Wednesday, October 8, 2014

4 Art Strategies Before Remodelling

Have you ever tried to hang a piece of art on a wall but found a light switch in the way?  Avoid this design faux pas with careful planning prior to remodelling.  You can greatly improve your display options for family photos and artwork with thoughtful decisions about sightlines, lighting and placement of windows, light switches and air vents.

First, consider where your important walls are, and it's not just over the fireplace.  When you consider sightlines you will find great walls for hanging art at the ends of hallways or walls viewed through doorways. Have you ever been in an art gallery or museum where you see a striking piece of art in the distance, at the far end of a gallery or down a corridor?  That is the result of intelligent use of sightlines, and good lighting. 

Walk around your home and look through doorways from one room to another, what is on the opposite wall?  What is at the end of the hallway?  These walls could be an overlooked opportunity for stunning art display.  Once you have determined some significant walls for art display you can plan how to improve the wall spaces and placement of lighting. 

Windows offer interesting choices in remodelling.  A large picture window takes up a whole wall and makes it difficult to display a prominent piece of art. One solution is to install smaller windows on either side of the wall to preserve a large wall space in the center for art display.

Lighting is essential for enjoyable viewing of artwork and is much more easily installed when the walls are torn apart for remodelling.  Adjustable lighting like track lighting and adjustable recessed cans are easy to direct onto to art work and create better illumination than wall washers and ambient lighting.  And don't forget to keep the light switches and air vents out of the way.

-cm
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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Frame a Wish for Make A Wish Foundation

When we were asked about framing mementos for a Make A Wish youngster this summer we of course said, "Yes."  Eight year old Jonathan "Jon Jon" Dockins is a heart patient and train nut whose wish was to drive an Amtrak Zephyr train over Donner Pass in the Sierras. With the cooperation of Make A Wish, Amtrak and many kind people throughout California and Nevada, Jon Jon had a fabulous experience on the trains and came away with many memories and mementos of the event.


Studio Shop framer Micah Paul was contacted by Amtrak engineer Ken Powell about creating a memory frame for Jon Jon and his family in Jackson, Missouri. Micah quickly started planning the layout of the several items and created a mock-up in Photoshop to easily show the event organizers for approval.

The frame design includes a hinged door so that Jon Jon can remove the toy train from the frame for running on his track at home.
Hinged frame for access to train.

The moulding is a unique and beautifully appropriate line with lots of mechanical details called Steam Punk.

To help out the organizers Micah selected images from a large batch of digital photos and then printed the best ones for the frame.  He also printed  the logos for Amtrak, the train engineers union and historic train lines from digital files.

The moulding's mechanical details  inspire its name, Steam Punk.
Jon Jon in the driver's seat.

Golden spike and other detail close ups.
Lock detail and custom Conductor Jon Jon sign.


CBS news video about Jon Jon's train trip.
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