As I write this my partner Anita is kindly putting the finishing touches to wrapping and boxing the five paintings I’m sending to the Green Drake Gallery in Pennsylvania. These five pieces together with two others they already hold will be part of their ‘Taste of Scotland’ exhibition that takes place in September.
They’ve asked for a selection of sizes and so I’m sending:
One of the new large 80 x 80 cm paintings, (‘Winters afternoon, Beinn Dorain’).
Two of the 30 x 30 cm paintings, (‘Below Liathach, Torridon’ & ‘In Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran’)
Two of the small 12.5 x 12.5 cm paintings, (‘Approaching shower, the Fannichs’ & ‘Above The Rest and Be Thankful’)
The gallery already have two of the 76 x 23 cm paintings. I sent these a short while after the gallery opened back in the early summer.
As all the smaller pieces are normally framed with a mount behind glass it has been a little bit of a problem knowing how best to package and send them. In the end we decided the best way would be to remove the glass for the shipment ….the gallery will add new glass on arrival. As for packaging, Anita did some searching on the Internet and found a very useful company down in Yorkshire that produce made to measure cardboard boxes. For the purpose of this shipment I’ve just ordered a few sample boxes in order to test them out. These arrived very quickly and are perfect. Not only will they make it a far quicker wrapping process but they also look far more professional too. The first two boxes are now complete and they seem very secure and sturdy …..if it wasn’t for all the extra weight I’d be tempted to send them with the glass. Best not tempt fate though! As I now generally work in ‘standard’ sizes, I’ll be placing a proper order for the three different sizes of box …though the minimum order is 25 I think …so finding somewhere to store them is going to be interesting! Anyone who has visited my studio will know that it’s not exactly the largest of spaces. Oh well, I’ll worry about that one later.
I’m planning to arrange for the courier to collect the packages on Tuesday or Wednesday next week and so as it is a three day delivery service to the United States, they should have the paintings by next weekend.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of response I get to the work over in the Green Drake Gallery. As I say, they’ve had two pieces for a couple of months now and although they haven’t sold they have I’ve been told had a few folk interested. It’s a big step taking on the cost of shipping work over to the United States, but I think it’s well worth investing some time and money into trying to get a toe in the door in the US market. Of course though, the economic news coming from that side of the Atlantic isn’t any brighter than here in Europe …so who knows? Well worth a try though and I guess this is just another thing that the Jolomo Award has allowed me to do. Full details of the ‘Taste of Scotland’ exhibition nearer the time.
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