Hanging Your Art
First things first, is the work stretched and framed (see Glossary blog post)? If not, the first step is to take it to a framer. They will be able to advise on cost and types of frames. Perth has excellent framers. At Temp we use Claremont Art Framers.
Now that you have your stretched and framed work home, it’s time to hang it. Once you have decided where it will go – you will need to mark where the work hangs.
A few rules of thumb:
Generally, the centre line of the artwork should be at 1500mm above ground level.
You should leave a minimum of about 10cm between artworks. Although hanging works close together can look great too!
Allow approximately 25cm above furniture, more if it is somewhere that children could reach or someone might rest their head!
To mark where you need to drill a hole to hang a work:
Mark where the 1500 above ground level point is.
Then measure the height of the artwork and divide it in two. (say your artwork is 400mm high, half of this is 200mm)
Measure this distance (200mm) above the 1500 line and make a small mark here. So this mark should be 1700mm above floor level, and indicates where to top of your work will be. It’s usually a good time now to hold your work up against this mark and make sure you are happy with where it will sit. Adjust as necessary.
From here, turn your artwork over. On the back will be a hook or a string to hang from. Measure the distance between this hanging point to the top of the artwork (let’s say in this case it is 100mm). If it is a string make sure you pull it taught towards the top of the artwork, as this is what will happen once the weight of the artwork is on the string.
On the wall, find the mark you made for the top of the artwork, and measure the 100mm (or whatever your dimensions is) downwards from this point. This is where you need to drill your hole. Again, this is a good point to stop and hold your work up again and make sure everything is looking okay. Make sure you’ve done your sums right and measured in the right directions.
Install your screw, nail or fixing, and hang your work!
In summary, the key measurements are:
A: Artwork height
B: Half of artwork height
C: Distance from hanging point to top of artwork
Does this make any sense?