How to Transport and Install a 12ft x 6ft Oil Painting from Anchorage to Bethel

If you have stopped by our studio in the last three months you saw the enormous oil painting filling my work space, or stashed in the hall in order to make room for people during open studio events.  The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation built a new clinic in Bethel, and released a call for art in early 2019.  We applied for several wall spaces, and were awarded a contract to create a 12ft x 6ft oil painting on canvas for a large area high on the wall above a stairway.  This is the largest canvas I have ever painted!  Last week I delivered, assembled and helped install this piece at its location in Bethel. 

So, how do you take such a large painting on a jet-plane?  I designed the canvas from the start so that transporting it on an Alaska Airlines flight would be possible.  However, we all know that while some things seem easy conceptually, they can gain complexity as they progress.  The stretcher support was made up of 45 individual ash and birchwood pieces, and no piece was longer than 6ft, because I wanted them all to fit into a ski bag.  The canvas was rolled up and the stretcher support dis-assembled for its journey.  I waited until the day before departure to break it down, and pack it up. 

I awoke at 3:30 AM to catch a 6AM flight to Bethel.  I brought two checked ski bags, and a carry-on backpack.  No extra luggage fees for me with Club 49 thanks to Alaska Airlines!  I could have brought another checked bag, since it was an in-state flight!  Alaska Air and TSA were gentle enough with my precious cargo, and everything arrived in good shape and on-time.  I was picked up by the YKHC maintenance foreman, Pat, at the airport.  He and his team have been installing all the newly-acquired art pieces at the clinic.  I got to see some of the art while I was there, and I must say that the committee chose some incredible art!  We drove to the maintenance building and picked up two more staffers to help lift the painting onto the wall.  Re-assembly took me a couple of hours and I had a conference room to myself.  The extra help was great, and I don’t think I could have stretched it back to its original tightness without the extra muscle.  

The maintenance crew was clutch, as I had planned to hang this colossal piece the same way I hang smaller pieces — on a heavy-duty wire.  There is only an inch of clearance on either side of this piece so getting it straight on the wall was the real problem.  Pat suggested I use a French cleat, and I agreed that would be better, if only I had thought to bring one.  Pat was a superhero and produced the hardware from his storeroom!  This made hanging the piece much easier.  Four guys and two ladders later the 90lb painting slid into place.  This took us right up to lunchtime, and I was a little disappointed I had taken the early flight, as now I had 8 hours to kill until I could catch the return flight to Anchorage.  Pat had to check on his dog, and I had packed a lunch, so I chilled out at the hospital for an hour and breathed a sigh of relief.  

After lunch Pat took me on an amazing driving tour of Bethel and the Kuskokwim River.  I got to go to the grocery store to replenish my snacks for the return trip to Anchorage.  Pretty expensive to buy food and gas in Bethel.  $4.49 a gallon for gasoline, and $8.49 a gallon for milk! The area is beautiful tundra with mountains glistening in the distance.  I got so see a pretty nice chunk of the town, which is much larger than I had expected — about 10,000 residents.  The area around Bethel is very interesting, but the people are where the real beauty exists, everyone is so friendly and helpful.  Bethel is a hub, but it felt like a really welcoming village. 

I was dropped off at the airport with my drop cloths in my ski-bag, and I was feeling really fatigued by this time.  I hunkered down at the airport and worked on my beer coloring book pages for a couple of hours before catching my flight home at 10PM.  I met a fellow who was so happy to pick up his crate from Alaska Airlines.  He said he had snow-machined for two hours from his camp to pick it up!  This was right at twilight, so it was going to be a dark return trip for him.  Adventurous people live in the Delta and I was happy to get a glimpse of this culture.  Thank you YKHC for this superb opportunity!  Maybe next time I can come in the summer and do a little fishing.  

Here is a slideshow of some pictures I took during this whole process.  Below you’ll also find three timelapse videos of my painting, and the last one is of us taking apart the painting and rolling up the canvas.

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The Big Project Is Finished… Now What?

There were many days this summer when Maria would go hiking, or biking with friends, and I would spend the day at the studio, weekends included, working on the big 1% for Art project for Gladys Wood Elementary.  We installed the paintings this week, and yesterday I touched up all the spots where screws were visible, and mounted the plaques, so the project is officially done!  The whole process took over a year, but a lot of that time was spent waiting for paperwork to get processed, designs to be approved, contractors to be available after the earthquake, etc.  The actual work took about 7 months, but I did spend a few weeks at the cabin in McCarthy, and went on a ski trip in March.  I also managed to have an art show at Midnight Sun Brewing, and complete all the commissioned paintings that were ordered during that time.  Now that the big project is over, I need to regroup and set a course for the next few months.  The first thing I did was clean my studio, now that the panels weren’t completely overtaking it.  That really set my mind at ease.  So, what’s next?

The panels completely took over my studio, which is why we couldn’t be open for the First Friday Art Walk.

The paintings are all installed!

Well, first we’re flying to Arizona, and meeting a couple of Maria’s relatives from Germany, and going to Las Vegas with them, and then Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks!  When I get back, I’ll start working on my next public art project (Maria is really good at keeping me busy), which is a 12ft x 6ft oil painting on canvas for the new clinic in Bethel.  I will also continue working on my beer-themed coloring book.  So far I’ve completed 26 pages, and my goal is 50.

This is a rendering of the painting I will be making for the new clinic in Bethel.

The beer-themed coloring book is coming along.

I will also start getting ready for my next art shows at Enlighten Alaska in November, and Midnight Sun Brewing in January, and the Makers Market in December.  We can start having First Fridays at our studio again, and the next one will be in December, which will be the Real Art Is Better holiday party.  Other than that, I’m available for commissions, graphic design, and sticker orders.  Life is pretty much back to normal, maybe I’ll even go mountain biking tomorrow with Maria!

1% for Art Project for Gladys Wood Elementary: Part I

Tomorrow is the May First Friday Art Walk, and normally we would have converted our studio into a pop-up gallery for the evening, and opened it to the public, but this month I’m working on a huge 1% for Art project for Gladys Wood Elementary that is taking up most of the space in the studio, so open studio events have to be postponed.  This is our second 1% for Art project.  The first one was in 2017 at Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks.  Right about this time last year I was awarded the Gladys Wood Elementary project, and now I am finally putting oil paint on panels.

Signing the contract and receiving the first payment installment took about a month.  In the meantime I started working on design concepts for four large ellipse paintings for walls in two different hallways, themed Spring and Fall, and six circles for the ceilings in those hallways.  The committee of ten people approved the designs immediately, which was so much faster and easier than I expected.  Then we left the country for a month, but when we returned we started looking for contractors to help us install the panels securely, especially since six of them are going to be on the ceiling.  I decided to hire the same crew that remodeled the school, since they know the admin staff, and everything about those walls they built.  Luckily Cornerstone General Contractors agreed to work with me, even-though this project is small potatoes for them.  About a week after my conversation with the contractor, that 7.1 earthquake hit, and I didn’t hear back from those guys for about two months, which was totally understandable.  I didn’t really mind, because the holiday season was in full swing, and we were busy mailing orders, and selling art at craft fairs around town.  So finally, in January, I ordered all the panels from Hardware Specialties, a great wood store, and arranged with the property manager of the building where we lease our studio to get some extra working space.  Luckily, there’s a huge room downstairs that is vacant at the moment, with a garage door for easy unloading from the truck!  So we unloaded all the wood panels, and then Maria and I went to the school and made templates out of paper and tape of the four ellipses, so I could trace the templates onto the panels.  That took us two evenings.

Maria helping to make a template of the ellipse shape, with an opening for an outlet.

The next step was to trace and cut the panels, which I accomplished with a skilsaw and my trusty sander.  I finished that step right before we left on a two-week ski trip to Idaho and Utah.

All the panels cut for four ellipses, and six circles.

So now the contractors finally came into the picture.  We hired two strong guys to help us pre-install the panels.  I really wanted to make sure they would fit, before I started painting, and also, to figure out where all the screw holes would be, so I could try to camouflage them in the design.  The pre-install took two evenings.  Those guys were great to work with!

Next, I sanded the surface of the panels to remove any wood texture, and coated them with two coats of white primer.  Then we coated them with gold paint.  The gold shines through small gaps in the oil paint, making my paintings glow when light hits them at certain angles.  Before I could start painting the design with oils, I had to figure out where I could work on such large pieces.  One option was to lay them out on the floor, but I’ve worked on the floor before, and it’s painful after many hours of crouching.  So I modified my existing easel with 1x3s so it would hold an entire ellipse at once.  The whole set up barely fits in my studio!

At this point I have finished one ellipse for the Spring hallway, and am now working on the second one.  Progress is steady, and I’m expecting to finish on time and on budget.  The deadline is October 2019.

The first ellipse completed for the Spring hallway.

Work in progress on the second ellipse for the Spring hallway.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Studio

Well, we got back from our cabin in McCarthy yesterday, and we don’t have any trips planned for the foreseeable future, so it’s time to get back to regular life and knuckle down in the studio.  Today I signed the contract for a big 1% for Art project at Gladys Wood Elementary in Anchorage, so now I can start working on the design.  I gathered some good reference material in McCarthy, where Fall arrived a couple weeks earlier than here in Anchorage.  We also picked about 13 pounds of lingonberries, and I’ll be making many jars of jam this week.  I’m looking forward to being grounded here in Anchorage for the winter, and working in the studio.  We’ll be hosting a First Friday in October for the first time since last April!  I hope you’ll stop by.  I’ll be baking my famous chocolate chip cookies for the event.

Lingonberries growing in the Boreal Forest.

We picked about 13 pounds of lingonberries!

Inspiration for the 1% for Art project at Gladys Wood Elementary.

Here are photos from my proposal for the Gladys Wood Elementary 1% for Art project.  The requested theme was Southcentral Alaskan natural scenery.  The final paintings will be different, but this is the overall concept based on my existing oil paintings.  I’ll be creating four large elliptical paintings for the walls, and six circular ones for the ceiling.  They will be displayed in two different hallways.  One hallway is themed Spring, and the other Fall.  I have until October 2019 to complete this project.  I’ll post updates on Facebook and Instagram along the way.

Our First 1% for Art Project

~ by Maria Benner

We recently completed our first 1% for Art project.  What is 1% for Art?  Here’s a short summary of the law.  The State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage recognize that it is the government’s responsibility to foster the development of culture and the arts through the purchase or commissioning of works of art for municipal buildings, schools or other municipal facilities. So 1% of capital expenditures for municipal buildings and facilities are devoted to the acquisition of works of art to be permanently placed or incorporated in such buildings or facilities.  When there is a need for art, the State, or Muni requests proposals from artists for specific locations.  Many artists apply for these opportunities, and the competition is pretty stiff.  Artists from outside Alaska can apply too, making competition even tougher.  We’ve been submitting proposals for a couple years, and our list of rejections was getting pretty long.  But finally, we submitted a proposal for bicycle racks at Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks, and our project was accepted!  Then we had to submit a proposed budget, proof of insurance, a notarized and signed paper promising that we don’t have employees, so we’re not required to get Worker’s Comp insurance, and some other paperwork, before we were all set up to proceed with the fun part.

We recently had an epiphany that opened up many more opportunities in the public art realm.  We realized that we can hire fabricators to create installations, or sculptures that Scott designs.  Now we can propose pieces of art made from metal, glass, wood, anything!  Before, we were just responding to requests for murals, or paintings.  So Scott designed three bicycle racks that would be installed in front of the building.  They were shaped like a moose rack, a bear with a salmon in its mouth, and spruce trees.  We hired a local fabricator in Fairbanks, Warren from Alaska Ornamental Iron.  We chose him, because we had seen his work at a neighbor’s cabin in McCarthy, and his business seemed very professional.  When we called him, he said he could do the work, and promptly sent us a bid.

When Warren came to town on a work trip, he stopped by our studio, and we discussed the designs.  Scott made some tweaks, and sent them to Warren in various file formats.  Then Scott and I flew to Fairbanks to scout locations for the bike racks, and to meet with the school Principal, and maintenance manager.  We all discussed, and agreed upon the locations, and they approved the final designs.

Warren took several months to build the racks out of steel tubing.  He sent us pictures of his progress, and we forwarded them to our contact at the school, so they would know what was going on.  When the bike racks were complete, Scott flew to Fairbanks to help Warren and his team install them.  The installation took longer than expected, because such projects always do, so Scott didn’t have time to take photos for his portfolio before he had to catch his plane back to Anchorage.  So I flew to Fairbanks just for a couple hours a week later to make sure that the installation was completely done, and to take photos.  I rented a bicycle, so I could use it as a prop in the photos to demonstrate how the bike racks work.

I just sent off the final invoice to the school district.  There were three invoices.  One for 1/3 for materials, and another one a couple months later for Warren’s fees.  The final one is for travel expenses, and all other costs associated with the project.

In summary, I’m glad I did a lot of research about budgeting for public art projects, and read the book The Artist’s Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions by Lynn Basa.  We read and heard about a lot of horror stories of artists going over budget and having to take out a second mortgage on their house, or getting in way over their head on a project that’s too big and complicated.  Luckily, we did everything right this time, got lucky with our fabricator, who ended up being very professional and created exactly what Scott designed.  We learned a lot about the process, and hopefully will have more opportunities like this in the future.

Bear with salmon in its mouth bicycle rack. 1% for Art at Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks. Designed by Scott Clendaniel, fabricated by Alaska Ornamental Iron.

Moose rack bicycle rack. 1% for Art at Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks. Designed by Scott Clendaniel, fabricated by Alaska Ornamental Iron.

Spruce trees bicycle rack. 1% for Art at Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks. Designed by Scott Clendaniel, fabricated by Alaska Ornamental Iron.