Art Handler+Crate Shop Foreman

BA Studio Fine Arts and Swedish – Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN
-General Manager, Promotions Manager at college radio station
-Nomination to Magnusson Student Leadership Award

IB/HL Studio Art and Liberal Arts degree – Wilmington Friends School, Wilmington, DE
-IB Studio Art certificate with international review and highest marks

CHRIS ELVERU
T: 484.643.6607 | E: celveru@gmail.com
306 Mississippi Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20910

E X P E R I E N C E
Art Handler (principal)/Crate Shop Foreman – DC (FT, 40hrs+/wk) Jan 2015 – Oct 2016
US Art – DC, Landover, MD
Additional duties included: Tool maintenance, shop supervision, inventory and upkeep, forklift operation and materials receiving. Collaboration with the General Manager and Crating Manager to devise novel designs, production/construction methods and techniques to meet project requirements. Training of new handlers and staff for foundational and intermediate practical art handling and packing best practices, methods, and techniques. Checking cut-sheets and production pieces for spatial and computational thoroughness and quality assurance. Practical rear-end workflow management and administration.

Art Handler/Crate Shop Technician (FT, 40hrs+/wk) May 2014 – Oct 2016
US Art – DC, Landover, MD
On-site art installation, packing, handling, preparation, and condition noting for storage and transport. Fabrication, finish, preparation, packing, and transport of basic, touring, and museum style crates with travel frames, inner boxes and interiors, contoured yoking and bracing, trays, and cavity packs for fine art, sculpture, and artifacts.
Crate Shop Technician/Art Handler (FT, 40hrs+/wk) Feb 2012 – May 2014
Artex FAS, Landover, MD
Construction, fitting/refitting, foaming, painting, and stenciling of specialty fitted crates (A/B/C), travel frames, storage frames, slat frames, L-pallets, pedestals, contoured yoking and bracing, cavity packs, inner boxes (FC/hardcase), marble-boards, and trays for fine art (2-D/3-D) and artifacts. Experience with art handling and storage, various polyethylene products, adhesives, sculpture lifts, pallet-jacks, Johnson bars, dollies, forklifts, strapping and webbing, Oz clips, hand, electric, and pneumatic power tools including wood and foam saws, commercial sprayers and paints.
QA Officer/File Clerk (Temporary, 40hrs/wk) Sep 2011 – Feb 2012
Elite Personnel, Bethesda, MD
Quality assurance and cross-platform proofreading (layout, grammar, cross-platform functionality) for standardized tests. Hardcopy organization, collation, and filing (en masse automotive records).

Project Consultant (Project-based/Contract) Jun 2011 – Aug 2013
Harmony Designs, West Grove, PA
Web site beta and live testing as well as documentation and consultation for design as it relates to functionality.

Forklift Operator/Packaging Linesman (Temporary, 40hrs+/wk) Feb 2011 – Jun 2011
Spherion, Fargo, ND
Bagged, weight documented, catalogued, stacked, transported, and stored (via forklift) 2000 – 3000lb.+ pallets of grain. Experience with mid-size industrial machinery: forklifts (lp gas/electric), gantries, conveyors, mini-bulk baggers, sealers and sewing machines.

Night Stock Clerk (Seasonal, 40hrs+/wk) Nov 2010 – Jan 2011
Toys R’ Us, Fargo, ND
Unloaded and sorted freight truck contents onto pallets/hand-trucks, dropped product to sale floor, stocked/overstocked, shopped/re-shopped, merchandised product, and used RFID scanner and printer for price and in-house bay inventory cataloging and floor management.

Preparator’s Assistant (Internship, 20hrs/wk.) May 2009 – Sep 2009
Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, PA
Handled, transported, packed/unpacked flat 2-d art (drawings, prints, canvas and tempera paintings), performed frame maintenance and fabrication, hand cut mattes, signs, and placards, polished outdoor bronze sculpture. Major projects included: the handling and fabrication of FC cavity packed inner boxes for the Wyeth family’s collection of antique swords, guns, weapons, toys, and artifacts (18th to early 19th century), performing frame maintenance and mounting and matting of flatworks (en masse) to off-view vaulted collections, and participation in the transport, maintenance, framing, and matting of a Rockwell Kent exhibition in cooperation with Columbia University.

Research and Exhibition Assistant (20 hrs/wk) Sep 2006 – Oct 2008
Hillstrom Museum of Art, St. Peter, MN
Hung lights, packed/unpacked, handled art works, installed/de-installed exhibitions, researched (web, microfilm, books, essays, and other scholarly works) and edited information for exhibition pamphlet/information placards throughout some two years and some 19+ exhibitions (“Marvels of Maiolica” to “Come On!: American Posters from WWI”), as well as running mail, photocopying, performing daily office tasks, and hanging and distributing exhibition posters across town.

E D U C A T I O N
Gustavus Adolphus College ’10 — BA Studio Fine Art | Swedish
— General Manager (1yr), Promotions Director (3yr), DJ (3yr) for KGSM Radio, Nomination for Magnusson Student Leadership Award; Senior Juried Exhibition (5/6 pieces accepted)
Wilmington Friends School ’06 — Liberal Arts | IB/HL Studio Art (2yr)
— International Baccalaureate Studio Art Certificate, (6/6 marks on international portfolio review)

S K I L L S / P R O F I C I E N C I E S
General — Writing, editing, comprehensive research (literary, historical, scientific) and critical analysis, office tasks
Technical — Basic carpentry and cabinetmaking, welding (acetylene), familiarity with MSDS, ISO 9001, PPE requirements, and lock-out-tag-out safety procedures, painting, photography (darkroom/digital), radio broadcast and concert/audio recording and mixing, use of: hand-trucks, dollies, pallet-jacks, scaffolding, gantry cranes, forklifts (lp gas/electric), scissor-lifts, sculpture-lifts, lift-gates, bailers, conveyors, mini-bulk baggers, sewers, sealers, industrial glues and adhesives, hand, electric and pneumatic power tools, as well as wood and foam saws.

Museum — Art handling, condition noting, storage, transport, preparation, installation, and packing (soft-pack, slipcase, portfolio, tray, inner-box, travel-frame, L-frame/slat-frame/U-frame brace-packs, to full cavity packs in Etha, Ester, and Senflex foams).
Fine Arts — Figure drawing, painting, sculpture (bronze and metal), bronze casting, staining, polishing, mold making, photography (darkroom and digital), printmaking (screen, intaglio, stone/plate lithography, image-on)
Commercial — Use of RFID scanner/printer for bay inventory management, scale calibration, weight documentation, grain packaging (mini-bulk/sewn paper), receiving and release procedures, stocking, merchandising, freelance advertisement (logo design, business cards, letterhead, banners – festival/web)
Software — MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), iWork (Pages, Keynote), Photoshop CS4, iPhoto, RSS clients, mail clients (Thunderbird/Outlook), HTML (fundamental), TMS (familiarity), Motorola RFID bay inventory management
Languages — English (native), Swedish (fluent), French (conversational), German (basic)

• Art handling and packing, woodworking and crating

English, French, Swedish