Another long and physical day of stock taking, wrapping, unwrapping, and art photography. Frames photographed included 'Mermaid Completely Accepting A Loveless Life', 'Songs Of Saint George', and 'Death And The Queen Of Spades' here...
... but many shared frame styles. So I used the same frame image for the Bunting Game Triptych, those Anti-Valentine's Watercolours, and the recent film star portraits.
The morning was stressful and horrible for a few reasons. Unpacking and checking everything revealed a few nice paintings in awful quality frames, which I've really moved away from. How I rushed things in those early days! My early framing efforts were very poor in technical and aesthetic standards. The painting 'The Romantic Life Of Rene Magritte' was touching (and stuck to) the wood of the frame and its paint has been damaged, so I must repair that. I toyed with doing that today, and started to fix the frame too. The frame is a blotchy arrangement of green, brown, black and gold. It has a charm in its own way, but the sides and top are a greater mess.
There are a few paintings in similar frames: the Charlie Chaplin one, The Silkworm, The Glorious Birth of Summer, Depression Caused (etc.), Money Just Running Out. All of these need new frames and in a near panic wanted to unwrap and fix them all, taking some out, then deciding to put them away, to file and forget. Ultimately, I did a little work on the Magritte frame, and stored the tainted painting back in a more secure condition. These restorations can wait for a future day.
I hope I can find time in 3 or 4 years to do this. I hope that my stock of newer and well framed works will sell or deplete. I had a tragic feeling that the situation could be the same then, that I'll never have the time or space or funds to fix my old works, that nobody would see them even if I did reframe them. It would be shameful to show them in their current state; but the paintings themselves are not so bad. I can do much better now, of course. This should hopefully always be the case.
Most of the works on shelves, 50 or so paintings, are now labelled. I estimate this is 150kg worth; I worry about the integrity of the shelving! Almost everything in good frames is photographed. Ultimately, even if I exhibit only these, I'll have enough for many exhibitions, so the rest can wait.
Here's a glimpse at my artworks spreadsheet. This only shows what's framed and how, and what is scanned and how. Not shown are fields for sizes, print sizes, time taken, prices, and to date 1258 rows. This admin takes time but it can be worth a lot in the long term. I always take a long term view. There are artists who achieve overnight success, perhaps, but these are few and those that do would find that fleeting fame useless without solid foundations. Art is a long term activity.
