Floating Idle, 34x36"
"Floating Idle" 34x36", Pastel on sanded paperToday was not a good day. It all starts with this piece, above, which is a spectacular painting. This photo does no justice to it. The problem is, it is large, hard to handle, heavy, and it seems to have a small case of bad luck. Before I tell you my bad day story, let me share some background. Once it was in a show and was the showcase piece. As I stood there proudly next to my piece, I noticed for the first time ever that it had a huge smudge across a ducks bill. Augh! OK, blame it on my framer! On another occasion, it was hanging (by two hooks) in our family room and it fell to the hardwood floor and smashed the glass...entirely missing my son by a foot. The frame and the painting were still intact so I bought new glass for it and called it good.
Because of it's size, the large piece of protective glass has a lot of glaring reflections on it. After all, it is, well, just glass over a painting. Yuck! So recently, I made the investment of purchasing some Anti-Reflective glass to make the piece more visible. The only thing is that AR glass is very expensive, close to the cost of Museum glass but without the UV qualities. I have a show coming up next week and decided it was time to invest in it. Today I was delivering the painting to the gallery when the piece fell over and torqued the frame. Logic told me that glass doesn't bend, and so the AR glass broke into pieces!
I think that some paintings just have their own personalities, and this one does for sure!
As I write this post, it sits in my garage with the shards of glass hanging in the frame over the exposed pastel painting. My first thought is to possibly cut the painting into smaller pieces and reframe them, making a little series and also easier to handle. My gut tells me to do this, but the impact of the size and beauty will be lost! My second thought is, maybe it's time to move over to oils!
Unfortunately, it won't be in the upcoming "Secondary Colors" show at Amato's Gallery (event posted to the right). Until then, c'est la vie!
posted by Brenda Boylan at
April 13, 2010
2 Comments:
Brenda..my first thought when I read this post was "switch to oils!" haha--well, oil painters have their problems too--(miles of them actually). Still....what a DRAG...I wonder how Kitty Wallis' ducks stay safe (you know the ones? HUGE painting)--oh that's right, she doesn't ever move it! I'm sorry we won't see this painting at Amatos..a shame because it is really awesome. Should you have Kitty's framer come out and look at this? (Brian Grimes)..maybe the frame with the glass was "incompatible"? He would be able to offer an opinion and he comes to you. Call Kitty for his number!
Thanks Celeste for the contact name. When I get the gumption up to reframe it, I'll get ahold of Kitty. Actually, as you probably have summed, this duck painting was inspired by Kitty's huge one! I loved the perspective looking down and have always loved painting water. Except hers is so vivid that the sparkles on the water make my eyes water! I don't know how she did that, but it is fabulous! Anyway, these guys will be put in the back for awhile till I decide just what to do with them. Time will tell.
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