By Rebecca Olsen
'Patching the holidays,' 'gilders liquor' and 'gesso' are not words heard in every-day conversation. But for exhibition production and installation manager John Adams, they are frequenters in his vocabulary.
About eight years ago, the Museum of Art hosted an exhibition that required the purchase of several frames for the show. Because of the unavoidably high cost of those frames, they decided to look into making the frames themselves.
'We actually saved the museum more than $250, 000 by making them ourselves,' Adams said.
Adams is a carpenter by trade, but wasn''t experienced with frame making at the time. He had some initial training and continues to research the art of frame making. Since that time he has been making custom frames for much of the art that is displayed in the museum, including the new exhibition, 'Beholding Salvation: Images of Christ.'
Adams made more than 20 gold leaf frames for the new show, including three restoration pieces, which required additional time and effort. Frame sizes range from 16 by 24 inches to over 9 by 18 feet. Adams worked with the exhibition curator to decide the appropriate time period and style each frame should have to match the paintings in the show.
There are a few modern processes for gold leaf application, but Adams sticks to the traditional way that has been used for hundreds of years.
Some frames begin from scratch, where the frame is made in the shop to fit a specific piece of art. Other frames are already made and pieced together. Some pieces have hand-carved ornamentation, while others have applied ornaments. Then a spray gesso, which is a white chalky material, is added.
'Preparation is everything,' Adams said. 'Gesso creates a perfect surface to continue the process.'
Then clay is added, and a gilder''s liquor is applied to activate the hyde glue in the clay.
The next step is the actual application of the leafing. The gold leaf comes on individual four-inch sheets and must be applied carefully to the frame.
'The gold is so thin,' Adams said, 'and it doesn''t always behave.'
Adams and his crew use 22-karat gold on the majority of the frames, and 23-karat on some of the restoration pieces. Sometimes the gold doesn''t stick, so they have to make a second run and patch the 'holes.' The term 'patching the holidays' describes this part of the process.
Although these gold leaf frames are expensive to produce, it is not because of the price of the gold.
'The gold is the cheap part of the frame. The process is very labor intensive,' Adams said.
The gold is burnished after it is applied. Adam''s crew uses polished agates to create different finishes on the frames by applying pressure and rubbing the tools on the frame surface.
After the gold leaf is applied and toned, it must be antiqued so the frames look as old as the paintings within them. Adams uses chisels, rasps and chains, basically anything that will leave its mark. He also uses different washes, speckles of paint or makes lines to imitate dust, wear and tear and the natural cracking of the gesso.
'Over the years you wouldn''t have used a tooth brush to clean every nook and cranny,' Adams said. 'So it wouldn''t make sense to keep the frames bright and shiny.'
Adams and his crew, which include one part-time employee and seven students, have been working on the frames since January.
'Without my crew I wouldn''t get anything done,' he said.
Students on his team come from all different majors. He and his crew install each exhibition also, which includes everything from 'Beholding Salvation''s' fancy entrance to the different walls in each gallery.
'I like it because I''m not always doing the same thing,' said Matt Phillips, a junior from Dothan, Ala. majoring in Spanish.
Clark Williamson, another student employee, is proud of the hard work he and the crew devote to the beautiful frames.
'It will be cool to take someone to the gallery and say, ''I worked on this.'''