BEST BUY stores recently retracted an errant ad offering big screen TV’s for $9.99. Hey, stuff happens.  And so, with apologies for any inconvenience, we take this opportunity to issue a few clarifications of our own:

FINE ART SHIPPING is not offering for $500 or best offer “your choice of any stored artwork belonging to someone who has not paid their bill.” This offer was posted in error on a now deleted blog. We are sorry for any confusion.

Nor are we prepared to “tie any such painting or artwork onto the top of your car for transport at no cost, provided you haul it away same day.” This was printed in error as well.

FINE ART SHIPPING assumes no responsibility for artworks tied or bungeed to the tops of vehicles, nor will we lend you any rope or string for that purpose. It has always been our policy that high value artwork should be transported inside vehicles wherever possible.

In addition FINE ART SHIPPING is not offering an alliterative “painting-plus-pet” discounted storage option. Somehow this language slipped into a recent email marketing campaign by way of a search and replace glitch. We do store paintings; we do not store pets. Whoever dropped off the Baldessari and the beagle,  the Georganne Deen and the gecko, and especially the Thiebaud and the tarantula, please be advised that the pet portion of your storage account will be available for pickup behind our warehouse weekdays between noon and 4 PM. We will return any unused puppy, reptile, or spider chow at that time.

Thank you.

Retractions & Clarifications, 29^th floor

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.

Artist Robbie Conal and Track 16 Gallery, both incidentally customers of FINE ART SHIPPING, have teamed up to present a retrospective of the artist’s gloriously politically incorrect work. A seriously trained artist, Conal is best known for his takes on right wing icons who are treated with the attention to satiric detail they so richly deserve. To confront Conal’s Nixon or Phyllis Schlafly on a dark evening in the warehouse is a must stop and shiver moment not to be forgotten. For the younger set, there is plenty of George W and Cheney to go around, as well as a foray into positive depictions of “good guys” painted in the wake of 9/11.

Here’s a link to the recent Los Angeles Times article on the show, which opened October 19th and runs through November 22nd.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-robbieconal13-2008oct13,0,1778852.story

Although the timing of this exhibition to coincide with election fever couldn’t be better, there is a range of works on offer and not all are political.

FINE ART SHIPPING salutes Mr. Conal for 30 plus years of speaking truth to power. And congratulations also to Track 16 Gallery for another “must see” exhibition. Before Jon Stewart there were these folks, and they are still at it when and where it counts.

Betsy Dorfman / FINE ART SHIPPING