Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Two Holes and a Funeral.

Trou = Hole.

1. An opening through something. 2. An area where something is missing: flaw, weakness. 3. A hollowed-out place.

So one of the glorious things about having a studio-slash-gallery-slash-Artshop in a charming historic building that was constructed in the 1600’s is that, well, you have a studio-slash-gallery-slash-Artshop in a building that is several hundred years old! Hence---water damage.


Monster Hole Before



In short, the main exterior wall of the shop is in bad shape. Due to some water damage that took place awhile back, the interior drywall is essentially rotten in a few places, and has taken to pouring out onto the floor in big piles of white dust. Lovely. Basically we have a hollow wall that spews dust. It would actually be kinda funny if it weren’t so viciously ugly.

So today, under the influence of a high fever and 600 milligrams of ibuprofen, I decided to march downtown and patch that baby up myself! Two pounds of plaster of Paris later, all I can say is: it should hold about 2 weeks. Once I got started, I realized just how bad the water damage was. I need to hack out a 2 foot by 3 foot chunk of the wall, replace it with a new piece of drywall, and then replaster. And since I didn’t have a 2 foot by 3 foot chunk of dry-wall conveniently stored in my back pocket, I did the best I could to just kinda….glue the remaining pieces of the wall back together. Result: It still looks like crap.


Monster Hole After



So after being defeated by the drywall, I drove home and decided to do a little canvas and painting inventory while I was in the garage. (Funny how I get crazy energetic while I have a burning fever.) I don’t usually like to admit that I store artwork in my garage, but there are a 3 or 4 small pieces that are down there because I haven’t moved them to the studio-slash-gallery-slash-Artshop yet. Anyway, while I’m looking at what’s in there and deciding what to take next weekend, I realize that one of my favorite little paintings has a freaking hole in it!


poked painting



Now, the way I see it, there’s no sense in asking how or why it happened. (Clearly I got a bit careless in my wrapping and packaging. It’s my fault.) What I really need to know is---Can it be fixed?

I refuse to believe that I have to throw out this painting. I mean didn’t some jack-ass accidentally poke a hole in a Picasso? My paintings don't sell for 40 million yet, but I still want to save it if I can!

Ok, I’m gonna noodle around google to see what I can come up with. Hopefully I won't have to have a funeral for this painting.

4 comments:

Jasmine said...

I'd say keep the painting and cleverly cover the hole in the wall with it. Though I know paintings are supposed to be at eye level, tell people you're being artistic. I wonder how well that would go over with the French? I'd bet they would eat it up.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you can fix it!!! Maybe take it to an art restorer and get an estimate. If it is outrageous, perhaps this is the moment to explore assemblage?

Felicity said...

I love the colours though!

dougphoto said...

I think you did a alright job on the wall it adds character. The painting can be fixed for sure, can you push it together from the back? is anything missing? Is that on paper it looks thin, paper isn't that hard to fix. Although it will require some touch painting, unless you want to be art historically correct in your restoration where they would patch the whole and paint in a nuetral color, so as not to hide what happened but prevent further damage.