Within our District, a small village, Middleburgh, located on the fringe of the northern Catskills in Schoharie County has established an outdoor, year-round art park.
The art park currently has 17 paintings on 4 ft. x 4 ft. and 4 ft. x 6 ft. display structures. The paintings include landscapes, coastlines, wildlife, and an abstract on 4 ft. x 4 ft. sign board quality 1/2 inch plywood (MDO) panels. Two paintings of Iroquois Indians are on 4 ft. x 6 ft. panels. Another structure has 7 paintings of various sizes. The artists were required to use art quality acrylic paints as the medium for their paintings. Middleburgh Rotary has funded the etching of titles for each painting, the artist and date painted.
Prior to turning over the MDO panels to the artists, the project manager, Bill Morton, a Middleburgh Rotarian, primed each surface of the panel including front, back and edges. The primed panels were then turned over to the artist. Upon completion of the painting the panel was returned to the project manager who then applied two transparent isolation coats over the paintings. The isolation coats, manufactured by Golden Paints, separates the painting from a very high quality varnish, MSA Satin or Matt, also manufactured by Golden Paints.
The back of the painting and edges are painted with a standard acrylic forest green outdoor paint. A hardware store varnish, such as Minwax varnish is applied to the back and edges of the painting. With all surface areas of the painting having been varnished, the painting is in a waterproof envelope. Golden’s high quality varnish also protects the painting from UV rays which might otherwise cause the art work to fade.
The paintings displayed on structures were initially constructed using two 4 inch x 4 inch pressure treated posts 14 feet in length for each structure. Both posts were set in concrete 4 feet in the ground with the remaining 10 feet supporting a roof and the paintings. The display structures consist of a framework in which paintings with the backs of each panel having the forest green surface face each other.
The paintings face outward for public viewing. The internal framework for displaying the paintings consists of pressure treated 2 by 4’s. The vertical and top of the 2 x 4 frame have two grooves created by using a ⅝-inch router. The paintings are inserted into the grooves which precludes the use of nails to attach the paintings to the display framework. More recently, 6 inch x 6 inch 14 foot pressure treated posts are being used rather than the 4 x 4s. This makes it possible to construct larger roofs without having to worry about strong winds snapping the 4 x 4 posts.
Two new display structures will be erected this fall to accompany several more paintings donated by artists. Incidentally, not all art work is done by local artists. Artists from California, Nebraska and Long Island have donated their art to the park. We are attempting to move in a new direction to create sculptures using art welding techniques with scrap steel being the artwork medium. The art park already has one sculpture, a six-sided 3 foot x 3 foot cube constructed by the area BOCES class. Each side of the cube has a quilt work design. The cube is suspended on posts 7 feet in height. The cube swivels between two 4 foot by 4 foot posts. The etching is on aluminum covered with a black surface. The title tags usually are 2 inches by 7 inches.
