In the early 2010s I was inspired to devise a pedestal that doubled as a crate. This idea came from working on two Vitra Design shows that traveled with knock-down peds which were assembled by embedded casket lock hardware. These were terrific in look and stability, but added many more heavy but delicate objects to package and transport. I wondered for 12 years how to achieve a more streamlined, compact, durable means of transporting things in the peds as crates or making crates that could become peds.

Butt-joint fastener, otherwise known as a casket or coffin lock

They are ALSO known as Blind Panel Connectors

Vitra Design Museum cases installed

Several projects almost provided opportunities to fabricate multi-function casements, but timing, budget or shop capacity never aligned for production. Also, many bosses saw only risk and trouble, or couldn’t understand the technical aspects to approve the time to develop such a creation. I did design a set of 15 peds, created for a to-be-travelling show, which were made of Salt Board (high pressure textured laminate on recycled chipboard) with the intention that they were extremely durable, looked authentic, and matched SITEs standards of transport of display furnishings. When flipped and padded out properly, these could at least travel their accompanying bonnets, but that was all work to be done at a much later date than the exhibition schedule allowed.

We all know that everything has a right time and place. Preparing to send art with WCC to the Seattle and Hamptons Art Fairs in 2022 we needed a compact way to travel and display a medium size, durable wood sculpture. We also had a stockpile of crates, one of which perfectly fit the Gil Bruvel sculpture both as a crate and sales stand. Being that this was to go to two art fairs, we also wanted a solution that was transformable quickly and sustainably = no paint or high grade finishes, mostly single handler managed.

The first phase of this project was to develop a low impact method for one person to load/unpack the 3’ diameter 100# object. Slider board loading was chosen as the best method, using ram-board (compressed paper-pulp board) lined with 1/8” ethafoam sheeting for board and skids beneath, and lining the crate walls with guide strips of 1-2” ethafoam. Acidic mitigation was not a goal of this production; in most cases archival materials should be considered for more delicate objects (I.e.: double layer coro-plast or blue-board, marvel-sealed MDF/O). We had a stash of ram-board large enough, the crate walls were raw plywood for a wooden object, and this was not going to be in the crate for more than 2 weeks per trip.

For loading the crate is laid on one marked side, the art is placed on its back on the slider board with minor padding. Then the art is slid into place at the bottom of the crate aligned to the wall pads. The loaded crate is stood upright, the object is further padded into position with tyvek pillows full of styronuts.

A bundle of white fabric (plus other wrapping supplies) rides above the art – this will be used to dress out the crate for display. There was an unexpected void above the sculpture that perfectly fitted another much higher value and lighter piece that could ride on the foam side slats and ram-board pull flap.

Continuing on this theme of multi-purposing, the pedestal for a smaller artwork was blanket wrapped and used (upside down) as a crate for collapsible furniture, print racks, packing supplies, and a dollie – to which this was all strapped for simple handling.

Coming back to our Sunny crate/ped – the only step requiring two people is to lift the art off the slider board and onto the fabric dressed pedestal, or off display and onto the opened slider panel for packing. Padding out the art and closing the crate, or initial opening, tipping, and fabric dressing are all easy one person activities. Dressing out the empty crate was done by tightly folding two layers of white cotton fabric over the top and sides with double stick tape at seams and bottom. Running a line of tape along each full length edge and surface allowed for a smooth pull around the box and for crisp folds at the top, which required a bit of tucking of layers.

The crate had 2” high skid feet that were covered with white gaff tape, which also helped create a lifted toe kick presentation. I think I was as happy as the artwork for this fairly sunny solution.

Have you used a crate in an interesting way? Do you have a favorite fabric for wrapping? Put it in the comment below.

Sean works with West Chelsea Contemporary, here is a bit about them:

West Chelsea Contemporary is a world-class gallery offering museum-quality art in Austin, Texas, and New York City, focusing on 20th century and contemporary art predominantly in American, Asian, and European post-war movements. West Chelsea Contemporary opened in October of 2020 under the direction of Lisa Russell, who has operated this gallery since founding Russell Collection in 2002. With this gallery rebrand, her vision is for West Chelsea Contemporary to satisfy the evolving demographic and style of Austin’s culture by showcasing everything from mid-career and emerging artists to legends like KAWS, Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Andy Warhol, Blek Le Rat, Mr. Brainwash, FionaRae, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami and more. West Chelsea Contemporary clients are assisted by an expert staff dedicated to providing the highest level of service. For more information, please visit https://wcc.art/ or @wcc.art on Instagram.

I have that feeling as well, except I also have the sense of dread, the knowledge that our larger casework have been further glued down to the floor. We have put a cork foot on all our case work so they can slide when need be, but also have some tooth so they don’t slide unnecessarily. I’ll write another article on feet and ballasts at some point because there are caveats to all of this. This cork and the bare MDF at the bottom of the case wall are sponges for this floor stripper and wax. We’ve had to performs some extreme measures to rip it up and away from the the floor.

Not to mention the permanent damage done to the terrazzo where pools set under the case work. I haven’t done an interview with the custodial staff on this, but I think a stripper goes down first and that’s what pools up and eats the floor, but that’s just a guess.

If I may digress, do give proper training to the person who babysits the late night wax crew. They are usually an outside company and know nothing of museums and how to behave. We had splattered wax on our walls (thank god there weren’t low sculptures in the area) and a mangled corner on a riser from these guys. The babysitter needs to give a pep talk or stand over them, or, or, or?

The Ever-Evolving Art of Casework Design and Fabrication

In an ideal world, we’d remove all the casework before the wax job is done, but that’s a lot of labor and you might end up with an empty gallery for a few days as you return cases and objects before opening each day.

So, here is our next move. We are first painting the bottom edges of the furniture (peds, cases, and risers). This will seal the MDF so it will (hopefully) repel the liquid they lay down. This paint goes up the inside edge as well. I think ideally we’d do this in a semi-gloss, but in the case of this riser we only had flat black on hand and this innovation occurred while giving these a paint job for a refresh of the gallery space.

That is to say, we had little time between thinking of this idea and having to be ready with the furniture. For both the semi and flat we put three-coat on this bottom edge.

Next, we put strips of Ultra High Molecular Weight plastic (UHMW) on all bottom edges. Again, if we had more time, perhaps we would have bought 3/4″ wide UHMW plastic to cover more fully the foot, but 1/2″ will have to do for now.

It’s not very thick, perhaps 1/32″, but at least it’s something to raise the case up and hopefully it won’t stick to the wax. Perhaps it would be worth the investment to buy a thicker UHMW plastic, maybe 1/8″ or so. So, cross your fingers for us and let everyone on MuseumTrade know if you’ve encountered this before (success or failure), what you did, and what you would do differently.

No, I don’t work for Ikea, but hey do donate a certain amount to our education programs every year.  I wanted to take a moment to show how nice these work in an art museum as well as add a word of caution.  On the positive side you can change the color on this model and it will cost you $30-$80 for each new cover.  So far we have utilized the black and charcoal versions.  The stand in the gallery unoffensive and provide more cushion and support than a bench, but they do take up more room than a bench and would be tougher to clean than most benches.  After 2 years of on and off use we have not had any damage or stained to them (knock on wood).  I won’t go on about the color choices as you can go online and check em out yourself.  The sofa itself is $300 and I don’t recall if it came with the cover or if that was separate, probably the latter. The series is called Klippan.

On the negative side, the cover can become frumpled and will need some tucking in to look its best.  How often will depend on the number of users, popularity of the exhibit, the audience for the exhibit (age group,etc), and so on.  Someday I will update this post with a test to fix this problem, or if one of you want to or have already tried this idea, please post back here.  The  idea is to drop 3 dowels into each trough when the fabric tucks in; along the back and one on either end near the arm rest.  Next punch out, cut, or otherwise sew in holes through the fabric near the ends of each dowel.  Then tie some cord or twine to the dowel (probably through a hole we drill in dowel) and pass that cord through the holes and into the underside of the sofa.  With the sofa on its side so we can see up into the underside we pull on the cord until it is taught and either tie it off onto something or screw in into the wood structure.  That’s it:  6 holes, 3 dowels, 6 lengths of cord, and maybe 6 screws.  To be continued…