Archival mounting of your fine print - it matters!

Hayward takes a LOT of pride in his fine art black and white portraits.  The thing that makes them special is actually that they are handmade at every step!  Hayward starts with the hand-printing on 100% cotton archival paper. (That will be a subject for another post for sure!)  But this archival issue is really a big deal and its really hard to achieve. 

In order for a fine portrait to have true longevity, it cannot be in contact with an adhesive.  If the adhesive were ever to degrade, it would of course, degrade the fine print.  So how do you hold the print in place under the mat?  

What you see in the image above are hand made print corners that are created from the same grade of archival paper as the print itself. (Actually its from the same manufacturer).  The corners are sized, cut and folded to fit the actual print.  The adhesive touches the corner only, never the print.  In fact, if you were to disassemble the matted print, you could lift the print right out of the corners with absolutely no damage.

Being able to re-mat a print over it's lifetime with absolutely no destruction is one of the many elements that are part of our exquisite fine art black and white portraits.