Have I Mentioned That I Hate This Area...?

[the_gneech]

As some of you probably know, Vince was kind enough to give me the original artwork for his "Leo" image (the source of my 'dancing Torey' icon). I don't have a lot of Vince originals, because whenever they go up for auction they tend to go flying out of my price range, and this particular piece has a lot of attachment for me, since it was a gift.

lythandra, happening to look over at where I have it framed on the wall, says, "Oh, I never noticed that piece was smudged before."

Er ... huh?

Well, brothers and sisters, the goddamn northern Virginia humidity got in and CONDENSATION FORMED ON THE INSIDE OF THE GLASS, making the ink run all over the lower part of the picture.

It's not totally destroyed, but it is definitely damaged.

I've forgiven this rotten place for a lot of crap ... but this is something I will not forgive it for.

Northern Virginia, you suck, and I hate you. >.<

-The Gneech

Comments

[goodluckfox.livejournal.com]

A little bit of smoke or something creeped into my artwork. The bottom inch of everything is discolored (and this is despite being inside a glassed in frame). Weird.

Said artwork consists of
Original for one of Vince's Muscle and Cars portfolio
Original artwork for most of the final week of The Class Menagerie
Classl Menagerie "cast photop" print
Leona Print (signed by Leona :) )
Tiffany Print (signed by Gneech, picked up at Dragoncon'04)
And the piece my LJ icon comes from my friend pelzig

For having come through a housefire and more moves than I care to contemplate, they're really in great shape. :)

Loxley

[xylen.livejournal.com]

The humidity's everywhere right now.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I enjoy living in a (usually) dry state...

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, I'm sorry. I know how much you liked that pic. I always wondered how Northern Virginians could stand the humidity, and I guess it's even worse than I thought. :(

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I always wondered how Northern Virginians could stand the humidity

I wonder the same thing myself sometimes! Whose bright idea was it to build a city in the middle of a swamp? I stay here due to family obligation at this point.

Thanks for the kind thoughts, tho, they help. :)

-TG

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Wow... seeing it bad enough to make you say it like that actually made my blood run chill. I'm sorry, Gneech!

It does make me very glad that Drew had the foresight to put the original piece I have from you under an extremely thick mat, so that condensation on the glass can't touch the piece itself.

Have the best

-=TK

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I probably should have matted this piece too; but I figured, "Hey, it's in a frame, it should be protected."

*slaps dumbhead self*

-TG

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

I have a Matt Wagner that hung on my wall the whole time I lived in Northern VA and that never happened. Of course I had central AC on the whole time it was more than 70 degrees in that house...

You have my sympathies.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

eeeeeeeekle...... I'm so sorry to hear that happened, bud... :<
Would fixative have helped? Maybe oughta get fixative on other pieces before it snags them too... *sigh... hugs*

[dermotmacflann.livejournal.com]

Oh man...that's awful. And here I am all this time, thinking 30°C temperatures, 100% humidity and 3 meters of annual rainfall are the ideal climate... I never realized it could do things like that. Then again, I never hung original inked artworks on my walls when I was growing up...

Sadly, it is the nature of artworks of impermanent media to decay over time—just look at what's happened to Mona Lisa all these centuries. Maybe the best way to preserve something so delicate is with an ultra-high resolution digital scan. Of course, then there's the issue of the permanence of the physical media and locations the data is stored on...

I'm really sorry to hear this. I think that picture is absolutely without price. Irreplaceable.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Holy smokes o.0 And I thought Microns were supposed to be resistant to that too. Sorry to hear it, dude :-/

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Resistant, yes, but the paper was saturated in spots. Le sigh! At least there are high-res scans of this one. ;)

-TG

[invisiblewolf.livejournal.com]

Wow -- that really sucks. I'm so sorry to hear that, and I'm definitely there with you. You know how much I like Vince's originals, ;-), so I can imagine how upset you are. *hug*

BTW, is it Gemini or Libra that this happened to?

-Spiritwolf.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

D'Oh! Actually, it was "Leo." (Fixed in post.) I gave you Libra, didn't I?

-TG

[invisiblewolf.livejournal.com]

Er, right. Leo -- I got confused because of the dual nature of the Leo pic. Gemini's the tiger.

And yup, you gave me Libra -- which confused me initially! :-)

-Spiritwolf.

care and feeding of art on paper

[confusedoo.livejournal.com]

I'm currently working at a museum in the prints, drawings and photographs department, so I'm learning a thing or three about the proper care and storage of works on paper. There are a couple of big dos and don'ts for works on paper. One of them is never frame them directly against glass/plastic, especially for anything other than the shortest term (like a con art show for instance) Another big thing is to not keep them up on display for more than two out of every 5 years, and that should be lower if you have them in a room with uncontrolled natural light. One trick to this is to mat things in a standard size, like 16x22, then just rotate them between storage and display using the same frame. Even fade resistant things will be light-damaged, so if you really care about keeping it in good shape don't leave it up permanently. Speaking of storage, flat, cool, dry is best, and get something like glasine or onionskin paper to put between the works. Be careful of wood, as it has a tendancy to put off gasses that can damage the works. These are just some basics to keep your collection of works on paper in good condition so you can enjoy them for many years to come.

[kamau-d-lyon.livejournal.com]

Dang, How I wish I could just make that go away for you.

I know how it hurts to lose a piece of art you like and I can't even imagine what it must be like for an artist like you to lose one. I'm quite speechless at anything to say in the way of comfort or consolation.
*Shakes head sadly*

[exatron.livejournal.com]

Son of a diddly! That sucks like some sort of vacuum generating... machine... thingy.

At least the picture wasn't completely ruined.