We begin to learn how to handle art when we first begin to acknowledge some objects are precious to us and when we learn that some objects require a different or more sensitive touch than other objects. We realize these objects need special care otherwise they will be damaged and their not being damaged becomes important to us.
What do we first handle that we consider precious and what made that thing precious to us? Chances are it wasn’t based on value but on meaning. It could be cards or comic books or toys or models or clothes. It might be the good china or a decorative object our parents own. It may be art but it probably won’t be our own artwork as many art students and artists do not treat their art as something precious. It may come to us with meaning or it may develop meaning over time. I personally remember a small traditional donkey cart that my grandparents brought me from a trip to Sicily when I was very young. It wasn’t a toy to play cowboy with. It sat on a high shelf. I also remember objects my mother owned that had been used everyday but on her passing became protected relics. We handle objects with meaning less aggressively but with firmness and intention. We intuitively figure out ways to keep that object from harm. As we grow, we may investigate ways to protect and preserve our precious objects. We buy sleeves for cards and stamps and plexi-covers for baseballs, vinyl albums and awards. We try to be sensitive to the object and protect it from harm so that it will last. We want it to last because it has meaning and we want to pass that meaning on if possible. In some cases there may be an increase in value but that doesn’t affect meaning.
How did we learn to handle the first precious objects we were responsible for? Unless a parent, friend or a sibling instructed us most of us learned intuitively. What art-handling rarely is, is taught, or taught consistently. Because of this many art-handlers often feel that they are guessing. What they eventually learn is that guessing can be replaced with quality questions. Methods change, materials change, industry standards change and every day an artist is trying new materials in unusual combinations until it seems like the person working as an art-handler is facing a new and unknown object several times a week. What doesn’t change is the art- handlers sensitivity to an objects structure and surface. What needs to remain is the art-handlers ability to analyze an object for weakness and strength and to devise ways to protect the object. It is a similar decision making process as experienced when making art. That is because they are both creative acts. There may be lessons in both art-handling and art-making but primarily we learn through observation, mimicry and intuition. What did we know intuitively about art-handling? What did we know as a child when we had to protect our first precious object? We knew to clean our hands. We knew not to place the object among other things that could damage it. We knew not to lift from a weak point. We knew to cradle the object when we moved it. We knew it needed to be kept in a separate place. We knew there was a difference between handling everyday objects and handling our special object and we knew all of this intuitively. We also know intuitively when an action was risky, we felt it in our gut when a friend or sibling began to mishandle the object in our care.
Many working art-handlers will ignore this feeling, the feeling that the object is being mishandled, and continue on. They ignore it because they can’t verbalize it but we need to learn to honor that feeling.
The first time you ever held an infant you were probably given basic instructions on how to protect the head and neck while holding the weight from the back and bottom. A baby is a complicated precious object, fragile with unstable joints and top heavy, slippery and easily broken. You may have been nervous and had that gut feeling when a relative decided to hold the infant and began to toss and swing the child, You sensed the increased risk and the great potential for damage but because of your uncertainty on how to properly handle an infant, or maybe you had a fear of over-reacting and looking foolish, you swallowed your feeling and let it go. Maybe there was eventually a moment where you “felt” the infant could be harmed. You still had no proof or experience, just a general sense of how the parts are put together and a sense of how the infant should be protected so with limited training and a gut feeling that something wasn’t right you took action and took the child back. That feeling is your most important tool and your greatest instructor. Always listen to it.
Sensitivity to the handling of delicate objects may be a rite of passage for many but it doesn’t necessarily make you a trained art-handler. What it means is you have a good foundation. If you have spent your entire life mishandling, damaging and breaking things chances are you’re not going to be a good art-handler.
There are other types of industry “handlers” object handlers or technicians such as house and library movers, that make a career out of handling objects. Often, they have no personal involvement with the objects they handle. Their training was based on a mentorship or apprenticeship that dictated their pay. They understand the care of the object as part of their training, they have no personal attachment to the objects themselves. They pack, lift and move for a paycheck. Their job requires that they don’t break objects, so they don’t break objects. Their system of packing is simple and straight forward and clearly described to them during on the job training. Whether they are union or non-union, an apprenticeship to a senior mover is standard as their time and packing is the product that is being sold so they will have guidelines. Once trained a chair is special only in that it is part of a specific day’s work. They may take pride in their work, but once they know the job, they can get through a day without stopping to admire a single object and without making a creative decision. Household goods don’t define them. Chances are they are not going to stop their work to admire an individual chair or know who made the chair and when. Do they even need to be aware that one chair is art and the other isn’t? They really don’t. If the chair is designated as part of the job that is all they need to know. Does this make them less than the art-handler? No it doesn’t. In many cases not having an emotional attachment to an object can be an advantage. They may not love an object but they won’t necessarily hate an object either. Additionally they tend to have gone through longer apprenticeships. Not everyone or every company but generally at the higher end the professional non-art object handlers that I have known tend to see themselves as craftsman of handling.
The art handler on the other hand has often spent many hours studying and making art. They usually have some education in the arts, when work is over, they will go to events featuring art and socialize with other people that make or write about or think about art and working as an art handler keeps them close to something that defines them. They may have some training in the very basics but unlike the house mover a chair is not always a chair. In fact, they could work in the morning moving and stacking regular chairs and then later that day work on a chair exhibition with several hundred chairs and each one may have different handling needs that are subtle and time consuming, that have no guidelines or precedent and that require an art handler’s full engagement as well as their creativity. That is a lot to ask and sometimes it creates resentment like a friend that’s too damn needy. The art-handler also often needs to make a conscious decision to handle art differently than non-art. If for example they handled the regular chairs with the care and slow decision making the art chairs required it would be a waste of time so the art handler may have two identical objects and they need to decide if they will handle them differently? The art-handler needs to ask how will they handle each object differently and why is it necessary? If their “why” is only because they have been instructed that one chair is special, then they may not consider the object precious or understand why it is precious. An art-handler is less likely to have been instructed on how to handle an object. They need to depend on their decision making ability and their own background information. Of course this isn’t always true. There are larger companies that have extensive object handling training programs for their art-handlers but training is always based on architypes and known systems. The object handler may handle the same type of objects for years without much differentiation whereas the art-handler may see multiple unique objects throughout a day. This requires that the art-handler depends on creative decision making to adapt techniques based on the handling of objects with similar attributes to what they are seeing in front of them.
What separates the object handler from the art-handler is the art-handlers attachment to the objects and their ability to analyze and question the objects structure and making. What defines the quality of the art-handlers education is the ability to maintain this analysis until the object can be visualized as its basic components. What defines the best art handler is their understanding of and ability to analyze the structural makeup and balance of an object and find the best adapted solution to protect and handle the object. Can this be taught? The answer is, kind of. Training in art-handling is like training in any activity that requires full engagement, decision making based on experience and best practices, intuition and creativity. Similarly you can train someone to ski, shoot a basketball, hit a baseball or paint a picture and even if they understand all the rules behind the activity they may never put them all together to be great at their sport or at painting. Similarly an art-handler may understand all the materials and methods but never put it together.
The reason we work as art-handlers often has personal and emotional attachments that can give the art-handler insights into the object and that could be beneficial to its handling or it can be detrimental because of resentment, frustration, likes or dislikes that though not visible or even acknowledged can increase risk by affecting our commitment to an object. This can be irrelevant if the art-handlers understanding of “how to handle” is strong or if their commitment to the preservation of culture is greater than their identifying as an artist.
Who are art handlers? Usually they are someone comfortable and knowledgeable about art and working with objects feels like a natural extension of this. An art-handler begins their training by caring for and protecting something fragile. That sensitivity and intuition becomes a part of their creativity and their training develops over the years as they master methods and materials through observation and practice until there comes a day when the art-handler understands that if they have left fear and uncertainty behind it is not because they know and have mastered every material and method but because they can see the object clearly and they can see the risks and variables clearly, they can see the connections all objects share, they can ask the correct questions to receive the proper answers and finally they can communicate this information clearly and directly.
We first truly become an art-handler when we realize that no object is precious because all objects are precious. When the art-handler realizes there is no value when all are invaluable. When they realize that each object is a riddle with an answer and that they have all the variables for that answer, then this is an art-handler whose education has arrived. They are no longer a text of instructions, they are no longer guessing and hoping. They see the endless combinations of art materials and making and they see the endless combination of materials and methods to preserve the object. They know there is no right or wrong way as long as the object is balanced and safe within it’s current variables. This is truly understanding the Zen of art-handling; the value of deep insight, meditation, balance and intuition that comes so easily to the best in our field and seems to be so difficult to those that resist it.
Chuck Agro - Project Management For The Arts 