Chapman & Bailey: Melbourne

About

Artist stretcher solutions to suit all your needs

Our craftsmen build our artist stretchers to the millimeter in all shapes and sizes including circles, ovals, arches, tondos, diamonds, triangles, plus the more regular squares and rectangles. Our artist stretchers are available through leading retail art suppliers and wholesale through Art Spectrum. Artists can select custom made or stock sized artist stretchers profiles. Our artist stretchers use two types of timber.

For artists on a budget, Arakaria, or Hoop Pine is a plantation-grown native Australian timber grown in Queensland and northern New South Wales. Its qualities include stability, strength and affordability. Not hard, not heavy, and not old growth. Available in our Bumpa, Professional Quality and Medium profiles. We have it laminated lengthwise to give a straight stable artist stretcher.

Our premium timber is Canadian Western Red Cedar (sourced from forestry managed felling from Canada). This is a sustainably-harvested timber that is highly respected for its archival qualities. Stable, light and resistant to moisture and insect damage, Canadian Western Red Cedar remains the museum-grade artist stretcher of choice.

Our artist stretchers use the traditional mitre joint. Using this joint in combination with wedges allows the stretcher to expand and maintain strength and stability throughout. In fact, the wedges themselves are made from the timber off-cuts, thus eliminating waste wherever possible.

An alternative to the mortice and tenoned mitre joint is the new Belle Arti heart and oval connectors. These are fabricated from a strong plastic polymer resin and enable stretcher expansion and stability also. The other great advantage to them is they automatically square the stretchers.

Custom conservation framing by expert craftspeople

At Chapman & Bailey, because we specialise in custom conservation framing for fine art and archival purposes, we realise it is not just about the aesthetics. How your artwork is framed is an important consideration for sure, but custom conservation framing is a whole lot more. Conservation framing is also a subjective process where a sensitive eye is called for. That is why our expert craftspeople use the finest timbers in contemporary styles to help complement, rather than dominate your artwork. A good conservation frame can conserve an artwork for the long term. It can also help contain an assemblage that runs outside the parameters of the square edge.

Our custom conservation framing service prides itself on working to tight deadlines. This means scheduling around your exhibition timetables. Talk to our expert team for further details.

Furniture

Our studio and its artisans have been helping individuals, families, companies, designers and architects create bespoke furniture to complement a particular room, function, lifestyle, building or plan for 20 years. We offer a personalised service that helps create your design, or we can work with you to design a custom piece of furniture. We offer fully rendered, life-like 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings to show you how your custom piece will look.