2018: The End of an Era
The end of 2018 will be distinguished by two notable retirements of Artech’s most tenured employees. After over 40 years of advancing the field, both Mike Hascall and Corrie Lovett will be hanging up their white gloves and starting a new chapter. We cannot express how thankful we are for their years of service, dedication to their craft, and generosity of knowledge and expertise.
Mike hascall. 41 years at Artech (1977-2018)
Mike Hascall was among the first group of employees hired to work at Artech when it was initially founded as the for-profit arm of and/or, an arts nonprofit in 1977. In 1981, Mike was part of the group of employees that purchased Artech from and/or and Artech began its journey as a stand alone entity. With some previous woodworking experience, Mike started in crating, but when the company was small everyone wore many hats so he was able to work in install and rigging and diversify his knowledge.
Mike was Artech’s Director of Operations from 1987-2001, and has been on its board and on the Senior Leadership team for his whole career with the company. He had a personal interest in the developing industry conferences and new definitions for best practices, which translated to Artech being on the leading edge of fine art logistics and among the first to deploy new techniques and practices. He has been very active with PACCIN , and was integral to Artech’s initial application and acceptance to ICEFAT in 2009
Over the last decade, Mike has focused on training and safety programs within Artech, mentoring the upcoming management team, and leading some of our most technically challenging jobs as a project lead. He has dedicated the large part of 2018 to writing a book on the early history or Artech and the Fine Arts industry in the Pacific Northwest.
Mike is a recent grandfather and is looking forward to more time with his family and getting time back in the painting studio. He already has an exhibition scheduled for new paintings in 2020.
Corrie Lovett. 43 years in her position (1975-1984, Denman Associates; 1984-2018 Artech Inc)
Corrie Lovett has been our mounter and mat cutter for 43 years, bringing perfect precision to nearly every artwork we have framed. Corrie started at Denman Associates, a frame shop founded by John Denman that was acquired by Artech in 1984 becoming Artech Fine Art Framing.
As the mounter in an archivally-focused conservation frame shop, Corrie has used her broad knowledge of materials, techniques, and artistic practice to reversibly mount priceless artworks within their mats and float frames. Whether she was fabric wrapping a hand-cut mat board, creasing a custom Mylar envelope, hand-cutting an oversize window mat, delicately applying paper hinges directly to artworks, or fabricating her own photo corners for irregular shaped folios, Corrie has used her steady hands and calm demeanor to perfectly display countless important artworks and documents.
Artech has made its reputation fabricating the highest caliber conservation frames in the Pacific Northwest—and we specialize in particularly heavy, oversize, and difficult artworks. It is in large part to Corrie’s work behind the scenes that we have been able to lay the groundwork for these specializations and to create the internal practices and techniques to repeat perfection every time.