which of these two hellish objects fits inside this other completely useless diagram) is a reliable predictor of intelligence
• Image size is for politicians, not art shippers
• All correspondence with estimate requesters should begin with “what is the third dimension” and end with “so help you god.”

Betsy Dorfman / Fine Art Shipping