Fixings and Fittings

I’m often going on about how important it is to think through presentation. During your time at college it is really useful to get used to what fixings and fittings are out there. Most of them are made for things outside the art world, so what you will need to do is find that bathroom shelf that has the exact right aesthetic to put your object on, or locate that exact shade of copper a clip needs to be, or a hook the right size to hang your paper from. But if you don’t know where to look or if you don’t know what is possible you will end up making a compromise. So here is a starter for 10.

See below some web-sites and artists approaches to presentation that could be useful if you were thinking about researching the way hanging work could shape an audience's reaction to it. Get used to what different companies offer and look for alternative suppliers. The more you know the better choices you can make.

Good iron mongers offer a wide range of fixings and fittings, including lots of hooks, hanging ideas and brackets: Start looking for catalogues on line, go through all the boring bits carefully because you might miss something. A catalogue that includes mirror plates and brackets, might also include those peephopes for looking at who is on the other side of a door and timber beading for window frames, things that might open out ideas into new directions. (Links will quickly disappear so print off contact addresses and keep in an old fashioned file). 'S' hooks and small pulleys can be very useful, and butcher's hooks can be placed along a metal frame and large sheets of paper or other materials hung from them like rows of carcasses. All these things carry very charged meanings, because they were made to be used in particular contexts, such as in abattoirs or on sailing ships, so you need to be careful how you use them. 

Nadia Kaabi-Linke

Nadia Kaabi-Linke has used a bar and 'S' hooks to display her porcelain fired paper shards. (You can dip paper in liquid porcelain slip and when dry it can be fired, the paper burns away and you have these thin 'casts' remaining). 

When you need to get big things get more complex but they can still be achieved with a little planning.  Zhu Jinshi works with rice papers and in order to get the effect required, layers of them need to be hung. 

Zhu Jinshi

Horizontal poles are hung by wires from the ceiling, then the paper is simply folded over the poles. You can just about see where the wires go, because the first sheet of paper has to exactly butt up to the wires used to hold the poles in place. A reinforced concrete wire mesh panel would be hung from the ceiling in order to have the necessary grid to hang wires from. 

A good building supplier will stock these wire mesh panels.

In order to hang things from a wire mesh an artist would have to source a series of specific fittings, so would need to research wire suspension, support cables and rigging hardware.

The fixings and fitting surrounding wire and rope have all evolved to do specific things, usually what you want is the neatest and cleanest solution, but it may be that you want to make more of the 'language' of these things and bring them into the foreground. This is of course something that as an artist is an option open to you. You would make a decision based on the aesthetic you were  trying to develop. 

Wire comes in many forms. Aluminium armature wire and florist's wire are very good for making shapes and sculpting.  For wire to draw 3D structures with as well as delicate and unusual wire meshes etc try Wires.co.uk and just explore their huge range of wires and metal tapes. Because wire can be used to make fixings looking through the variations available can again give you inspiration and ideas for new ways to further your work and think of how to hang it at the same time.  

Swivels and links on a small scale are often found at fishing suppliers. For instance there are all sorts of materials associated with fly fishing. If you think of the artificial flies made by fishermen as tiny sculptures of insects and the associated rod and line equipment as equipment for hanging these small sculptures, then you can see how they could be brought under the umbrella of 'art materials'.  

For light items such as images mounted on foam board there are now command strips. But do check the weight limitations as clarified on the packet. Command strips are fine for an internal exhibition or fast turnaround situation such as an assessment, but beware of using them in professional exhibition spaces. 

One issue is often the use of text on walls. If you are thinking about using commercial style signage, putting up a vinyl wall image or text. You could cost this by ringing around and getting quotes, alternatively if you are by chance at a college gallery opening, ask one of the gallery technicians where they got the wall text from. But do remember the sustainability issues these choices impact upon. Do you use these types of materials or do you recycle? Do you need to present what you are doing in a complex way, can a much simpler way of doing things be found? 

Building walls? Plywood, chipboard, blockboard or MDF, get some basic prices by ringing around as well as looking at websites. Remember you can sometimes get technicians to order materials in through the college and this is often cheaper. But again think sustainability, perhaps an exhibition space might be found elsewhere and its unique sensibility used as part of your work's aesthetic. Thinking of the aesthetic of the walls, don't forget that you can control the colour you present your work against. In Leeds, for paint when you have no money try: Seagulls re-use limited. See: http://www.seagullsreuse.org.uk

When you just want to pin paper to a wall T pins are a really useful but slightly different alternative. 

T pins come in a much wider range of sizes than the traditional dress maker's pins.

There are a different type of pins such as the rounded flat headpins above which can be just right for some work and ball head pins such as the ones below.

Ball head pins

Thinking of pins, it is worthwhile just going to your local haberdashery store and just getting to know their stock, because this will include all sorts of canvas and textile materials as well as the various fixing and fitting items used. 

For a local haberdashery that stocks textiles materials of all sorts and fixings and fittings for them you can go to:

Samuel Taylor

10 Central Road

Leeds LS1 6DE 


It’s just over the road from the main Leeds market.

Samuel Taylor

Once you have begun to get used to fixings and fittings as integral aspects of your ideas, you begin to think much more about materials as carries of ideas in themselves. This can then bring your thinking about materials and how they can be combined and joined directly into the concept and realisation of the artwork. 

Ann Christopher 

Fixings can also be used within a drawing. Look at the way Ann Christopher is putting together several layers of papers in the drawing above. She is carefully slicing tracing paper so she can thread thin black paper through it and she is using rivets to attach the paper layers to a backboard. 

I would expect you all to have a file on these things, whether links on your computer or mobile or an old fashioned notebook, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you begin to think about presentation very early on and not just when you think you have finished something. The way an eyelet sits against a drawn mark, or the way a wire is used to hang work from between two walls will drastically affect the way your work is seen. This is central to 'material thinking'.

You will need to get used to different ways to get things on a wall. Installing Exhibitions a Practical Guide is a good introductory text. It is written by Pete Smithson, an ex student from the time when the University was called the Jacob Kramer College. A fact that reminds me that there are of course jobs in this area and if you like all the issues associated with installation, good gallery technicians are always in demand. 

Don’t forget to build up your basic toolkit, this gets bigger as you become more professional, for instance a studfinder will save you hours of fiddling about if you need to put your fixings into solid wood and you find yourself in a plaster boarded gallery. You will also find that multipurpose ones are useful if you want to avoid drilling into hidden electrical cables or pipes that sit just below the surface of the wall. 

A multipurpose studfinder

All of you need a hammer, screwdrivers, electric drill, spirit level, ball of string, assorted nails and screws, tape measure and bradawl.  Pliers, a tenon saw, adjustable wrench, utility knife and duct tape, would also be very useful. I don't see many people fully equipped when it comes to putting up shows, and the amount of hours lost as students wander about looking for basic tools during the putting up of shows is criminal. You could always ask for a tool kit for Christmas. Remember college is only one step on a long journey but a toolkit is for life. 

See also:

Framing a large drawing
The frame and the banner
Framing
From drawing to installation

Hanging an exhibition

The salon hang