The Western Australian Museum put this video together and wow did they pack a ton into 5 minutes and 25 seconds. It certainly does not cover everything, but if you have new team member this would jump start their training. There is of course a ton that goes into being a museum professional (art handler, art preparator, museum technician, etc) and no one video can house it all. Slowly buy surely we’ll get every last detail here on MuseumTrade because that’s what being in a trade is all about, learning on the job and learning through self study – from apprentice to journeyman and so on.

Do you have a video you love or rely on, send it my way so I can categorize it for future generations.

Covered in the video:

• Glove options – pros and cons

• Handling Techniques & Mechanics

• Dangers

• Route planning

• Placing items

• Communication

• 2D & 3D handling

• Stacking

• …and don’t forget to look for loose items or parts!

If you can’t use volume right now, here is the transcript:

In this video, I’m going to talk to you about how to safely handle objects in your collection. Poor handling technique causes far more damage to Museum objects than any other factor. For this reason, it is important that handling is kept to a minimum that everyone is aware of correct handling procedures. Firstly, the oil from your skin contains acids and salts that can create permanent staining. This damage may not be apparent right away.

It’s therefore really important to wear gloves when handling objects. White cotton gloves are commonly used as they can be washed and reused. It is a good idea to have a special container for use gloves so that I kept separate from clean gloves. I prefer to use Nitro gloves for object handling. Use powder free gloves to avoid transferring powder to your collection and make sure that they fit well so that you can feel the objects you are touching.

This option works particularly well for slippery items such as a large bars, friable items such as bath paintings, rough surfaces such as corroded, iron or splinted, wood, and delicate items such as paper or textiles. While wearing gloves protects the objects you handle. It’s also important to be aware of safety issues when handling Museum objects. Always ask for assistance when moving a heavy or large item as this is the safest for both your back and for the object. If possible, use trolleys or dollies to help safely move heavy items and as the last thing you want to do is drop them.

Some Museum objects can also be toxic or dangerous. This includes items affected with mold, items made from lead or radioactive material, live ammunition, leaking wet specimens, containers filled with all medicines or pesticides and natural history specimens. As older items were often treated with toxic preservatives such as arsenic, these items may require additional productive equipment or specific advice, particularly for large objects. Know your route and plan before you move. Do you need any additional assistance and you may need someone to walk with you to open doors or spot.

Does the object have any weak points? Are there any detachable components that should be removed or secured? Is it support trolley or box required? Asking these questions can make the difference between safe transport and a broken object. It’s good practice to prepare a place for the object to go before moving it.

Remember to remove or cover any July buckles, watches, lanyards, or pens that may cause damage to the object. It may seem like common knowledge, but take care not to knock others over when removing shelved items. It may be necessary to remove some objects in order to safely access the one you want to move. Always use both hands when lifting the object. Depending on the size and shape.

You can often use one hand to support the objects on below or using the other to study it. Always handle objects by the strongest point. Do not rely on handles or other attachments, as these features may no longer be properly affixed. Also, try to move only one object at a time unless they are all secured in a box or a trolley. When you’re packing or moving objects.

Support should always be used for fragile items that cannot support their own weight. If you are placing items in a box or a support, consider the safest orientation. To prevent the item from toppling or rolling, you may need to use cushions or foam blocks to prevent movement or to separate multiple items. Always move slowly and carefully when carrying objects and when working with others. Verbally discuss your actions before and during the move.

Large items such as furniture should always be listed, never pushed or dragged directly on the floor. Make sure to secure. Remove any loose components such as drawers before lifting and never pick up chairs by their arm. Rest till back. When using a trolley to move large furniture or large items, they should generally be placed on their normal orientation and not rested on their sides or corners, which can cause damage to the joints.

Documents and works on paper should be lifted carefully and then place on a support or in a folder to move them. For paintings, it is safest to move them vertically. Use two hands, one at the bottom and one other side. Do not hold the work from the top of the frame or by its decorative elements. Avoid touching the back of the canvas as this can cause serious damage to the painting if the reverse of the painting has a secure handling strap, these can also be used if you’re handling a small painting by yourself, face the painting towards you.

For larger works that require two people to carry it, the work should face outwards. If placing a painting on the floor, place pads or blocks underneath it, they should be high enough to prevent any decorative elements from touching the floor. A piece of polyethylene foam or a piece of card to separate the work from the wall can be handy. If you are required to stack several paintings, they should be placed face to face, back to back at the end of the day. Making sure you handle your collection correctly will help you keep your collection well organized and limit the chance of your items accidentally getting damaged, especially when handling or sessioning fragile items.

It pays to be confident in your abilities, something that can help steady. Shake your hands. Thanks for listening.

Hi Gang,

This may be something that you encounter everyday or maybe it’s brand new to you. Either way it’s a fun little read and listen. It’s nice that NPR has taken the time to let folks know about all of us, those behind closed (and often VERY secure) doors. Thanks NPR. Does anyone want to hazard a guess on the value of 120 Monet’s from 70 lenders around the world? How about the shipping costs? The number of couriers? Hmmmm, put your vote in the comments below….

And now on to the article:

How Do You Move 100+ Monet Masterpieces? Very, Very Carefully

STEPHANIE WOLF – January 5, 20207:59 AM ET – Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

Visitors to the Denver Art Museum can currently see 120 different paintings by Claude Monet from all over the world. But how did they get there — like, literally get there?

To find out, I talked with Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, chief registrar at the Denver Art Museum. She’s sort of like a travel agent for art — and for this exhibition she booked the itineraries for artworks from more than 70 lenders around the world: museums, as well as private collectors. (One of her recent days started unexpectedly, around 1:45 a.m., when one of her nine Monet shipments for the day arrived at the museum hours ahead of schedule.)

“It’s a lot,” she says. “There are many, many spreadsheets.”

Conservator Felicitas Klein, right, traveled from Germany with Villas at Bordighera, an 1884 painting by Claude Monet. She inspects the painting at the Denver Art Museum, along with senior paintings conservator Pamela Skiles.
Kendelyn Ouellette

The first thing Cucinella-McDaniel does in this process is convince lenders that the museum will take good care of these treasures … because the works of Monet, an Impressionist master, are worth a lot.

This year, Meules, a painting from his “Grainstack” series, sold at an auction for more than $110 million. Sotheby’s said that was an auction record for an Impressionist work.

The Denver Art Museum wouldn’t tell us the combined value of its show, nor how much it cost to insure, citing security reasons. That’s standard, according to the American Alliance of Museums.

The museum did, however, get help from a federal program that reduces insurance costs for international exhibitions.

We work exclusively with companies that do fine art transport,” Cucinella-McDaniel explains.

The art travels by plane and truck, with multiple drivers – all trained to “handle high value goods” — taking turns at the wheel. The works are packed in custom crates, sometimes even double-crated, to reduce the effects of shock and vibration.

But as all travelers know, even the best laid plans can go sideways, with canceled flights, bad weather, or on-the-road break downs.

“Scenarios like that are a nightmare — I just cringe thinking about it,” Cucinella-McDaniel says.

They might have to delay or redirect a shipment — even store it in warehouses temporarily.

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature at the Denver Art Museum features some 120 paintings from the French Impressionist.
James Florio Photography/Denver Art Museum

All of the paintings travel with couriers. Felicitas Klein came from Germany to Denver with an 1884 Monet painting of villas in the Italian town of Bordighera. She never let the masterpiece out of her sight.

Klein is also a conservator, and once the painting is unboxed, she scans it with a magnifier as photographers look on.

“What I’m doing is comparing the outgoing condition report with now the condition of the painting after the travel,” Klein explains. “I’m comparing the losses, the cracks, if something has changed.”

That condition report is like when you rent a car and they note all the dings before you drive off. (Now just imagine that car is worth $100 million.) Villas at Bordighera fared well — a relief for everyone.

Cucinella-McDaniel says it’s easy to get caught up in the chaos of this job. She says she sometimes has to remind herself: “I am in the presence of a Monet that most people haven’t even seen on a wall — and I’m looking at it under magnification. This is a pretty unique experience.”

The paintings will be on view at the Denver Art Museum until Feb. 2, 2020. After that, they’ll pack up (very carefully) and head to the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany.

AUDIO STORY

TRANSCRIPT found below:

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

When you look at a painting on a museum wall, you might think about the artist and their technique. You probably don’t think about what it took to get the painting on that wall. A show now at the Denver Art Museum through early February brings together more than 100 paintings by Claude Monet. And Colorado Public Radio’s Stephanie Wolf tells us about the huge effort to get them all in one place.

STEPHANIE WOLF, BYLINE: Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel is like a travel agent for art. As Denver Art Museum’s chief registrar, she booked the itineraries for nearly 120 Monets from more than 70 lenders around the world – museums, as well as private collectors.

SARAH CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: It is a lot. There are many, many spreadsheets.

WOLF: Her day started unexpectedly around 1:45 a.m., when one of her nine Monet shipments for the day arrived at the museum hours ahead of schedule. She takes a break from dealing with all of that – or at least she thinks she’s taking a break.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: We’ve coordinated with the embassies at all of these countries of things that are importing.

(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: I thought I turned everything off.

(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: That is my customs broker.

WOLF: Do you get to know your customs broker pretty well?

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: We are very good friends. We talk at all hours of day and night.

WOLF: The first thing Cucinella-McDaniel does in this process is convince lenders that the museum will take good care of all of these treasures because the works of Monet, an impressionist master, are worth a lot of dough. This year, a painting from his “Grainstack” series sold at an auction for more than $110 million. Sotheby’s says that was an auction record for an impressionist work.

The Denver Art Museum won’t tell us the combined value of its show, nor how much it costs to insure, citing security reasons. That’s standard, according to the American Alliance of Museums. The museum did, however, get help from a federal program that reduces insurance costs for international exhibitions.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: We work exclusively with companies that do fine art transport.

WOLF: The art travels by plane and truck, with multiple drivers taking turns at the wheel.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: So all of their drivers are trained to handle high-value goods.

WOLF: The works are packed in custom crates, sometimes even double-crated, to reduce the effects of shock and vibration. Plans can go sideways – canceled flights, bad weather, trucks breaking down.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: Scenarios like that are a nightmare. You know, I just cringe just thinking about it.

WOLF: They might have to delay or redirect a shipment, even store it in warehouses temporarily.

All of the paintings travel with couriers. In this case, it’s Felicitas Klein. She came from Germany to Denver with an 1884 Monet painting of villas in the Italian town of Borgidhera (ph), never letting the art out of her sight. Klein is also a conservator. And once the painting is unboxed, she scans it with a magnifier. A group of photographers look on.

FELICITAS KLEIN: What I’m doing is comparing the outgoing condition report with now the condition of the painting after the travel. And I’m comparing the losses, the cracks, if something has changed.

WOLF: That condition report is kind of like when you rent a car, and they note all the dings before you drive off.

KLEIN: It looks good.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: OK.

KLEIN: Maybe we check the frame now.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: OK.

WOLF: The frame also fared well, a relief for everyone, including Sarah Cucinella-McDaniel, who stands nearby.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: You have images of the frame?

KLEIN: Yes. Yeah.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: OK.

WOLF: Cucinella-McDaniel says it’s too easy to get caught up in the chaos of this job.

CUCINELLA-MCDANIEL: And forget, like, I am in the presence of a Monet that most people haven’t even seen on a wall. And I’m looking at it under magnification. This is a pretty unique experience.

WOLF: The tens of thousands of people who have already been to the Denver Art Museum show can appreciate these Monets without having to travel long distances or knowing what it took to get the paintings from there to here.

For NPR News, I’m Stephanie Wolf in Denver.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAFT PUNK’S “VERIDIS QUO”)

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Here’s a fascinating project from the British Museum, they conserved Dürer’s Triumphal Arch. What time and care it took to clean this up. It goes to show that housing something right the first time can pay dividends in the future. Seeing as how most of us don’t have the time, money, and facilities to take on something like this, it’s nice to get a glimpse of the process and maybe take home a tip or two. Enjoy

TRANSCRIPTION

I know many of you (like myself) rely on the written word for many reasons, your speakers are broken, you’re in a cube-farm, or you simply would rather read the information. I’ll try my best to follow all the videos with the transcription. If I mission please shoot me a quick heads up.

This is Dürer’s Triumphal Arch which has been in the British Museum since 1837. It is the largest print that we have measuring some four square meters and the challenge has always been the storage and preservation of it. Clearly this is a print designed in paper. It was designed for decoration and it would have been coloured and posted up in baronial halls and courts of the Holy Roman Empire.

When it arrived in the department it was in five long strips. Thereafter it was kept in portfolios until the 1890s when it was assembled into one sheet as was the original intention. Since then it has been on permanent display which is an extremely long time for anything of this fragility. And it is just recently that we have the opportunity to remove it from the frame and we have now got the opportunity with a generous donation of funds to preserve it and to think about its long-term storage.

The first stages of conservation were really mapping the damage. So we used clear plastic sheets to draw on and we started to get an idea of what we’d have to deal with. The problem we faced was actually accessing the middle of the print and this was a problem that we also saw them dealing with in Copenhagen when they were working on their version of the print. And we took their idea and ran with it which was to have the large roller sitting on the top of the table and the print moving along the table and down onto a secondary roller underneath the table. Using this two roller system we firstly cleaned the paper which we call dry cleaning which means using erasers to take the surface dirt off. If you don’t do that any subsequent treatment using moisture or water would fix that dirt into the paper.

The print had been exposed under glass since 1970s but before that time it had been displayed unglazed with the coal fires that you find in the early 20th century. So we’re expecting and we found quite a bit of surface dirt. The print moved along the table and round and down onto the roller. At that stage we were able to take more photographs and map more details of the condition of the paper. So today I’m trying to find out what adhesives were used on the Triumphal Arch print because the conservators want to take off the backing so they want to know what adhesives are there. FTIR Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer. By analysing the difference between the infrared light that we shine through the sample and the infrared light that gets to the detector we can then see what the characteristic material is. The adhesive underneath was starch.

We turned the print over and started to remove the lining. We did some tests on what to use for this using various types of humidity and the best one we found was holding the humidity in a gel which was cellulose based and that we could just put in small areas on the back and wait till the moisture just worked its magic on the starch adhesive and then we could peel the textile off. And we realised that the print itself was quite weak once you took the lining off so we had to then separate the sheets at the same time because we didn’t want to go through the second roller scenario because that would be too damaging to the weak paper.

At that point we discovered that the print had been chamfered along the edge as we tried to separate them somebody had very carefully shaved the edge of the paper off. This made life quite difficult because the paper lost more than half its thickness. We are at the stage where we have 36 individual sheets of paper and two small columns at each side of the bottom that are separate. The adhesive that was left on the back of the prints was very discoloured and the print surface itself was quite absorbent and some of the prints were noticeably discoloured so with that scenario with prints there’s a process of removing discolouration by washing. The big advantage of doing this is that you remove soluble acidity which over time is harmful to paper.

So using our special cellulose poultice again we applied this to the back of all the prints using it to swell the starch adhesive and remove it with very smooth bone folders just to scrape it very lightly because we didn’t want to affect the paper itself. At the stage where we had removed as much adhesive as possible we then put the print in a bath of warm water well supported and with two people handling them. The warm water was at the temperature that would dissolve the starch and after a couple of changes of water we could see that the yellow discolouration coming out of the paper into the water was decreasing and at that point we took the print out and we left it to dry. We did that with all the prints and they’re all more or less quite a harmonious colour although some of them are slightly discoloured and they’re much more… they appear to be much more like the colour they would have been originally. There’s a bit more strength in the paper as well.

We are now at the stage of repairing any tears and considering how we will support areas like this that are very thin or where there are small holes and we’ve decided to use repair called pulp which is how paper is originally made from paper pulp and it’s just taking that in a very more controlled way by using a solution of paper; a tone to the right colour in water and a suction table, and to mask out an area that we want to fill like this skinned area. And effectively we’re making a small strip of paper ourselves which we will then lay on the print and it makes a very harmonious repair which remains quite flexible and is ideal for small holes as well.

After the repair of the skinned and the missing areas on the print we are going to line all the sheets with a very thin Japanese tissue which will support them. And it’s the first stage to potentially joining the print back together again. How we go about this and how it ends up is still open for discussion but it will be joined visually in some way if not physically. So the prints will remain in the conservation studio and be perfectly safe here and in good condition until such time as we make a decision.

A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery

For over 30 years Jerry and Rita Alter hid the secret of how they came to own a piece by Dutch expressionist artist Willem de Kooning, which went missing in 1985

Jerry and Rita Alter kept to themselves. They were a lovely couple, neighbours in the small New Mexico town of Cliff would later tell reporters. But no one knew much about them. They may have been hiding a decades-old secret, pieces of which are now just emerging. After the couple died, a stolen Willem de Kooning painting with an estimated worth of $160m (£123m)  was discovered in their bedroom. More than 30 years ago, that same painting disappeared the day after Thanksgiving from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson. And on Wednesday, the ArizonaRepublic newspaper reported that a family photo had surfaced, showing that the day before the painting vanished, the couple was, in fact, in Tucson. The next morning, a man and a woman would walk into the museum and then leave 15 minutes later. A security guard had unlocked the museum’s front door to let a staff member into the lobby, curator Olivia Miller told National Public Radio (NPR). The couple followed. Since the museum was about to open for the day, the guard let them in. The man walked up to the museum’s second floor while the woman struck up a conversation with the guard. A few minutes later, he came back downstairs, and the two abruptly left, according to the NPR interview and other media reports. Sensing that something wasn’t right, the guard walked upstairs.  There, he saw an empty frame where de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre” had hung. At the time, the museum had no surveillance cameras. Police found no fingerprints. One witness described seeing a rust-colored sports car drive away but didn’t get the license plate number.

Jerry and Rita Alter (YouTube/WFAA)

For 31 years, the frame remained empty. In 2012, Jerry Alter passed away. His widow, Rita Alter, died five years later. After their deaths, the painting was returned to the museum. The FBI is investigating the theft. Did the quiet couple who lived in a three-bedroom ranch on Mesa Road steal “Woman-Ochre” and get away with it? De Kooning, who died in 1997, was one of the most prominent painters of the mid-century abstract expressionist movement. “Woman III,” another painting in the same series as “Woman-Ochre,” sold for $137.5m (£109m) in 2006. The works of de Kooning remain among the most marketable in the world. The Alters had moved to Cliff (population 293) in the late 1970s or early 1980s, according to the Silver City Daily Press. H Jerome Alter, who went by Jerry, had been a professional musician and a teacher in New York City schools before retiring to New Mexico. He wrote under “About the author” in “Aesop’s Fables Set in Verse,” a book he published in 2011. “His primary avocation has been adventure travel,” the biographical sketch says, noting that he had visited “over 140 countries on all continents, including both polar regions.” Rita Alter, who died in 2017 at the age of 81, had worked as a speech pathologist at the local school district after the couple moved to New Mexico, the Daily Press reported. Her former co-workers remembered her as “pleasant but quiet,” a friendly woman who was good with children but didn’t volunteer much information about her life.

In 2011, a year before his death, also at the age of 81,  Jerry published a book of short stories, “The Cup and the Lip: Exotic Tales.” The stories were “an amalgamation of actuality and fantasy,” he wrote in the preface. Though none were literary masterpieces, one stands out in the wake of the de Kooning discovery. “The Eye of the Jaguar,” concerns itself with Lou, a security guard at an art museum. One day, a middle-aged woman and her 14-year-old granddaughter show up. The older woman asks Lou about the history of a prized emerald on display. Six months later, she and her granddaughter return, then leave in a rush. “Wow, those two seem to be in a hurry, most unusual for visitors to a place such a this,” Lou thinks. He reinspects the room and realises the emerald is gone. Running to the door, he sees the pair speeding away and runs out to stop them. The older woman floors the accelerator, crashing into Lou and killing him. Then the two speed off, leaving behind “absolutely no clues which police could use to even begin a search for them!” Jerry Alter’s fictional tale ends with a description of the emerald sitting in an empty room. “And two pairs of eyes, exclusively, are there to see!” it concludes. He could just as easily have been describing the de Kooning. But nobody thought of that until the painting was discovered in the Alters’ bedroom, where it had been positioned in such a way that you couldn’t see it unless you were inside with the door shut.

Jerry and Rita Alter (YouTube/WFAA)

After Rita Alter died, her nephew, Ron Roseman, was named executor of the estate. He put the house on the market and began liquidating its contents. On 1 August 2017, antique dealers from the neighboring town of Silver City came to see what was left. One of the men, David Van Auker, would later recall at a news conference that he spotted “a great, cool mid-century painting.” They bought it, along with the rest of the Alters’ estate, for $2,000 (£1,500). Silver City, an old mining town near the Gila National Forest, has a high concentration of artists. So it didn’t take long for someone who recognized the painting’s significance to wander into Manzanita Ridge Furniture and Antiques. “It probably had not been in the store an hour before the first person came in and walked up to it and looked at it and said, ‘I think this is a real de Kooning,’ ” Van Auker told KOB 4, a TV station in Albuquerque. “Of course, we just brushed that off.” Then another customer said the same thing. And another. It was becoming evident that the painting might be worth more than they had originally thought. Van Auker and his partners, Buck Burns and Rick Johnson, hid it in the bathroom. Once the painting had been secured, Van Auker did a Google search for de Kooning. That’s when he spotted an article about the theft of “Woman – Ochre” and called the museum. “I got a student receptionist, and I said to her, ‘I think I have a piece of art that was stolen from you guys,’ ” he told Dallas-based news station WFAA. “And she said, ‘What piece?’ And I said, ‘The de Kooning.’ And she said, ‘Hold, please.’ ” Miller, the museum’s curator, told WFAA that what made her pause was when Van Auker described how the painting had cracked, as if it had been rolled up. It was a detail that no one could have invented. The dimensions were an inch off from “Woman – Ochre,” which corresponded with it being cut out of the frame. Van Auker took the painting home and stayed up all night with his guns, he told Tucson Weekly, getting startled every time he heard a branch scrape against the side of the house.

“Woman-Ochre” by Willem de Kooning. (Courtesy of University of Arizona Museum of Art)

The next night, a delegation from the museum arrived. When Miller walked in, Van Auker told the Daily Press, the room turned silent. “She walked up to the painting, dropped down on her knees and looked. You could just feel the electricity,” he recalled. Authentication would later confirm that it was a perfect match for the missing de Kooning. Over the past year, a handful of clues potentially linking the Alters to the theft have surfaced. Several people told The New York Times that they had a red sports car, similar to the one spotted leaving the museum. The car also appears in home movies obtained by WFAA. Some of the couple’s photos show Rita in a red coat like the one that the woman at the museum had been wearing, local news channel KOB 4 reported. And Ruth Seawolf, the real estate agent who put the Alters’ house on the market, told the Silver City Sun News that she had taken home a luggage set and, inside, found glasses and a scarf that match the police description. “In the Alters’ day planner from 1985, they took meticulous notes about what they ate, where they went, and the medications they had,” KOB 4 points out. “On Thanksgiving 1985, they mysteriously left it blank.” And now there’s the family photo showing they were in Tucson the night before the painting was stolen. The investigation has been underway for a year now. The FBI has declined to comment until the case is closed. People who knew the Alters find it hard to think of them as criminal masterminds. And opinions are mixed about whether a sketch of the suspects resembles the couple.

“Composite sketches, in hindsight, resemble the faces in the Thanksgiving photo, down to their position side by side,” the Arizona Republic wrote. The New York Times, on the other hand, theorized: “The sketch of the female suspect – described at the time of the theft as being between 55 and 60 years old – bears a resemblance to Mr Alter, who was known as Jerry and was then 54. And the sketch of the young man – described at the time as between 25 and 30 years old – bears a resemblance to his son, Joseph M Alter, who was then 23.”

A composite sketch of the thieves. (Courtesy of the University of Arizona)steal

The Alters had two children, Joseph and Barbara. Reporters from multiple news outlets, including The Washington Post, have been unable to locate either child. Several of the couple’s acquaintances told the Times that Joseph Alter has severe psychological problems, and has been institutionalised on and off since the 1980s. Jerry Alter’s sister, Carole Sklar, told The New York Times that the idea that her brother, his wife, or their son could have stolen the painting was “absurd,” as was the theory that her brother disguised himself in women’s clothing. “I can’t believe Rita would be involved in anything like that,” Mark Shay, one of her former co-workers, told the Daily Press.

“I could see them buying a painting not knowing where it originally came from, maybe.” Museum officials, however, told the Arizona Republic that the painting only appears to have been reframed once during the 31 years it was missing, suggesting it had only had one owner during that time. Something else doesn’t add up. Jerry and Rita Alter worked in public schools for most of their careers. Yet they somehow managed to travel to 140 countries and all seven continents, documenting their trips with tens of thousands of photos. And when they died, they had more than a million dollars in their bank account, according to the Sun News. “I guess I figured they were very frugal,” their nephew, Ron Roseman, told WFAA. Roseman couldn’t be reached for comment earlier this week. But not long after “Woman – Ochre” resurfaced, he told ABC13 that he couldn’t imagine that his aunt and uncle had stolen the painting. “They were just nice people,” he said.

Hi All, this one speaks loudest from it’s images. It’s fairly simple to make, does anyone out there already have a template for this style of box? We should start a section dedicated templates for folded goods. The wee thing was only about 12″ tall by 6″ square. Notice how the lid folds over on itself, that’s key for holding some of this together. Once the lid comes off the front is made up of one continuous flap with a couple mini flaps that create closed corners when folded. When the long continuous flap come down the foam pieces can be carefully and better yet, easily pulled out. We place the foam pieces in reverse order as they came out so it’s easy to put them back the back the same way. In this case it would be hard to replace the foam  in the wrong way; they were marked pretty well. That’s it. I would recommend making this box to anyone. What types of boxes do you make and why?