Monday, July 11, 2011

No posts in a while

Wow, I just realized that I've not posted anything to the Gallery Blog in almost 4 months! The world changes so fast, a blog seems almost archaic. Since my last post here, we've been nearly 4 months solar. It's amazing. I check solar production almost as much as my Face Book or Twitter. We are producing enough electricity to power 3 average homes according to the US Energy Information Administration. If you'd like to follow our solar production follow this link. It's a little more interesting than watching grass grow!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Frame Collage

An old friend emailed me from his home several hours away:

Hi Dick,

I hope that all is well.

I have a dumb engineer question for you that hopefully isn't downright insulting. I have a bunch of photos that I want to simply mount in black frames without matting and collage on a wall...all the kid stuff. The frames would be just thin black frames. They are available cheaply in many sizes, but...

The problem is that they do not seem to be readily available in the size I need = 10 X 13. Do you know anywhere to get these relatively cheaply? I've been hunting locally and on the internet and have not yet been successful. Hopefully you know of a source? It could get rather expensive to do a bunch of custom frames.


My reply:

Hi M***, it's good to hear from you and see your kids and wife. Your question isn't at all dumb, engineer or not. The problem is 10x13 is not considered standard so you won't find it.

From a frame shop you're probably looking at around $35 each and that's with a pretty good quantity discount. I know this goes against your engineer-ness, but if you could use a variety of black frames, you could offer to let a framer pick a bunch of different black frames and then make your collage out of random black frames. It's a look you'll see in a lot of home magazines and a lot of homes. Plus, a framer might be willing to give you a better price since they get a chance to use up lots of materials that would otherwise be waste.

Dick


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Solar!


After months of work, Nelson Fine Art now has the largest solar array in East Tennessee, east of Knox County. We contracted with Lightwave Solar and used a Sunpower system. With help from grants from the Tennessee Solar Institute and TVA as well as a 30% tax credit, this system will help TVA meet it's mandated 15% renewable energy supply. You can watch us "make electricity" by following this link.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Lydia


For nearly 17 years, Lydia has been my best friend. When she was little, she would get up with me at 5 a.m. and ride to work, wait in the car while I worked for a couple of hours and then ride home. We'd cross the bridge over Brush Creek in Johnson City and see the ducks and I'd yell, "Duck, Duck!" Lydia would go nuts barking at them. For the past 4 1/2 years we've lived in the gallery, she would sleep near my desk during the workday and bark at folks when they came in the gallery. After losing her hearing a couple of years ago, she would stare at people trying to understand their motives. It was disconcerting.
Lydia, 5/1994 - 2/14/2011