The staff of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum would like to recognize the work
that Mark Ward & Associates have done for the museum. Mark has numerous
staff members working in house on various projects as matting and framing, mount
making, and installing displays in the cases. This week, we are focusing on
mount maker Paul Daniel.

Paul Daniel has been working under Mark for the
past three months on doing mount making for the museum. His last day with us is
actually today, June 30, as he had a previous commitment to another project at
the Walters Art Museum here in Baltimore and then is heading to the Baltimore
Museum of Art and then to Yale University for a month later this fall.

Paul received a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from K.C. Art Institute and has
an MFA from Rinehart School of Sculpture. He has been doing mount making for the
past 12 years where the Walters Art Museum introduced him to the trade.
He worked there for 2 years part time and then began consulting on such projects
as the Palace of Wonders installation and the Wunderkamer. In addition he has
done work for the Brooklyn Art Museum, Corcoran Museum of Art and on his own.

When asked how many mounts you have done for Geppi’s Entertainment
Museum, he answered too many to count! He uses all brass fabricating for the
mounts. Normally he will also prime, pad and paint the mount to go with the
specific item, but on this project he fabricates the mount and someone else will
do the priming, padding and painting as a production line.

Each mount
could take an hour to all day, depending on the degree of difficulty of the
item. When GEM interviewed him, he was working on a few rings and boxes to be
mounted to the wall.

GEM asked what the best part of the job was and
Paul answered, “It’s a great job, its very hands on and I get to see all
the items up close. There is a lot of problem solving involved to think of the
best way to mount something. I enjoy the challenging items. It’s a win-win for
everyone!”

He has a few public sculptures in Baltimore City
including a large one on Mt. Royal and North Avenue that is a kinetic sculpture.
There is another one in the State Center Subway Station. He has a sculpture
going up for ArtScape., the region’s premier celebration of the arts in
Baltimore taking place on July 21-23 for a weekend of free art entertainment.
The sculpture will be up for a year on Mt. Royal Avenue by the Maryland
Institute College of Art near the Brown Center. On July 12^th Paul is
part of a group show with his sculptures, which will be on display at the C.
Girimaldis Gallery located at 523 N. Charles Street. He does private work for
collectors and has created mounts for African art, Guns, Knives and Swords.

With Paul leaving to work on other projects, Abby Krause has been in the
past week doing mounting as well. She works for a private company, Eli that does
museum artifact handling, installing and exhibitions work. They work with many
clients including Historical Societies, and she has worked with exhibits at the
Smithsonian through the American Indian Museum, American History Museum,
National archives, and Natural History. When GEM asked her what the hardest
thing she has ever had to mount was and she said, “A fragile flipper, it
was a very old/fragile swim flipper that people use to go snorkeling and it was
very brittle. I ended up inserting a magnet inside and put a metal washer on the
back of it to display it.” She will be here as well as another one of her
colleagues Jorge Herrarra finishing the mounting that still needs to be done for
Geppi’s Entertainment Museum.