A Remarkable Way to Stretch Canvases
(and Other Essentials of Canvas Preparation)

By James Bernstein

Introduction
I am going to present a stretching procedure that may sound heretical and very much at odds with what artists are taught about canvas preparation from their earliest studio days. I ask that readers please suspend disbelief and give a try to some of the special techniques that follow. If these procedures are embraced, artists will find the results astounding, almost revelatory. Like so much in our lives, the truth is in the details. Pay attention to the details and beautiful results occur. But please be forewarned: once stretching a canvas according to the procedures that follow, there may be no going back to ways used before.

The concepts I will describe are not entirely new or unknown. But a lot of times we do things out of habit, convenience or because we were shown to do them a certain way. Some of the techniques will require extra effort, care and preparation. I believe the results will speak for themselves and will be well worthwhile, insuring maximum longevity for canvases beautifully prepared.

My experience is based upon 40 years in art and conservation from the viewpoint of a lover and student of art, art materials and techniques, a practicing painting conservator, and as an educator. Much of my understanding of canvas preparation came from my graduate school training under legendary conservators, Caroline and Sheldon Keck at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (now the Buffalo Art Conservation Program). My initial learning has been modified by years of further research and observation.

Stretched Canvas
The stretched canvas has been the painting format of choice for close to 500 years. Alternate formats, such as painting on wood panel and wall installations (lime plaster fresco or canvas glued to wall) offered their own advantages; they also had the limitation of being site-specific, weighty, unwieldy, or difficult to move. The introduction of stretched canvas allowed for paintings of appreciable scale that could be stretched onto open wood grid frames, producing pictures of light-to-moderate weight that could readily be transported and relocated.

Of course, as with any format, the success and longevity of the artwork will depend upon how fine the preparation is, how sound the construction is … and if the art is properly displayed, stored, cared for and handled over time. One after another, stretched paintings reveal their history: how and why they age, and favorably or not.

Goals of Canvas Preparation
There is a direct correlation between proper canvas preparation and painting longevity. For canvas paintings, the suspension of the fabric is of paramount importance. A well-stretched canvas is a well-suspended one. If well suspended, well painted and well cared for, a painting may go quite some time before intervention is needed.

If canvas suspension is not uniform throughout, variations in tension result. Extremes in canvas pull (overly tight or overly loose) and planar distortions (sags, puckers or draws) will have adverse effects over time. Strain is transferred to the sizing, ground, paint and varnish applied atop the fabric. These forces lead to cracking, lifting, buckling and flaking of the design layers. We are all too painfully aware how physical and visual alterations may conspire to detract from the appreciation of a treasured artwork. (See image 1)
My goal is to share with you a technique that insures beautiful, uniform canvas spring and tension, very much like that of a trampoline. Previous failures that may have been experienced in achieving flat, planar, and taut canvases that hold up over time may be largely mitigated with this system.

I usually like to start discussion with preparatory steps before getting to the actual fabric stretching. There are numerous fine points that contribute to first-rate canvas preparation. Due to space limitation, I will confine this discussion to the stretching procedure itself. I then encourage artists to explore the additional materials and references offered at the close of the article (see: “Canvas Stretching Resources,” page 5). Additionally, go to goldenpaints.com homepage for “Information Sheets.”

Let’s begin by looking at how canvases are traditionally stretched.

Stretching From The Centers Outward: The Mistaken Traditional Technique
The most often used method for stretching has been to mark the canvas centers (top, bottom left and right), stretch and tack the center points, and then to proceed stretching, working from the centers outward. Some artists do this a few tacks at a time, moving onwards to opposite locations, until reaching the outer corners. Other artists will tack a half a side at a time, working from the centers outward, and rotating a quarter turn at a time, as if making a pinwheel. All techniques that restrict the center body of the fabric, leaving the outer regions until last, guarantee an unsatisfactory stretching dynamic. The central threads are locked in place at the outset. As stretching and tacking continue, the fabric is resistant to respond as it is restricted in the middle and can only be stretched in the region not yet tacked. Increasing tension is built as the corners are approached. In fact, by the time the corners are reached, tension is so tight there is very little stretching that can be done at all.

If one were to take a canvas and make parallel lines every inch in both the warp and weft directions, stretching from the centers out would reveal a very observable distortion. The lines would be parallel as stretching begins in the centers, but as the corners are neared, the lines would be pulled inward and it would be very difficult to bring the outside line to the stretcher edge.

This sets up an overly tight corner tension. Now, skip a few years ahead and imagine the side or corner of the painting being knocked. This is sure to induce diagonal cracks across the over-stretched corner.
Then, imagine the painting becoming slack at some point, especially in the soft middle. When corner joins are expanded by keying by an eighth to quarter of an inch, a tremendous tension is produced in this short distance across the join.

This same eighth to quarter of an inch width is insignificant across the much larger distance of the canvas middle. Thus, in order to bring up a soft belly, an extreme amount of keying has to take place at the corners where additional tension can barely be withstood. No wonder painting canvases often break at the corners and paint forms classic mechanical crack patterns traversing the corners.

Reverse Forward: Stretch From The Corners Inward
My recommendation is to reverse the procedure, to perform the stretching working from the corners inward. I realize that people have been burned at the stake for lesser offences but I’m confident once you try this you will become a believer as well!

Step-By-Step Proper Stretching Technique
Select a workspace with good light and maneuverability. Prepare a clean large worktable, sawhorses or floor area. If using the floor, be sure to lay down a clean piece of polyethylene sheeting to prevent dirt transfer from the floor.

• For successful stretching, the studio space must be closed off sufficiently so that some semblance of a constant, moderate environment may be maintained throughout the procedure. Ideal conditions for painting materials lie in the ranges of 64-76ºF and 44 to 55% relative humidity. A small dial or digital thermometer/hygrometer enables the reading of room levels at a glance. Stretching will be much easier if the room is on the warm and humid side; materials will be far less flexible and plastic if the room is cold and dry.

• For expediency in this demonstration, I recommend a roll of commercially prepared, primed canvas (ready-to-go, since basic alignment, sizing, and priming have all been taken care of at the factory). Handle the pre-primed canvas carefully; though generally durable, it is very easy to put permanent crimps or breaks in the continuous priming.

• Unroll the canvas, study the fabric and determine the orientation of the weave. Ideally, the fabric should be equally firm in both the warp and weft directions. Invariably, one direction is found to be tighter than the other direction that is found to be stretchy. Plan the painting orientation so that the tight direction of the canvas will run vertically, top to bottom on the stretcher. This will guard against inevitable sag from the pull of gravity over time.

• Now temporarily lay the stretcher on top of the fabric. Assess the amount of margin that will be needed beyond the stretcher dimensions and add an ample margin, say 3 or 4 inches of working fabric, beyond each side. Do not be stingy, maxing out the fabric and leaving only a ½” beyond the stretcher. This will make stretching difficult.

• Line the stretcher as best as possible parallel to the weave and faintly mark the fabric, tracing the extreme edges and corner of the stretcher with a pencil. Don’t forget to mark the 3 to 4” beyond the stretcher as well. Set the stretcher aside.

• Next, draw weave indication lines to assist stretching accuracy. Lay the point of the well-sharpened pencil in the groove of the weave at one of the corner marks, and draw a continuous line that follows the weave, extending to the corresponding other side. Often times, the weave has a distinct curve to it and the line indicating the weave will not line-up with the equivalent mark by the time one gets across the fabric, being off an inch or two. It is the true line of the weave we wish to follow. I often draw a second line one-quarter inch in (or out, if the first line is way off base) from the first line, so that I may observe parallelism and any inaccuracy very quickly. My preference is to have the lines inside the outer marks, so that the lines remain visible on the front of the canvas as I perform the stretching (face up). If the plan is to stretch with the fabric face down, the lines will need to be outside the perimeter marks, so that they may be observed on the sides of the stretcher.

Drawing pencil lines of the weave is usually easier in one direction than the other; the latter weave direction can be trickier to follow and the pencil may wish to jump threads, not following an easy straight line. Please note, it is impossible to draw careful lines if pressing against a rough floor or table; the surface under the fabric must have a smooth cardboard, panel or laminate surface, otherwise the pencil will jump out of the weave groove every time an irregularity is traversed.

If the weave is too fine or filled with gesso, the indication lines may be lightly drawn using a straight-edge as a guide.

Stretching From The Corners
Place the fabric on the stretcher and line up the parallel pencil lines with the outer wood bead. If reluctant to totally abandon the center point marks, you may temporarily set the canvas with pushpins in the stretcher sides at each of these points. Now set the four corners of the fabric, placing push pins (See Note 1) along the outsides of the stretcher to the immediate left & right of each corner. Prejudge as best possible the tension anticipated when all the pins would be in place. Now remove the center pins, leaving the entire middle of the canvas free, as this would have restrictive effect upon the canvas during stretching. Starting from the corners, use the canvas pliers (See Note 2) to gradually coax and stretch the fabric. Avoid fast, forceful movements; these could break the priming or threads. Secure margin with pins, advancing two or three pins at a time. (Image 6) Keep moving to opposite locations and continue stretching from the corners inward, bringing up no location significantly in advance of any other. (Image 7) The central region will remain untacked and loose until the last pins are placed. Pay attention to the pencil guidelines throughout the stretching process; they should align straight and equidistant (parallel) to the outer bead, indicating that the canvas has been pulled up uniformly true and even.

When a canvas is stretched and pinned starting from the corners, the unset center portion is unrestricted.
As stretching continues, the center is gradually pulled up, but with no undue, irregular tension. I am sure readers may be worrying, “what if I end up with a big welt of fabric left over in the middle with nowhere to go?” Please do not worry. This simply will not happen.

What does happen however is that, once entirely pinned, the parallel reference lines adhere to their parallelism throughout. More importantly, the canvas now exhibits an unrivalled suspension, uniform in tension, on the order of a trampoline. (Image 8) This can be observed if the stretched canvas is stood along its long side and if a strong tamp is made with the hand at one end of the canvas. This will create a wave which may be observed to follow clear across the canvas and then, like ripples in the water, this wave will echo back and return to the sender. This phenomenon will not occur with a painting stretched from the centers outward because differentials in canvas tension will absorb and stop the wave movement. Awesome, huh?

Securing Stretching Margins To The Strainer/Stretcher
It is wisest to set aside the stretched canvas pinned on its stretcher for a day or more before setting with staples/tacks (See Note 3). With climatic shifts and the passage of time, the canvas will relax and settle onto the stretcher, giving a true indication of how even or not the stretching is. If puckers, draws or slack passages appear, the pins may be removed from those locations and the canvas re-stretched as needed. When the desired canvas suspension is achieved, the canvas may be placed face down against a clean wall or floor. If the latter, lay clean paper, glassine or polyethylene sheeting on the floor, to be sure grit does not become embedded in the priming.

For the cleanest painting edge look, the fabric may be wrapped around to the rear and tacked with staples to the stretcher reverse. This also keeps most of the tacking well away from the frontal image plane. Do not remove or trim extra fabric. Remember to leave generous canvas margins to provide work edges for when the canvas needs re-streching or conservation in the furture. Never cut away fabric at the corners. Finish the corners, neatly folding and tucking the fabric under and to the back. (Image 9) Some artists distribute the fabric over two folds; others choose to gather the fabric in a single fold.

The pins should not be removed from the stretcher edges until the canvas is completely stapled or tacked. (Image 10) While the pushpins are holding the front of the canvas under tension, the fabric should still be pulled with finger grip just prior to setting each staple on the reverse.

CONCLUSION
I realize that many of you at this point are non-believers, thinking, “I’ve always stretched from the centers outward, that’s the way it’s always been done. Besides, it is too many steps and I don’t think it could make that much difference.” Once you try this procedure, however, you’ll be convinced it is a truly superior way to prepare your canvases.

This is one time stretching the truth really is so! I wish you the best in preparing beautiful supports for your painting.

Note 1:
Hundreds of Little Helpers
Aluminum pushpins are invaluable for temporarily setting stretched locations as one moves along. Metal head pushpins with long pin shafts work beautifully; shorter, more commonly found plastic head ones, are awkward to use and often pop out, releasing attachment points. Purchase several packages of the Moore®100-5 Aluminum or Stainless Steel pushpins (quantity: 100 per package; pin length 5/8”). They may be used again and again.

When inserting pushpins, tilt them upward slightly to counteract the pull of the canvas so they won’t pop out. Spinning the pins while pushing helps to drive them into the wood. If dealing with a dense, hard or aged wood, a plastic head hammer (clear yellow) may be used to tap the pins into the wood. Do not set the pins too deeply; this will make removal difficult and will limit easy readjustments (you may use a staple gun as well but make sure you set the staples at a similar angle as the pins and again, do not set too deeply).

My preference is for pins to be evenly placed at 1-1/4 inch intervals. The 3-inch to 6-inch interval between staples or tacks that is often observed on modern paintings is simply inadequate; a few lone points of tacking are asked to carry a formidable load. This results in uneven canvas tension, undue slack and cusping (a scallop-like appearance a la Viennese curtains) of the fabric.

Note 2:
Stretching Pliers Design
Fingers and hands are unable to grab onto canvas and pull with the strength that well designed stretcher pliers are able to. Pliers come in a variety of types but examples available in art stores are often limited. It is worth researching suppliers online and asking artist colleagues which pliers they use and how effective they are in practice.

The most commonly available pliers are ones with small rectangular jaws with interlocking “s”- wave profiles (reminiscent of crinkle-cut french fries). This design increases surface area of contact and guarantees a powerful lock against slippage. Unfortunately, the sharp jaws often also guarantee crushing and weakening of the ground and fabric, sometimes to the point of breakage.

My preference is for pliers with relatively flat-faced jaws; sometimes the face surface is cast or tooled with a mild textural pattern to insure against slippage. The jaws must be good-sized in surface area and of superb quality and leverage to grip sufficiently. I use ones with stainless steel jaws that have been filed and sanded smooth along edges so as not to break or cut the fabric. Most pliers have a central heel protruding just below the jaws. This heel serves as the leverage fulcrum. It is braced against the stretcher wood, the pliers are rotated (pushed forward and downward), and the fabric is pulled tight. Plier handles may be set at different angles, depending upon if the pliers are designed for face-up, sideways or face-down stretching. It is helpful to have pliers for different jobs; a super-sized canvas requires pliers different from those designed for smaller canvases.

Note 3:
Staples and Tacks
There are arguments pro and con for both heavy duty and lightweight staples. I try to select those that are suited to the demands of the project at hand.

• Heavy-duty staples have a nice flat wire profile that grips fabrics nicely. It does not usually cut across the long flat face, but it makes good-sized holes at the two points of staple entry.

• Lightweight staples of fine wire size make very fine entry holes, but have the potential to cut into the fabric
if driven too far.

Any staple, really, has the potential to crush the fabric if the wood is very soft and/or the staple gun delivers with too much power. Whether manual, electric or air-compressor driven, a staple gun that offers tacking power adjustment is best. Also, it is not necessary to go overboard with the staple length. A 5/16 or 3/8 inch long staple is plenty deep.

A 3/4 inch long staple is overkill and anyone removing these deep staples will be cursing whomever did the stapling. Always take great care when removing staples. Use a tapering, tongue-shaped staple remover tool, gripping it firmly and gradually working the tongue under the staple, prying upwards. Never pull upward on the canvas itself to remove staples. And never rush staple removal or allow a tool to slip. Shortcuts or accidents result in punctures or tears to the all-important tacking margins.

One technique for reducing staple crushing and cutting is to introduce an interleaving strip of fabric banding (cotton strapping, linen tape, polypropylene strapping, etc.) as cushioning between the staples and the canvas. This system is particularly suited to paintings that require repeated unstretching and re-stretching.

When it comes time to remove the staples, bands may be pulled upwards, pulling the staples out of the wood as well. If not completely freed, the partially lifted staples may be readily gripped and removed with a linesman, bent-nosed or other pliers.

If using tacks, I recommend copper plated steel tacks. They will not corrode the fabric as steel tacks do, and they will respond nicely when using a magnetized head tack hammer for setting. When hammering, grip the wood handle as far as possible toward the base of the hammer (away from the head). This produces a more tangential, 90-degree angle, encouraging tacks to go in straight and flat, not tipping at various angles.

IMATERIALS CHECKLIST
Thermometer/hygrometer
Tape measure
Graphite pencil
Straight edge
Stretcher pliers
Moore® 100-5 Aluminum or Stainless Steel Pushpins
Plastic head hammer (small, e.g. 5 oz.)
Staple gun w/adjustable power
Staples
Copper plated steel tacks
Tack hammer (small, 5 oz., magnetized steel)
Tongue-shaped staple remover
Linesman and/or bent-nose pliers
Primed linen or cotton canvas; Unprimed linen or cotton canvas

 

GUIDELINES FOR SEEKING SPONSORSHIP

What’s The Difference Between?

• Subsidy

• Donations

• Patronage

• Sponsorship

Sponsorship is the payment of money by a business to an arts organization for the purpose of promoting the business’s name, its products or its services.   Sponsorship is part of a business’s general promotional expenditure, and often includes a sense of corporate or social responsibility.

There is no accepted culture of sponsorship of the arts in South Africa, and BASA hopes to change this.   However, elsewhere in the world, business sees sponsorship of the arts as part of the marketing mix that incorporates sport, education and the arts.   In addition, arts sponsorship is relatively inexpensive.

Why Do Businesses Sponsor The Arts?

• Access to target audiences – the approach is focused

• Enhances and builds the company’s image

• Increases public awareness of the company’s name

• Provides an opportunity for entertaining important clients or guests of the                                                                                                                          company

• Depending on what is sponsored, the association with the arts implies a                                                                                       link with excellence and success

• Develops staff, customer and shareholder goodwill

• Develops community links for the company

• Provides public relations opportunities for the company

• The association is often motivating, for both staff and clients, and                                                                                                                enjoyable

Steps In Obtaining Sponsorship

1. Assess your arts organisation

i)             What do you need

ii)            Have you got the resources to do what you plan

iii)           Define your own identity

iv)           Define your audience (this is the market that the company will be targeting )

v)            Are there limits on which companies you should approach (for example, would you take a potentially controversial production to an established and traditional company for sponsorship?)?

-2-

2a. Develop ‘packages’ that you can offer a sponsor

i)             How much are you prepared to offer the sponsor; be very clear on this from the stat, to avoid any misunderstandings.  There should be no need to sacrifice artistic integrity to accommodate the sponsor.

ii)            Define the project/s

iii)           Define the benefits for the sponsoring business

iv)           Define the cost to the sponsor

2b. Some possible projects that you can offer a sponsor include

i)             Funding your organisation as a whole

ii)            Funding a season of work

iii)           Funding a complete production or exhibition

iv)           Funding educational or outreach programmes

v)            Funding a single performance

vi)           Funding the marketing and print Funding catalogues, programmes, promotional material

vii)         Funding capital developments, eg. buildings

2c. Some possible benefits you can offer a sponsor include

i)             The business’s name on all publicity materials

ii)            Acknowledgement of the business in the programme

iii)           Verbal acknowledgement of the business

iv)           Free advertising for the company in the programme

v)            Free tickets for the company ( to a specified amount )

vi)           Priority booking arrangements for the business

vii)         Private viewings or performances for the business – perhaps          on-site at their offices, factory etc. for their staff

viii)        Workshops or outreach programmes for their staff

ix)           Access to your organisation’s mailing list (if applicable)

x)            Offering the business space to display its products and services

xi)           Offering T-shirts or other items that carry the business’s name and logo

xii)         Offering the business an opportunity to distribute samples of its products

xiii)        Extensive media coverage around the event

xiv)        Hospitality opportunities – where the business can use the performances or exhibition to entertain their corporate clients

2d. The cost of the project ( budget )

Don’t present a budget like the one below:

            Cost of staging the event                                                   10 000

            Ticket sales                                                   6 000

Subsidy from xyz                                         1 500

Donations from xyz                                        500                8 000

            Shortfall on budget                                                                2 000

            Therefore we need R2 000,00 from you.

Instead, draw up a proper budget detailing all the costs items for the project, and giving a total.  The sponsor may choose to pay for certain items on the budget, or for all the items.   You must also show what income you expect to receive, and what this income will be used for ( to pay salaries, to cover costs of the next production, etc. )   Specify what you plan to offer back to the sponsor, and indicate that you will apply to BASA to cover these costs.

3. Research The Marketplace

i)             Research the business community, both within your local environment and move widely, and look for companies that you feel might have some synergy or link with what you are doing: for example, if you are staging a production dealing with AIDS, look at companies who might be most affected by the disease, or companies whose products deal directly with the disease.

ii)            Research your existing business contacts ) Read the business

iii)           Research potential business contacts        ) newspapers

iv)           Select companies you would like to approach

4a. Make A Successful Approach To Business

i)             Prepare the proposal

ii)            Phone the company and find out whom you should be approaching – get their name, designation and contact phone and fax numbers

iii)           Write a letter to this individual ( usually the Managing Director, Marketing Director, or Head of Corporate Social Responsibility )

iv)           Set up a meeting with this person

4b. In The Proposal You Send To Business, You Need To

i)               State who you are and what you do

ii)             State who supports you

iii)            Detail the project

iv)            Describe your audience and/or the community in which you operate

v)             Describe the publicity/promotional plan for the event

vi)            State what benefits sponsoring the event will bring to this particular business

vii)           State that, if this request is successful, you will be applying to BASA for additional funding under the Matching Grant Scheme

viii)         State very clearly the total cost to sponsor

4c. The Proposal Must Be Sent With A Covering Letter; Remember

i)             That this letter must be personalised – address it to an individual,

as outlined in 4a.

ii)            To keep this letter short and to the point

iii)           To answer the question “why should this company sponsor this project?”

iv)           To keep the initiative

5a. Dealing With “No”

i)             Find out why the company said ‘no’

ii)            Try again in 6,9 or 12 months time

iii)           Invite the contact person at the company to an event you are producing, to acquaint him/her with your activities and develop the contact

iv)           Always approach more than one potential sponsor at a time

5b. If A Company Does Sponsor Your Project, It Is Worth Trying To Develop A Continuing Partnership, So

i)             Draw up a letter of agreement, or a contract for the project to avoid any misunderstandings

ii)            Keep in touch with the business, and let them know what your organisation is doing

iii)           Monitor and analyse the sponsorship; how it worked for you and how you think it benefited the sponsor

iv)           Follow up with new proposals

Quick Tips on Photographing Your Works of Art

How to Photograph Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures

1. Think Like a Carpenter

How you compose your shot matters, and here you want to be "square, plumb and level."

Get your camera at a right angle to the piece being photographed. If it is hanging on the wall, center *yourself* in order to point the lens squarely -- not a degree clockwise or counter-clockwise of square. It's also important that the lens and the work of art are on parallel planes ("plumb") when you shoot. Canting your viewfinder up, down or sideways is not going to achieve the best result.

If the work is a large painting or drawing, lay it flat on the floor and shoot from above looking down (use a chair or step-ladder to obtain ample distance if it's really large). Tilting it against the wall from the baseboard or the edge of a table -- however slightly -- will distort the view.

Additionally, if you are taking a picture of a three-dimensional object that is sitting on a flat surface, position yourself at eye level with the object. This may mean kneeling.

2. Indirect Lighting is Good

And natural indirect lighting is even better. A room with windows can offer indirect sunlight, even on an overcast day. You do, however, want to avoid sunlight striking your object directly, as this will cause glare. (It's also an absolutely horrible idea to put most works of art in direct sunlight, but that's another story.)

Now, if you haven't got windows or are stuck in the gloom of monsoon season, artificial lighting will work. In this scenario, two or more light sources -- preferably of similar wattage strengths -- should be set at about 45º angles to the piece, off to either side. "Off" as in: out of the peripheral vision of both you and the camera lens. Your goal here is to light semi-naturally but not, I repeat not to cast shadows. Manipulate wisely with an eye toward even lighting.

3. No Tripod? No Problem.

Yes, well. It really is something of a problem, because still photography is best done with a tripod. Lacking this piece of equipment, however, you can do the following to minimize any motion:

 
• Use both hands to hold the camera.
   
• Draw both elbows in to your midpoint until they're close to touching one another, then firmly hold elbows and as much of your forearms as possible to your torso/chest. Your hands will be free to aim and shoot, but your arms won't be moving. Much.
   
• Hold your breath just before and while hitting the shutter.

4. Turn OFF the Flash!

Paraphrasing the words of Frankenstein's monster, "Flash BAD." Please, unless you know how to "bounce" flash from the camera to a middle surface and then to your object, turn this function off.

In all seriousness, a flash aimed directly at the piece is, 99 times out of 100, your enemy when photographing art. If there is a highlight or shiny area to be found, your flash will find it, spotlight it brilliantly and render it nearly unrecognizable in the resultant image. The glaring spot will bear little resemblance to that which a person actually sees with the naked eye.

The flash function also has an amazing talent for leveling tones, evening out contrasts and wiping away shadows. While this may prove a blessing in select pictures from family reunions, it is not one bit helpful in faithfully representing your work of art. You -- and anyone else who's looking -- want to see the piece the way the artist composed and executed it, not as your flash decides is optimum.

To illustrate this point, here are two pictures of a drawing of my shoe. The piece was lying on the floor, I was standing on a chair shooting down, and natural light was coming in windows to the top and either side of my drawing. Here are the shots with flash (top view) and without (bottom view):



Shelley Esaak (American, b. 20th Century)
Shoe, 1981
Graphite on heavy paper
13 x 16 1/4 in.
© Shelley Esaak; licensed to About.com

5 Ways to be a better artist

The author of this piece is Alison Stanfield, who has an online art blog at  www.artbizblog.com , which also offers a regular newsletter, and pay per subject e-books and podcasts. 

by Richard Rhodes

Documenta 12’s leading question

ROGER M. BUERGEL, the artistic director of documenta 12, plays a nervy game with the press. During the lead-up to the massive contemporary-art exhibition to be held this summer in Kassel, Germany, he kept the names of the artists in the show to himself (and, presumably, the show’s curator, Ruth Noack). There was no list, no announcements, no expanding totals, only a teasing, confrontational silence. Asked at the first press conference about who was taking part, he offered two names: Ferran Adrià and Artur Zmijewski–a tongue-in-cheek, A-to-Z list. For the other names (including those of the included Canadians, Annie Pootoogook and Luis Jacob), we would have to wait.

What was Buergel up to? No one seemed to know. Certainly he wasn’t shy. Between press reports and official postings on the documenta 12 Web site, he left a noisy wake that pitted documenta against the rest of the art world. In a single sentence he dismissed “arch-conservative blockbuster exhibitions, the vacuousness of the art market, and hastily produced biennales.” His documenta would be different. The opening dates for the show appeared for a while to be in conflict with the annual art fair Art Basel, which would have been truly radical. It was as if Buergel was presenting a defining choice: either go to “vacuous” Basel, or go to documenta—the better, smarter place.

Buergel’s selection to head documenta 12, succeeding Okwui Enwezor, Catherine David and Jan Hoet, the directors of the previous three exhibitions, had been a surprise. One newspaper called him “the curator whom even people in the know hardly know.” Yet the 44-year-old Berlin-born, Vienna-based curator—once also the personal assistant to the Actionist Hermann Nitsch—seemed to come with an aptitude for raising hackles. His appointment was still fresh when Jerry Saltz, then the senior art critic of the Village Voice, encountered him at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Saltz was quick to put his reservations into print: “If a comment made over dinner in Venice by its curator, Roger Buergel, is any indication, Documenta could be truly bad.” Saltz had been reacting to a lacklustre Arsenale show and the mire of biennale art culture when he offered the opinion that “After all, big exhibitions are about the art.” In response, “Buergel narrowed his eyes and sternly countered, ‘No. Exhibitions are about ideas.’” For Saltz, dinner was over: “Ennui filled my heart as I stood up and excused myself.”

Buergel has shown a talent for such minor clash-ofcivilization moments. In his remarks to a German newspaper at the end of April, he could be seen once again drawing a line in the sand that set documenta 12 against its competition. “The curatorial model that exists today is a covert neoliberal model,” he said, painting other shows and other curators as pawns of global capitalism and making documenta sound like it might be an extension of Venezuelan foreign policy. With Buergel’s language of doctrinaire leftism and his attitude of vivid carelessness about any art other than that serving his own immediate use (Noack winningly calls him “Rogue-r”), it is little wonder that low expectations hover over the exhibition, or that there might be a flurry of changed travel plans for the week of June 16. Who wants documenta revamped as Manifesta?

With characteristic immodesty, Buergel has claimed that unless documenta can shape contemporary art for the next 20 or 30 years, it’s dead. Other directors have settled for the allotted five years, but Buergel is more ambitious. He sees himself as a maker of history, and he has a tendency to put his thoughts into epochal language: “The Documenta 12 is confronted with western middle classes, who are becoming more reactionary and reactive or indeed more pro-active and curious. The way to deal with this situation is closely linked, in my eyes, with a basic attitude towards crisis in general.” It is a scene steeped in high abstraction. Yet behind the politicized concepts is what might turn out to be the saving grace for the exhibition: Buergel’s passion for aesthetic experience as the basis for social progress. He would have aesthetics save the world. “Aesthetic experiences do not offer us a poor foothold,” he states, “they teach us how to endure tension and complexity. And they can teach us how to utilise the desire which stems from the realisation that this bottomless expanse of aesthetic experience is again holding all our expectations.”

The word “all” has a totalitarian edge, but Buergel’s language is consistent with the intersecting “leitmotifs” that he has set out for documenta 12. Each comes posed as a question: Is modernity our antiquity? What is bare life? What is to be done? The latter concerns education. The second engages what Buergel calls “the sheer vulnerability and complete exposure of being.” Both are directed, by way of art, to the current state of human and global conditions as well as the necessity of a creative understanding of them. The first question is more specific, and also telling. It frames Buergel’s imaginative space, his starting point, his pool of terms and concepts. They are embedded in the word “modernity,” which, in typical fashion, he throws into crisis by putting it into a contrary coupling with “antiquity.”

Where are we in this ambiguous construction of opposites? Buergel writes, “…no one really knows if modernity is dead or alive. It seems to be in ruins…Still, people’s imaginations are full of modernity’s visions and forms (and I mean not only Bauhaus but also arch-modernist mind-sets transformed into contemporary catchwords like ‘identity’ or ‘culture’). In short, it seems that we are both outside and inside modernity, both repelled by its deadly violence and seduced by its most immodest aspiration or potential: that there might, after all, be a common planetary horizon for all the living and the dead.” This vision of a shared, ageless horizon recasts modernity as a fallen golden age, a legendary realm where Marx, Engels and the avant-garde coexist with the shining age of “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” that in the 18th century, on the cusp of the modern era, Johann Joachim Winckelmann credited to classical Greece. Buergel is mixing two Arcadias here, and he presents a question that pulls in both their respective directions. One reading asks us to see modernity as a past worthy of reclaiming. The other asks us to consider modernity beyond recall and locates us in its ruins, left with bare life and the future.

This is lovely structuring that embodies his “common planetary horizon for all the living and the dead.” We should give Buergel his due; he knows his epochal space. Carping press aside, he has set out complex, interesting terms for apprehending contemporary art. The question that remains, however, is whether his documenta—which will have just opened when you read this—can match them. It is a question of whether we will be seeing stranded radicalism and nostalgia for modernism in Kassel, or whether we will see the beginnings of the unwritten space of the new antiquity. Let’s hope Buergel has taken himself seriously. The success of his documenta will not hinge on our seeing an assembly of deliberations on the honours and horrors of modernism or absurdist manoeuvres linked to its passing into history. It will be about discovering the terms of the new antiquity and the ever-more-present immersion into bare life that lies on the other side of modernity. The antique has traditionally served as the platform for utopian futures. A new antiquity should mean a staging ground for new versions of those bright futures. Let documenta show that.

For the record, this is where a list of artists would help.

Summer 2007

Courtesy of Canadian Art Magazine

http://www.canadianart.ca

PAINTING WITH HOUSE PAINT?

There has always been a bit of controversy over using alternative products instead of the common store bought art materials. Some painters even claim that they use left over bacon fat from the frying pan as a painting medium!! Their reasoning- I’ve done it for years with no problems yet.

After a bit of research, I think that I have found some rather compelling evidence that house paint is called “house” paint for a reason, and artist paints are called “artist” paints for a reason:

 1)   House paint is not designed to last hundreds of years, or even dozens of years.
Experiment: Paint a square on your lounge wall in the exact paint that it was initially painted with (if you are already a disbeliever in using house paint in your paintings then there is no reason to do this experiment and ruin your lounge walls! This one is for the skeptics!). You will notice that even when completely dry, the new square of paint is a completely different colour, and you will now have to paint your entire lounge again in order to get rid of the inconsistency.
This is because house paint is not properly lightfast (and also has all sorts of additives in it) and will fade and/or discolour within a matter of months. Many colours will become amber in tone, while some may even become brown with age. Other problems will definitely depend on the brands and colors, but may include efflorescence on the surface (or a white powdery accumulation on the surface). With inferior ranges of colorants one will also develop reduced colour saturation on most colours.

 2) Does anyone know what house paint is made from?
Artist paint is designed to produce wonderful paintings- house paint is designed to cover walls. They have completely different uses and are therefore made completely differently!
Good artist paints are as pure as possible, the best ones are made with only pigment and binder (oil is the binder for oil paints, and acrylic resin for acrylic paints). The purer the paint, the better.
House paints contain all sorts of other compounds and substances that add particular properties, such as plasteriser and drying accelerants to name but a few.

 3) When applied a little too thickly, a skin can form on the surface of the paint, and as the underlying paint dries, visible wrinkles form on the surface.

 4) I don’t know about yours, but my house doesn’t bend and stretch like a canvas!
House paint is not designed to withstand the kind of bending and stretching that takes place on a canvas, and will therefore often crack.
One cannot assume that any attempt or effort has been made to formulate house paint for use on flexible supports; to be shipped around the world; or to have to maintain their surface profile for decades.
 Although exterior paint has a higher acrylic content than interior paint, and is therefore more flexible, it will not handle a canvas like artist quality paint will.
Have you ever seen a house with peeling paint before? If your answer is no, then you need to get out more! House paint peels- even off walls, which aren’t put through the stretching that a canvas can go through.

Conservation scientist Tom Learner said this about one of Jackson Pollock’s works entitled “Summertime 94”:

“You can also see quite clearly differences in the physical properties - in other words how brittle the paints are. You can see distinct cracks, vertical and horizontal, in the black and grey areas, whereas the artists' oil paint is still pretty flexible and no cracks are apparent there.”                                                        http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/learnonline/modernpaints

(Pollock worked in oil based house paint with artist quality paint is specific areas)

 5) Using house paint only as a primer:

The above points are still valid even when using the house paint only as a primer.
The house paint will adhere to the canvas, but unlike an artist primer, the paint contains surfactant (the emulsifier in water-based dispersions). This will make the surface slicker and less absorbent, providing a less than ideal surface for the adhesion of the next layer of paint.
Over time the layers may separate and cracking is very likely to occur.

 6) The ethics of selling a painting that has been painted with house paint:

Many artists will say that they have been using house paint on their canvases for many years and they have never had a problem. Well let me ask you this; how many of you own a painting that is older than say ten, or even twenty years? I’m sure most people have some artwork that is even older. My point is that you don’t know what will happen to that painting in 20 years. And the buyer is certainly not paying for a painting and expecting to throw it away after ten or twenty years- he’s expecting it to last forever, or at least for his entire lifetime! In fact it is time reputable galleries insisted on their exhibitors specifying the type of paint used.

  There is one main point that always comes to mind when someone asks me if it is alright to use house paint in their paintings.
I can’t help but ask myself; if it is alright to use house paint, then why do companies such as Maimeri, Sennelier, and Dayler-Rowney even exist? Why doesn’t someone just buy house paint in 5L drums and decant it into smaller tubes and sell it at a massive profit?

I think the answer is simple- they know how bad house paint is.
I wrote to Sennelier to ask their opinion, and this is what they had to say:

“this person should not use that kind of paint as we do not know what industrial paint contains + we do not know how it evolves when time is passing by.”

Published by Skye Kennedy, in the SA Artist newsletter, Dec -7

A Note on Technique

Miles Mathis  www.mileswmathis.com

Most people who will be reading this note will have only seen my paintings on the web, so they won’t likely know first hand what I am talking about here. But many of those who have seen my work in person have asked me why my paintings look different than the paintings of many other realists. They are not talking about my subject matter or my style or any of that. They are talking about the paint quality: the way the paint sits on the canvas—how it shines, the texture of the canvas, the look of the paint itself. One gallery owner who just started working with me asked me (with a wink) if I painted with cream. Many buyers have said that my paintings have the same sort of paint that old paintings seem to have, whereas contemporary paintings, even when they are very good, don’t.

There is a very simple reason for that. I work differently than most modern painters, and that difference starts with my canvas. In my opinion almost all modern materials are garbage, pure and simple. They were created for speed and convenience and price and safety, not for quality. Most professional artists know this and will admit it, and yet most professional artists, even at the top of the field, use inferior pre-stretched canvases. Those who hire professional craftspeople to make canvases for them still end up with only a slightly less inferior product, since most of the time even these canvases are not up to the standards of the past. It is nearly impossible, for instance, to find anyone who will do lead priming, and if they do it they will likely use inferior lead—lead with too much oil or additives. I don’t know anyone else in the world who uses first quality lead to prime with, as I do. But this is what they did in the past and this is why their canvases look different than modern ones.
      I use Old Holland Cremnitz White to prime with, and I don’t add anything to it as an extender except enough turpentine to make it brushable. This is the stiffest white lead in the world, with an extremely low oil content. This insures that no matter what you paint over it, the primer will be the leaner. If you used anything else as a primer—titanium white, for instance—with an oil content that low, you would have a ground that was too absorbent. It would suck all the oil out of your first film of paint. But white lead is not absorbent, even when it is made very short. It therefore creates the perfect ground—a ground that has never been approached by any of the new gessoes and plastics. Furthermore, it is very elastic. It moves with the weather just like the linen below it and the paint above it. Modern materials don’t.

The reason other painters don’t do this is cost. Old Holland is very expensive paint. My using it as a primer is considered to be extravagant. But it is not extravagant, it is absolutely necessary. There is a visible difference, even to amateurs, and this difference cannot be achieved any other way. Successful painters could request that their canvas builders use it, and pay the difference, but the fact is they don’t. The builders are already charging a lot for the service, and another extra charge just seems silly to everyone concerned. So they don’t bother.

I get around this as I get around a lot of other gaps in the “service” industry: I do it myself. I don’t like to have to argue with people I have hired, so I just don’t hire them. Building canvases isn’t difficult, once you know how, and I can vary each canvas to suit the piece I am building it for. I don’t have to limit myself to standard sizes, and I can add texture to some canvases and not to others. I can also create a particular color for each ground, to suit the piece that will go on it.

A few realists used to do this when they were younger (according to their literature) but most get lazy and stop doing it when they can afford to hire it out. I have continued to do it into my mid-40’s, since I haven’t discovered a good reason to stop. I can’t very well hire someone to vary each canvas to suit each piece, so I don’t even try. Besides, I enjoy the process. It is like choosing the frame—another part of the complete project I never want to give up. A bad frame can nearly destroy a good work. In the same way, a bad canvas can doom a painting before it is ever begun. I often tell my students that if I had to paint on their canvases, I couldn’t do anything either. It is not a joke. It is the absolute truth.

As with my primer, so with my linen. I still pay extra for good linen, and it shows. Linen prices have gone through the roof in the last 50 years, since heavy linen is a specialty item just for artists, and they know that artists’ materials are a gouge-economy, like photo materials. We are a captive clientele, and anything for artists or photographers will cost double or triple what it would cost a normal person. There are ways around the biggest cheats, however, and I happen to know them. I get heavy, high thread-count linen without getting ripped off too badly. Once again, this makes a real difference in the way the ground is textured and the way the canvas hangs. It does not go limp like a bedsheet or flutter in the wind or have little pinholes or look like an orange peel. It looks more like an old master canvas because it is more like an old master canvas.

My paint layers are different, too. Once again I use the best white lead as my basic white, and this is the main ingredient in all my skin and hair and lighter tones. White lead is warmer and more glowing than other whites. That is why it is sometimes called silver white. It looks prettier right out of the tube, and it makes better skintones. It is the most durable paint with the least oil, and it will last almost forever without cracking, especially alla prima. It is not dangerous to apply thick, and its natural stiffness makes it easy to add texturing to—like with the pointy end of your brush.

A few realists are using lead again, but usually it is not the alla prima painters who are using it. The uber-traditionalists have taken to it, but they do not use it to full effect—since they usually don’t have visible brushmarks, thick paint, or lots of visible skin. White lead will do less for a still life than it will do for a face or a nude, in my opinion. For the most part, the alla prima painters have stuck with titanium, which they think is more brushable. They tend to like oily “buttery” paint, which is easier to push around quickly. But oily paint is dangerous paint, since it is not durable. It will crack. The alla primers have tried to learn everything from Sargent except this. They have refused to learn from his mistakes. He used store-bought grounds and modern whites and they cracked. It is quite easy to make lead brushable, without complex mediums. You can have as speedy a brush as you like using lead. You just have to want to.

My color palette is as traditional as my white. I have chosen to trust organics over inorganics, against the advice of the scientists. They have a few years of lab analysis to point to, but I have all the paintings in the museum to point to. They have a century of catastrophes to answer for, I have Titian. Titian’s colors are good enough for me, that is to say, and the risks of modern science are not worth taking. I don’t want or need exponential saturation, I need subtlety. I don’t need phthalo’s and cadmiums, which hurt my eyes and overwhelm my color mixes. I need red earth and green earth and yellow earth and brown earth and black earth, primarily, because this is what skin is made of. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Earth and skin and hair and trees are all the same thing, just taken at different stages. Anselm Kiefer finds it poignant to put these things into his paintings directly, but I find it even more poignant to grind them up first—to use them. An artist should not have to put these relationships on display: it should be implicit to any feeling person that paint and skin are both forms of mud. Best to use the mud to make something, rather than leave it as mud.

A believable skintone can be made from titanium white and cadmium red and so on. But that skintone will have a different quality than one made from white lead and red earth. It will sit on the canvas differently and glow differently and accept a varnish differently. The titanium and cadmium skin will look more like plastic, more like an acrylic paint. It will be brighter and cleaner. But skin is not bright or clean. Use mud to make mud, I say.

And finally, my varnish is different. I don’t use modern varnishes. I don’t trust them. Don’t send me any letters (you wonks) because I have heard all the arguments. I don’t need UV blockers or sunscreen in my varnish, I don’t need space-age polymers, etc. I need a natural gloss that I can easily manipulate, that stays clear with a little wax, that I can cut with turpentine (the least powerful and least dangerous of the solvents), and that I can remove without other space-age materials. In my opinion, the new artists materials are like the new cars. You can’t work on them yourself. You have to hire specialists and send off to Tokyo or Stuttgart for all your parts. You have to pull the engine to replace a sparkplug. To solve one problem with the old varnish, science has created 50 new problems, many of them yet to be discovered. Highest quality damar is removable and it looks great. You can make it yourself for cheap and what you make is superior to anything you can buy (since everything now on the market is tarted up in some way).

Miles Mathis

Master Your Mailing List  by Alyson Stanfield

What is a mailing list? And what are you going to do with it?

In the simplest terms, a mailing list contains names and contact information of people you know or might like to know. For the artist, a mailing list usually begins with friends and family, and then expands to buyers and potential buyers. You use your mailing list to stay in touch with all of these people--to keep them informed of your goings-on. In a nutshell, your mailing list--something unique to you and your career--is the primary tool you use to share your art with the world. As you may know, I think sharing in a sincere way is much easier and much more effective than trying to sell.

These days, the artist's mailing list contains both bricks-and-mortar addresses along with email addresses and phone numbers. (It might better be called a "contact list.") You need all three types of information in order to keep your name in front of people and to conduct critical follow-up.

So when do you use email and when do you use regular mail? And when do you pick up the phone?

·         Use regular mail about two to four times a year.

·         Use regular mail for people on your list with whom you don't have a prior relationship. Recipients of email who haven't asked to be on your list might become testy if they continue to receive unwanted email. We tend to guard our inboxes fiercely these days. However, very few people will mind getting a real piece of mail with nice pictures on it--even if they haven't requested to be on your list.

·         Use regular mail when you want to be more official. You can't always be assured that email will get through to people. Regular mail, while imperfect, is more reliable.

·         Use email to follow up. After you send a postcard two weeks out from your exhibit, you can use email to send last-minute reminders.

·         Use email for short updates and newsletters--but only if the recipients have requested to be on your list. Know the CAN SPAM laws:
http://www.artbizblog.com/2006/04/does_your_email.html

·         Use the phone to verify and clarify. The written word is often misunderstood, but the tone of one's voice adds clarity to the message.

·         Use the phone to check in. If you have a patron who has been ailing or in a difficult situation, pick up the phone to show you care.

As you can see, the most important guideline for your mailing list is that you use it! The second most important guideline is that you mix things up--using the variety of communication formats available to you.

www.artbizcoach.com