How Do I Ship Art to Exhibitions? – Article 6
Knowing how to ship your work is a very important part of being an artist. It can make or break your budget so it is best to learn the ins and outs of the process early in your career. It could and DOES happen. You arrival ready for a show but your art is MIA. Hopefully this article will help you avoid immeasurable, unnecessary stress and financial loss.
In the USA there are the obvious shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Of course it depends on what your art medium is as to which one to best use. FedEx sells you excellent art boxes from $9-$19, that have inserts in them. The insert holds your art in a floating state. Once, I had a big hole in the side of my box, when it arrived. The shape of the box kept the art safe, not a scratch. You may start out using the obvious ones but if you do shows or exhibitions on regular bases, you may want to learn about some other options.
When doing shows, watch the other artists. What shippers do they use? Look at the boxes. Are they using boxes or are they using crates. I saw the most ingenious creative crate, Tami Curtis, artist extraordinaire made out of an upside down dog kennel. It was perfect. She placed all her pieces on a wooden pallet, assembled the large wire dog kennel and placed it over the stacked art and with large zip ties, secured everything together with the pallet at the bottom and voila’. She created a super inexpensive light weight crate.
Her shipper saved me $700 in one shipping experience. This is another example of artists helping artists. It pays to make friends with the artists in the booths next to you. One shipper, Danny from Sunnydale, C.A., at “Alliance”, has a network of independent truckers. I call him and he has the items picked up and delivered by “his people”. They took super care of my art. I was thrilled that he got up at 4 a.m. in California to call the truck on Eastern Standard Time to make sure it was picked up. This kind of quality and integrity does exist. Alliance Air Freight & Logistics, Air | Truck | Rail | Ocean | Domestic | International | Trade Shows, 800-6-TIMELY (800-684-6359) x303, www.shipalliance.com . I am not affiliated at all with any company. I am just happy to know good people.
Custom made crates can weigh a lot so always check your size and weight restrictions before going through the trouble of having one built for you. If you want to have a company do it all for you, I have seen this company used by artists, Craters & Freighters, they pack it and ship it. U-line is a company that sells all types of packaging, boxes, and crates for you to do it yourself. There is a crate that folds up for storage. You bubble wrap the art and just place it in the nice square crate.
Here is the most important tip that for some reason no one tells you. Most big exhibitions regardless whether it is to accommodate union workers, insurance, or countries restrictions, will not accept your crate until the day of the event. It is true even if you are told, “Don’t worry, its fine, it will get there.” This fact about rejecting boxes is sometimes contrary to written literature saying that they will accept it early. The solution is an added expense but will release major unnecessary stress. There are holding
companies in each city center that will accept your package and wait until the building will clear it for delivery. The other important factor that this holding company can help with is CUSTOMS. From Europe to Europe the fees can be handled by companies like FedEx. From the west to the east these fees are an unknown amount so your shipper or handler must know how to deal with this. I have heard that a shipment was sent back for as little as a $10 discrepancy. Imagine getting all the way to your destination, renting a hotel, paying shipping and booth fees and your art never arrives. This has happened but usually only when details are not arranged properly. It is a beautiful thing when you arrive and your crate with your name on it is in your space waiting for you.