A Tale of Two Paintings

How does it feel to move to Portugal from the United States? Two pieces of art that accompanied us on the journey tell the story … symbolically, at least.

Removed from the sturdy Atlanta walls where they’d hung peacefully for years.

Canvases pried from wooden frames. Staples yanked out with needle-nose pliers. Tiny metal tabs bent with flat-head screwdrivers to release precious paper from glass.

All to be rolled compactly into a plain cardboard tube, stuffed into a suitcase and flown 3,300 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a difficult, transfiguring transition … but they made it. So did we!

And now the pieces are restored to their former glory on the walls of our apartment in Porto.

“Beach Houses,” the acrylic painting above, is by Nashville artist Peach McComb, a longtime artist buddy of my mom’s. Stretched and stapled tightly around a wooden frame in a style called a gallery wrap, it hangs by our dining room table with nary a blemish from its trip overseas.

A gallery and frame shop down the street from our Porto apartment did the work–and they are masters of the art.

Duarte, one of the craftsmen at DaVinci Gallery, displays a pastel drawing my mom did in the early 1990s. Titled “Wish You Were Here,” it was the more delicate piece to prepare for travel. I called on Peach to guide us, and we followed her instructions to roll it with a sheet of translucent vellum so the pastel wouldn’t smear en route.

Here, Jose, another DaVinci craftsman, adds hooks and a wire hanger to the back of “Wish You Were Here.”

And here is Zita, the gallery’s owner, a little shy for the camera, but so kind and welcoming, and proud of her business in the Arts District of Porto. She has a second gallery in Matesinhos, a bustling beach town 14 miles west of Porto.

The downstairs gallery at the Porto shop holds stunning pieces of art. Here are a few samples.

As I told Zita and Duarte, the shop smells like home to me. Growing up with an artist mom, I visited many art galleries and frame shops during my formative years, and their heady aroma of oil paint, glue and wood for framing, gesso for preparing canvas … it all says creativity to me, a special, almost holy place where art is appreciated, where skilled devotees make it look its best.

And it’s all just down the street from us in Porto.

By the way, the figure below is on the back of “Wish You Were Here.” It must have been a sort of trial run for the finished work, something Mom wasn’t quite satisfied with, so she didn’t wish to display it.

I think it’s lovely, too.

But I do prefer the work on the other side. Here it is in its new frame, unwrapped from the plastic DaVinci used to protect it.

Ready to be hung in its new home.

The framing of these two pieces was an exercise in trust.

An act of letting go. Putting works of great personal value in strangers’ hands.

But the strangers at DaVinci are friends now. We wave as we walk by their shop window on our way to the bus stop on the corner. And we’ll be trusting a few other pieces of art to them in the future.

But one step at a time.

Or in our case, as we acclimate to a new and better life, one painting.

Note for framing nerds: Mom’s original framing had a wide triple mat in pink, tan and cream. This narrower mat by DaVinci is more contemporary, and is raised slightly from the artwork to give a 3D effect. I love the shadow it casts on the blue paper, giving the suggestion of a double mat without the added weight and bulk.