I absolutely love Artefex panels for so many reasons, the versatility, the lightweightness, the different available surfaces. They’re impervious to temperature and humidity fluctuations.
But recently I put one up on my easel, an Artefex 11×14, fine linen surface, about to have a new sitting on a painting I’d already started on it weeks earlier. Everything was fine one moment and in a flash… the top clamping section of my very heavy, oak studio easel loosened from where I had foolishly left it up high for a larger canvas and fell like a guillotine!
I saw it happen and it felt like it was in slow motion. But in reality it was all in a split second. It dropped a few feet in height but so suddenly and with such force that it hit the Artefex panel on its side and knocked it several feet off the easel.
A freak accident. Nothing like that had EVER happened! I picked up the Artefex panel expecting it to be shattered in pieces or so mortally injured that I’d have to start the painting on a new panel… but miraculously it was ok!
A tiny dent in the side, yes, but that would be covered by a frame, and otherwise sustained no damage. Remarkable. A traditional plywood or particle board panel would have been snapped into chunks and splinters, but the Artefex panel was essentially unscathed.
I’d had similar accidents befall paintings in shipping and during transit over the years so knowing the amount of force the Artefex product can more or less shrug off gives me one less thing to worry about and one more thing to love about it. These things are smart… AND tough.
-Russell W. Gordon
Check out some his works on Instagram.
