On Hanging Pictures

Were I to stumble across several million pounds, I would not buy a mansion or a yacht. A house with a couple more bedrooms would be nice, and a drawing room I could make a library would suffice. Plus the black Chrysler 2000, of course (big, low, ugly, loud).
I would, however, splash big time on huge precious stones, primarily rubies (very rare to get top quality ones now) and... on art.

There are a lot of pictures I would like to have, but financially I can only buy one a year. Sometimes I cheat and get my husband a second for Christmas which I am, of course, buying for myself but he is a tolerant man and it saves him the bother of attempting to find something I like. He still has to endure my occasional rants about the duck coat-hanger-rack-thing (novelty - me?!).

Once a year the one I have to have reveals itself, and this year it was Ancestral Voices by Susan Sanford. As soon as I saw it on her blog, ArtSpark Theatre, I knew me and it were made for each other.
So it journeyed across the Atlantic and I held it and next came the framing process. As this is one of Susan's altered photographs the whole thing, including the original photographic print mount, is integral. The lovely Mr Girdwood said the only way you can see the whole thing is to float mount, so float mounted it was. Much discussion on frame (requires a very deep one) and Mr Girdwood hand stained the elm to echo an element of the picture. The elm will also age to a golden colour.

Ooh, that's a deep frame


The great day came when I could bring the painting home, and Mr Girdwood always wraps them in the heaviest-weight brown paper you've ever touched and ties them up with string. It's so exciting.

The picture had already been granted "Big Room" status in my head, and I knew where the picture was going to hang. As it was part of Susan's Kublai Khan sequence, it was to go next to the poetry shelf with the Romantics on it.


Nope. Husband held it there for an age, and it just wasn't working.

So considered putting Serene next to poetry bookshelf, and putting Ancestral Voices in her place.

Serene

Where she hangs. That's my chair.


Didn't work. Only a couple more spots where pictures that must not be moved live, and the rest of the walls are largely bookcase. By now I was a little panicky.
So we tried the option that has never been considered before; to join a picture I adore, Ewe and Lamb, on the chimney breast where it has dwelt alone for over ten years.

Ewe and Lamb
And something magic happened.


So hail Susan Sanford, a truly wonderful artist. Susan blogs at ArtSpark Theatre, here: http://artsparktheatre.blogspot.com/
You can see the clearest image of Ancestral Voices here: http://artsparktheatre.blogspot.com/2010/05/ancestral-voices.html
with the rest of the Kublai Khan sequence in the posts above and below it.

This little fellow stowed away with Kubla while Susan wasn't looking.


And now hangs out in biography and autobiography. As does Andrew Marr, for some bizarre reason. The Charlton Heston is signed by the man himself.

After all that effort, another poser almost immediately presented itself. No idea what me and Mr Girdwood will come up with for this. And where?


So now I'd better get off to the Romford Hand-Fasting. As if.