Art-Faux.com

Archive for August, 2009

As many of you know I have been working very hard all year long to get to the point of opening a new studio and I would like to announce that the new facility has been finalized this week and the next steps for the build out are underway with the design stage.

I have also kept everyone informed through my not so regular newsletters that there were going to be some exciting things happening for Art-Faux Designs and Southwest Florida. After all the hard work not only from myself, but from others who also believe that a change is needed, I would like to announce that we will have renown artist/instructor Sean Crosby of the Mural school here to teach a class in early November!

As many of you know Sean is known for his expertise in woodgraining, marbling, and murals and is regarded as one of the best in the world and I am proud to say that we have the chance of having him as a guest instructor at Art-Faux Designs and actually will be the first of many top renown artists who will be here to teach in the future.

The reason for this post is to get everyboby’s opinion of what they would like to learn from this class and by going to the class sign-up page we will be able to inform you of further updates

It really was an amazing Saturday afternoon at The International Design Center!

But I wouldn’t have been able to do it alone, which is why I am posting here today. These are very special people who were at the “What To Know Before You Faux” event on Saturday August 8th and who truly were an asset to the out come of this event, I would like to mention their names and thank them publicly for all their help. First of all PJ Hoover of Fauxtastic Dreamscapes of Naples, who has been by my side for the whole summer with these events and coming to my rescue more than once, I can not say enough about her, she really believes in what we are trying to accomplish here in Southwest Florida and we are actually creeping up on our goals and are getting the  recognition for our efforts of building a network of high quality artisans and craftsman. Our goal is to bring artists out of their proverbial shells and join us on our journey to create a more open atmosphere amongst local and non-local area artists, home owners, Interior Designers, builders, vendors of high quality products and to meld the creativity between ALL artists no matter what their specialties or mediums are, because decorative art shouldn’t just stop at the walls and ceilings.

The second artist I wish to thank for his quick thinking and responsiveness to a rather over whelming influx of guests that seemed to be coming through the door like a Florida hard rain and  making sure that the seating was taking care of, who also has been with PJ and I from the very beginning of our quest is none other than Florian Spahiu of Ancient Modern Finishes.

I also have a special thank you that it is much deserved going out to Michael Schleider of Coni-Mar Designs of Naples, who showed up right when the timing couldn’t have been better, and I must say between all of them jumping up to the plate in the middle of the ninth inning enabled me to hit a home run for the crowd, to bring in what I thought was a game winning team effort!

It seems that there is a separation within the artists community that has been created over the years here in Southwest Florida and it wasn’t by choice or market demand or anything of that nature , it just happened………fate?……..who knows, but my goal, or maybe I should say OUR goal, is to break down that wall and expand our creative energies amongst all artists and to  include everyone in Southwest Florida that the arts just doesn’t just stop at the canvas or the sculpture or in our case the walls. Two of the most inspirational artists I have met so far on my life long journey as an artist, are the ones who have really opened up my mind and my eyes to  how important it is to the psyche of an artist to expand and grow in his or her creative energy. William Cochran who I have had the honor to sit with last November  and Sean Crosby (USA) who I have met many years ago along with Michele Nadai from France. I have noticed that much of the area residents love the arts but because decorative artists have such a separation from other artists we are not being recognized both publicly and privately so in actuality the general public doesn’t really know where we are and has caused an outsourcing scenario when it comes to the needs of the public here in Southwest Fl. My goal is to change all that and to bring the available talent of the area to the attention of the local and seasonal residents as a way to help our  local economy and decorative artists.

The other goal is to bring more education to Southwest Florida for decorative artists of the area because quite simply most of us here don’t either have the time or the funds to travel around the country and Europe to get the much needed education that I have found personally there is a demand for, which is the reason for the grand opening of a studio in January of 2010 in which I have already made arrangements with some of the top artists in the business to come to the area to  help with the needs of the local decorative artists as well as ALL artists.

I am posting these pictures as attention getters to show what happens to improperly prepped surfaces

This is not wallpaper

Today on one of the decorative artist forums I belong to I ran across a post where a some of the members are conversing and exchanging ideas and do the things of what artists do when I ran across a post where a description of a finish was explained to where there was an initial texture applied with just using a joint compound. Now the end result is an absolutely beautiful finish in itself and as a matter of fact it has inspired me of using this technique for a basis of a finish I have been beating my head against the wall on for a long time, but what got my attention was that in the explanation of the finish the statement was made that in the process of creating this masterpiece the artist used an acrylic paint tinted close to the actual base color of the finish itself which sent a red flag up the warning pole that I man for each of the artists forums I belong too. Its a voluntary thing I do and it may even annoy some, but I do this for a reason which is why I am writing this post
I have already written this once on another blog , but since I need the traffic I thought I may as well do it hear….

The title of this post says it all pretty much, Do I prime? or not?

Prime or Not to prime you be the judge....

Rule #1 in the painting business “when in doubt do the prime!”

What this artist had done will probably be ok because the individual DID use an acrylic rather than a latex and there wasnt any sanding done to the drywall compound once it was dry, but I do have to warn on this issue because as I explain in the next couple hundred sentances you will see the signifacance and the importance of proper preperation to a substrate is before whatever it is your doing to that particular surface will last as long as it possibly can.

remarkable

If you are creating a texture with a drywall compound which many of us do,
You need to use a good quality primer thats going to absorb into the “mud” and should never avoid this step which is one of the things I am going to cover when I open my studio here in Naples. All too often when I am called out to do a faux or paint repair what I find is the main culprit is the lack of proper preparation and priming. The owners always ask me the reason of the failure and I feel obligated as a professional to provide them with a written report as to the reason in my opinion and experience of why the substrate has failed to hold the finish along with my bill. I am regarded as an expert when it comes to proper procedures to substrate preparations on residential and commercial applications being that I have spent over thirty years in the painting business and many years in the decorative arts as well and when this happens the home owners simply call the ones responsible for the improper work and end up getting reimbursed from either the builder,painting contractor or both, and there has been a few times where the faux company was held responsible as well and trust me you dont want to get my bill, because I am not a happy camper when I have to repair and match someone elses finish that I would have done the proper prep for in the first place. lol

One job that I redone was an entire common area where the “faux finishers” did not use the proper prep while doing a venetian plaster install. Two things happened, they didnt use the correct primer according to the manufacturer because they “thought” it wasnt needed and the other was when they applied their second layer of VP it was over compressed with the trowel that after putting on their third layer and burnishing it was left with some very fine cracking and six months later it started flaking off. It was a huge mess that cost over $40,000.00 to resolve and, Guess who got that bill………the faux finisher……So please everyone do yourselves a favor make sure you dont skip the most important parts of ANY paint or decorative project, I really do love and respect everyone here and I would really hate to see this happen to any of you………..Oh!……the faux finisher? ….they are no longer in business because they didnt have the proper insurance and because word travels fast here no one would hire them again. The worse part of the story was the home owner ended up paying the bill.
If there are any people reading this who are in the trades right now, I KNOW what your thinking as your reading this….because I use to think the same thing until I found out some facts about whats really going on out there because I am the one who is fixing alot of this kind of stuff and am finding out some interestin facts from the homeowners themselves

The old addage of “You get what you pay for” as a famous last word concept cant be used here in this case because the price that paid for this job was the norm for what the current market was at the time, it was just the inexperience that was the factor here or maybe they were just short cutting the job, who knows, but the point is when this happens it makes us ALL look bad and drives people away from our market….. I have many horror stories like this……….One involves Carnuba wax over a VP where a highly regarded builder had to completely gut a 12,000 sq/ft home and an 18,000 sq/ft home because of mold issues…….the cause?……..the faux finishers used Carnuba wax on the VP because it “Worked great!”
As most people know Carnuba is what is mainly used your car waxes which is an impermeable combination that when applied its suppose to resist moisture and water to protect your cars metal componenants from moisture.

I was called in to come and see if I could fix these “little black spots” that were popping up everywhere and when I arrived and took a look at the areas it was obvious to me that the issue was mold and mildew , but it just didnt make sense to me because Italian plasters are mainly lime based which has a natural ability to resist mold and mildew and is a breathable substrate to let moisture in and out which is one of the reasons why it has been used in Europe for hundreds of years as well as the maintenance advantages of the product.

As I looked a little closer I noticed some hazing which I thought was part of the finish and in reality it wasnt , it was just that it was so uniform over the whole surface that it appeared that way and thats when I knew that there was a serious problem. So we called in the mold people to investigate and sure enough it was just as I thought the entire home had been over run with mold behind the drywall because what had happened was the wax itself had made the plaster impermeable so that it was not able to breathe naturally, anyway to make a long story short the whole house had to be abated (gutted basically) right down to the bare metal studs and everything that was wood was also affected so even the Anderson windows had to go to where they were left with nothing but a shell of a house and had to redo everything.

This is why I am bringing this subject up because of the importance of “What To Know Before You Faux” and just how serious the decorative art business really is