In December 2016, Upper Canada Stretchers was retained by Arctic explorer, film maker and professional artist Cory Trépanier based in Caledon, Ontario. One of his very large paintings titled “Great Glacier”, measuring 5.5 x 15 feet, required a new stretcher frame as the original one was too light in construction (not made by Upper Canada Stretchers) and was twisting under the tension of the canvas.
Upper Canada Stretchers fabricated a hybrid aluminum/wood stretcher to provide the strength and support required for this size of canvas.
The painting was to be fitted with a very expensive Italian made picture frame and it was especially important that the stretcher frame be absolutely square, flat, and rigid.
The Great Glacier painting is to be the centre piece of a traveling museum exhibition of Canadian Arctic oil paintings opening at the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC, later this month and touring several US museum galleries in 2017. Over fifty powerful paintings of some of the most remote and wild corners of the arctic comprise this exhibition. The body of work was drawn from three expeditions to the arctic spanning the course of a decade.
The aluminum/wood stretcher made by Upper Canada Stretchers was designed with expanding corners and braces which permitted the precise adjustment of tension on the re-stretched canvas.
The inner aluminum frame (bars and braces) provided the strength and rigidity with the outer wood bars allowing for easy tacking of the canvas. For easy installation of the painting, a custom gravity bar system was included on the back of the stretcher, mounted to the vertical braces.
