Mounting African artwork

[Darcey]

I'm looking for advice on my surprise for the week. A client came in yesterday with four pieces of artwork mounted on thinly weaved black canvas. The artwork on the canvas is very, very thin pieces of veneer inlayed with each other to depict African animals. The images were then glued to the canvas. There is glue residue all about where it shouldn't be...but I told the client the glue would still show up and she was fine with that. She wants no mat just the black canvas border. My concern is that the images are very curled and warped so I am afraid to mount them as needlework will cause the veneer to pop off the black canvas when the glue gives out. Should I just put spacers in between the glass and artwork and leave them as rippled as they are or ????? Your expertise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[preservator]

Your instincts sound right... leave them as they
came in. What you have described: a combination of
wood strips, glue, and cloth that were probably
assembled in a tropical setting is a disaster
waiting to happen if you try to change its shape.
If there is enough available fabric you might
be able to stitch them to a black, stretched
backing cloth and provide enough space so that
they are not pressed against the glazing. If you
use black spacers, they might look rather dramatic, even in their cockled state.

Hugh

 

[fttom]

A couple of years ago, we had some of the same items come in at my part-time job. If I remember correctly, we pined them down, with stainless steel pins, to acid-free foamcore, then used spacers to keep the glass off of them. We did not stretch them, as you would needlework. We just used the pins to basically hold them in place around the edges, and let them wave and wrinkle as they wanted to. Since we've not seen them back, I have to assume that they are still ok. I do remember almost losing my religion over them, though. They were a real pain to do, as they were not square, and the wood and glue made them buckle and wave in some of the oddest manners. Good luck! You'll need it.

Oh, be careful. We discovered that the fabric was cut in some places at the edge of the wood. Apparently, the artist laid the wood down on the fabric first, then cut it in place. In some places, s/he went completely through the fabric, and you'll have these little unexpected slits to contend with, usually across the top of a piece of wood.

 

[David Knox]

This is banana leaf art. Rather striking in my own bathroom I might add. Here's what I did because conservation was not an issue. I dry mounted them suckers, laid a piece of glass over the image and squared them up as best I could (left as much black fabric as possible), cut to size, added a great frame from Nurre, and they look stunning!

 

[Ron Eggers]

If you ever dry mount one of these puppies - and conservation is not an issue - please cold mount it.

I once heat-mounted one of these (in my younger, more reckless days) and an image that was hand-painted on the surface migrated - almost in its entirety - to the release paper.

Ah, the good-old-days . . .