conservation

[mikeysaling]

can anyone tell me why this conservation thing is so important - my medal frames and the medals will not fall apart in a hundred years. (its all the same in a hundred years surely) is this about making a bit more money or what? most 'serious' artwork gets redone every 50 years or so - am i nieve or are you ripping people off!!

i got lots of medals here that in 25 years have not fallen apart and nor has the frame!

lets not get into all this 'conservation carp'


i seriously believe that a lot of framers are really 'pulling the wool'

ok kill me if you can

mikey the medal framer - show me your medal frames and describe how you framed them and at what cost

[prospero]

As long as you can take the medals out of a frame and never be able to tell they have been in one, then you have framed them to conservation standards.

[mikeysaling]

john - a voice of reason - i apologise for sounding a bit OTT ! But i do wonder about 'conservation' framing and trying to push it every which way but loose.

It really does not suit every customer and can cost a lot of extra money to people that don't really know the options (museum glass for example) medals over 100 years old - do they need MG - I don't think so. Most of my customers are seniors and just want to display their medals - the next generation will most probably have them redone and if not they will sit perfectly happy in my 'non-conservation' frame.

How long do the 'conservationists' think their framing will last - in fact - how long will their customers want it to last?

I just get fed up with all the 'i know the best way to do it' carp - none of my 20 year old frames have either fallen apart or eaten away artwork - my mdf has not turned into the devils brew and chewed its way through oils or water colours or indeed medals.

We are just putting to bed our last frames and re-furbs for 11/11 and have a lot of happy and proud customers who are pleased with the display of their or their relatives/loved ones achievements .

hope i didn't offend anyone with my earlier post.

mikey

[prospero]

I may be throwing fuel onto the fire of contention here, but I'm gonna chuck in my fourpenn'th anyway.



Mikey frames medals. Medals are on the whole pretty tough. They are after all made of metal and intended to be handled. They aren't going to fade.

But.....

I would imagine even the ribbons are quite durable. But are the dyes in the ribbons lightfast? I don't know. So if anyone brought me a medal with a ribbon to frame and told me it was worth ££££££s, I would push Museum glass. After all, a medal is quite a small piece and going for the upgrade might cost £25 extra. Now the ribbon might not fade anyway, but why take the chance?

My point, if there is one, is that I don't know how UV light will ultimately affect the medal ribbons. But I know enough to suspect that it might.

25 years later.....

The owner decides to put the medal up for sale. Any prospective buyer is not going to pay top wack for a medal with faded ribbon (if at all) when he might be able to get an unfaded one. In years to come the medal may have risen in value. The fading may have knocked £1000s off the value. So the £25 would have been well spent.


Now this is looking from a purely mercenary point of view. The medal may only ever be of sentimental value. But to my mind this makes it's preservation exponentially more important.


And finally I have to raise Mikey's comment.....

none of my 20 year old frames have either fallen apart or eaten away artwork

The quality of the actual 'frame', e.g. the wooden bit around the outside, doesn't really figure in the equation re. conservation. It should be considered part of the outside world, just the same as the wall where the picture will hang. Wood is naturally acidic to a greater or lesser extent. No reason why paper-based items should come into contact with the frame anyway.

The purpose of conservation technique is to isolate the art from anything nasty as much as possible and to make no irreversible changes.



OK. You have had the Red Rag. That was the Bull.

[mikeysaling]

good points there prospero - eloquently put.


Ribbons - nearly all the medals we frame or re-furb require new ribbons - the originals get very worn and tatty for various reasons and customers do usually ask for new ones (they are not expensive). If requested we return any originals or put them in a pouch on the back of the frame. The main reason for 'wear' on ribbons seems to be actually wearing and handling them and having them kicking around in a drawer somewhere (also they are easily damaged when cleaning the actual medal) - they get very grubby indeed - most ww1 ribbons we see are in a state of virtual disintigration!. Ribbons on the medals are the same as ribbons on medal bars or strips that you see serving police officers etc wearing and these are exposed to the air/sunlight all the time with no ill effect.

we can supply ribbons for most medals at £1.25 for 6 inch length .

[prospero]

Thanks Mikey. I know a bit more now.

[framemaker]

If talking about this "conservation thing" in general, I've seen a lot of artwork and objects (worthless and very valuable) damaged and even ruined by poor framing materials and methods, while I've never seen anything harmed by framing to a high standard, using 'conservation' or 'museum' quality materials and methods.

So personally I think it is very worthwhile. Is it suitable for everything? well, I would say no, and thats why customers hope to find a framer who knows the difference and can advise.

[stcstc]

i have to disagree about using it for everything

the market i am in would not stomach it, and i would go out of business

i think both methods have their place, and a good framer is going to be able to advise and offer options

[WelshFramer]

Well, there's conservation and then there's conservation. Seems to me there's some very basic conservation that we should all observe even if the customer can't run to museum glass and you can't be bothered to mix up starch paste every day.

Some picture may have a low monetary value but that doesn't mean that they may not acquire a high sentimental value when they are given as a gift or left by someone who has died.

Even the extra pound spend on conservation-quality materials can be worth it: http://www.welshframing.com/framing/mountqual.html

[prospero]

Here's an example.......... I made some frames that were intended to hand in a tea-shop to display the menus. Every now and then they change the menus so conservation methods don't enter into it. In fact, in this case I employed methods more to conserve the mount given the repeated taping/removing rather than the framed objects. As I said before, the term 'framing' covers a wide area. (sometimes a multitude of sins. )

[Merlin]

Are confusing Conservation with Preservation.

Surely our job is to Preserve the item.

[Framerpicture]

Are confusing Conservation with Preservation.

Surely our job is to Preserve the item.

Couldn't agree more- We work for several art dealers who deal in pictures and prints many of which are over a hundred years old.
They vary in states of (dis) repair but some painted or stuck down on what you'd think would be the most acidic mill board seem to survive very well.

It would seem to me that the conditions pictures are kept in matter far more. Damp and Open fires seem to be the worst culprits. Oil painings that have been glazed seem to survive very well!

Saying that,framers in Victorian times didn't know any better. In fact when I started over 20 years ago I didn't know any better!

But with the amount of information available these days I can't imagine why anybody would use anything less than an acid free hinging tape, white core mount and an acid free barrier regardless of the work.

[Roboframer]

I don't think it matters whether we call it conservation framing or preservation framing, although I prefer the latter.

Check out some web definitions of 'conserve' anyway - e.g. "To protect from loss or harm"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conserve

FATG has a conservation level of framing and of mount board; manufacturers & suppliers use the word 'conservation' to describe boards and other materials and we have a company called 'Conservation by design' and also one called 'Preservation Equipment Limited'

[Keadyart]

And we could have an anthem

[Gesso&Bole]

I think the issue here is that there is such a HUGE range of what constitutes framing.

This forum welcomes people from all areas of the framing industry, and I think it is all too easy for those at the 'top end' to alienate folks that are doing contract work, and low to middle end framing, by implying that top quality is the only option.

I will declare my hand here. I am an upper middle to top end framer. Bainbridge Artcare is my standard mountboard, and I sell 'museum' glass much of the time. I believe in conservation/preservation where appropriate.

BUT

I see myself in a SERVICE business. It is my job to understand what the customer wants, advise and educate, encourage towards a better 'technical' specification where I think it is appropriate, and as a businessman, doing my best to earn a crust, and build a business, I will do any jobs that I can turn a profit, are within my capabilities, and the customer will pay for, so long as they are legal!

In my opinion, the most important aspect, is that i have given the customer the best possible information, so that they can make an informed decision. If they choose to go for a low spec job, having had the pros and cons from me, then that is their decision. I will either take it or decline it, but if I take it i wont whinge and moan about it, I will get on and do it to the best of my ability, based on the spec the customer has chosen.

In fact I did a job today where the photographs are put into frames with no glass and no mount. It's Thursday, these are going in a Marquee at Chatsworth House this weekend, for an exhibition, and on Monday the pictures will be put in the skip. Not really any need for conservation . . . . . .

[Roboframer]

Pretty much what Jim said.

Yesterday a lady brought in an embroidery her grandmother had done, she had everything bar the frame it had been in for years, which had fallen apart. IOW she had the glass and a backing board, plus the board that it was pinned to. The pins had rusted, the board it was pinned to was packaging stuff as was the backboard. All she wanted was a new frame, a thin black one.

It was a very nice piece, I told her that if she wanted we could sew extensions on it and lace it across acid free (yes, I use that term to customers) board, add mounts or spacers, UV glass and a new backing.

Nope - would cost too much. Did she want to know HOW much? Nope!

OK, well, it would be cheaper, or at least no more expensive to replace the glass. Why? Because it is minging (didn't use that word - there was stuff on it that would need scraping off)

She was actually going to make a 15 mile round trip to go home and clean the glass herself until I told her it would only add £6 to the job.

A flip side of that situation was the other week when a guy brought in a 1675 map, well, two - one loose and one mounted & framed to see if I could match it for the loose one.

They looked valuable, I asked him if they were and he said yes, fairly. So I pointed out the brown bevels on the mount and told him that I knew from the space left in the rebate that it was not mounted properly, therefore I'd be surprised if the glass was UV. It was framed just 3 years ago, did the framer mention conservation etc? No.

So I elaborated a bit and he asked why a respected London Gallery didn't give him these options and little old I did. So the job turned in to two conservation jobs instead of one standard job; not just to line my pocket, but for the right reasons.

[Roboframer]

I'm just wondering why no-one else seems to think it's being 'pushed'

Who's pushing it and who to?

Framers to customers or framers to other framers, or both? Can you elaborate Mikey, with links and/or quotes?

Offering it is different to pushing it, at least in an aggressive way and you've had some good responses, here and especially on your same topic on TFG, where a couple of very highly respected framers/educators gave their two bob's/cent's worth.

High default standards are also different to aggressive 'pushing', but remember those standards are default, they can be upgraded or downgraded to suit.

I was going to post a story from today in the 'outgassing' forum, (which is where IMHO this topic should be, but anyway) ....

A very long-standing customer came in today; we hadn't seen her for quite some time though. Her husband rarely came in the shop, maybe to help her carry stuff in/out, otherwise he'd sit in the car with a fag (cigarette for our overseas readers) listening to the radio. I'd always ask her if she'd left a window open for him if it was hot.

I knew her Mother was not well at all and assumed today, from how the customer was looking, that she had passed away....

She had an etching of a street cafe in Paris, in a cheap black frame; no mount. Could I remove the etching right now, so's she could take the frame home. It and the etching hugely valuable to her, couldn't leave it all with me. I did that.

During the process of choosing the new mounts and frame I got the story, with tears - a place she and her hsuband loved. Husband had recently/unexpectedly died; not her Mother, she's still hanging on by a thread.

She asked me if I would be framing it and I said 'If that's what you want' she said that she wanted no-one else but me even TOUCHING it! So I told her that would be so, and then I elaborated on the quality of of the mountboard we use and what a 'full conservation' job entails. Then I told her that, seeing as everything she had chosen was in stock, if she wanted, I could do it right now with her watching, or even helping, so that it would never leave her sight.

I was instructed to join her at her side of the counter and got a great big wet one

She went for Conservation Clear glass; not museum - and if the etching was dry mounted on to MDF with a standard mount (which could even be white core and still shoite) and regular glass, it would look no different, no different at all, and I know for a fact that if I was some sort of pushy spiv, (trilby, white hat band) I could have sold her just that at the same price as the conservation job.

[JohnMcafee]

I’m sure we all have stories similar to roboframer’s, I know I have. And Like him I always refrain from pointing out that they (the customers) probably have got only themselves to blame for the damage to their “precious” memento. When they first decided to have it framed, instead of charging around every framer in town looking for the cheapest, they should instead have been looking for the best.

In my 23 years of framing, only three customers that I can remember have ever made any query regarding quality. On the other hand we have had countless thousands whose first and only question is “How much?” Then without any regard for what they might be getting for their money, they often turn on their heel and go looking for a better deal.

So when they come to us years later, to see if there is anything we can do, of course we do the best that we can and leave it to them to work out whether or not they should take any responsibility for their predicament.

Regardless of quality, we never criticise the work of other framers.

[mikeysaling]

well - this is as far as i'll go on this topic . I've made my point - been refuted by a robust defence from several of you (which is really what i wanted + a bit of a wind up) and has created a lively and interesting discussion. Each to his own and his own clientele.

Still got some MDF left and float glass and wooden moulding!

may you live long and 'dye' happy and your framing god go with you.

[JohnMcafee]

Mikey, I'm not sure what you mean by "this is as far as i'll go on this topic". I thought that you started it in order to provoke a bit of a debate, now it seems like you have lost interest. Have you just been playing with us from the outset?

Do you believe that from this point onward, nothing any of us might possibly say on this topic could be of any interest to you?