Dry-mounting gum prints

Hi all,
I mentioned a while back my experience with Arches Bright White paper
not drying flat. I know more about this now: it appears that perhaps
because of the thinness and crispness of the paper, the paper changes
dimensionally over time depending on where there is gum on the paper.
Images that have more or less equal tone throughout, so that there is
gum all across the paper, stay flat. But in images of more contrast,
where there is a lot of gum some places and little or no gum on other
places, the different areas change differentially. I have one piece
hanging at a gallery that has great modeled cumulus clouds in the sky
and reflections in the water, which became three-dimensional after a
while, with the puffy clouds actually puffing forward out of the paper
plane. Some people liked this effect but I did not, so I took it out and
had it dry-mounted today.

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but I didn't know for sure
that gum prints can be dry-mounted (I had her press a scrap print first
to be sure that the heat wouldn't hurt it) and now I can report that gum
prints do take well to dry-mounting. And I was assured that it can be
reversed if someone wants to take it off later.

But I have a question. They mounted the print on foam core. Is this how
it's usually done? I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't
that.
Katharine thayer
Received on Wed May 4 13:53:22 2005