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Re:[teacherartexchange] art gallery ideas

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From: Jerry Vilenski (jvilenski_at_TeacherArtExchange)
Date: Tue Jan 06 2009 - 07:45:24 PST

When I was teaching, I taught in a variety of schools with an equal variety of display challenges. I devised a system that used both the walls and the ceilings that made for unique and effective displays. Because I taught elementary school art, I decided to display the flat work on colorful display board. Each piece should be mounted on its own background that has enough room around the work to place a name tag that doesn't intrude on the art work itself. If you have a large number of small pieces, such as linoleum prints, you could display them on a large display board or colored matboard in a pleasing arrangement. This single board approach displays a large number of pieces on one board, allowing for thematic displays, and allows you the latitude to hang it on the walls wherever you have the room. In addition, I found that I quickly ran out of wall space for all-school shows, so I went up by hanging work from the ceilings. I got the idea from
 watching a department store clerk hang display boards from the ceiling. I installed a number of ceiling hooks on the grid of the suspended ceiling at random locations. Next, I purchased a number of display hooks, which are wire hangers that come in a variety of lengths. I then mounted the artwork on a 16x20 fomecore board, artwork on both sides, and hung each piece from the ceiling hooks. This provides a unique view of the artwork from both directions of the hallway, as well as providing a lot of display space that no one thinks about. This sounds more elaborate than it really is, and after doing a show this way, you will find ways of streamlining the whole operation. For instance, standarizing sizes helps a lot. Mounting on fomecore allows you to reuse the fomeboard year after year, so it is a modest investment that does duty for a long time. When it finally wears out, cut it up for sculpture! If you are lucky, get fomecore and matboard for
 free by asking frameshops for donations. They frequently throw out scraps that are perfectly usable by an industrious art teacher. I was recently given a pickup truck load of metallic and heavy colored display boards from a frame shop that was going out of business. I've been retired for two years, but my replacement just recieved a truckload of mat boards!

The company I purchased the ceiling display hooks and hardware from was USI. Good luck!

       

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