Happy New Year Wendy - We exhibit and travel all of our paintings in micro-climate frames, smallest to largest, around 8' x 5'. The visible profile and faces of the frames are strictly reproductions of the eight frame profiles designed and used by O'Keeffe over the course of her painting career - casein lacquer or metal-leaf wood and "L" metal. We have also fabricated microclimate frames for other artists and other historic periods. The backing strainers are the structural part of the framing system and provide support for the painting, rigidity for the frame and hold all hanging, security and travel hardware and provisions. The backing strainers are milled by us using basswood, unfinished on the exterior to facilitate directional off-gassing, lined with Marvelseal vapor barrier on the interior and are built to contain a central pocket for silica gel-embedded felts, a dust and impact cover of Microchamber corrugated board and a Volara gasket along the edge where the "Z" profile overlaps the back of the frame. For thermal resistance and rigidity in the central void space of the backings we use either GatorFoam paper-faced styrene core or EagleCell paper honeycomb core panels. More flexible panels create unacceptable "drum" membrane vibrations in the interior of the frame during transit and are far less thermally resistant. We use Optium glazing, 1/8"/3mm up to 30" x 36" size paintings and 5mm for the larger sizes. We use both polycarbonate or polypropylene frame spacers and also gasket these where they meet the painting edge with Volara tape. We use 3 mm spacers for paintings up to 30" x 36" and 1/4"/ 6mm spacers for larger canvas paintings. With the discontinuation of Rhapid gel polypropylene felt silica-gel embedded sheets, we use ArtSorb sheets, conditioned to 50% RH generally, at a rate of one sheet or 400 square inches of ArtSorb, containing 90 grams of ArtSorb silica gel, for every 300 square inches of painting surface, assuming that the depth of the backing airspace is 1.5 inches deep, or 450 cubic inches of airspace. The felts are secured in the backing strainer pockets with a facing sheet of 1/8" thick Microchamber corrugated board which adds additional RH buffering and thermal resistance to the backing. Shim spacers for stretcher irregularities are filled with either strips of acid-free 2-ply mat board or Poron 4790-79 shock seal absorbing foam in 2mm, 3mm and 4mm thicknesses.
The ball park, in-house cost for all design, materials, fabrication, assembly and administrative overhead is $18 per linear inch of frame, (e.g. $1,800 US for 100 linear inches (254 cm) of artwork perimeter. Dale Kronkright Head of Conservation Georgia O'Keeffe Museum 217 Johnson Street Santa Fe, NM 87501 [email protected] Office: 505.946.1041 Fax: 505.946.1093 ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to [email protected] Searchable archives: http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/
