I just picked up on this... I still don't like sheetrock / wallboard / what-ever-you-want-to-call-it for gallery walls. The stuff is too soft and easy to damage/hard to fix. I prefer straight plywood or MDO (medium density overlay) board for all exterior and movable walls or partitions. It's harder, and you can do more major repairs with filler & wood glue, etc. Years ago I developed a system of modular plywood panels for partitioning the gallery I was responsible for designing & installing in. The panels were 4x12' 3/8" plywood with a framework of 1x4" clear pine on the back: 2 vertical straps set in 1/16" from the edge, and 4 horizontal straps, bottom, top, & at 4' intervals between. The 1x4's were assembled like a shadow box, the plywood projected just a mite beyond this frame. The panels were light, easily carried by two persons. When building a "wall" the panels were laid out in two rows face down on the floor, with their bottoms 2 feet apart. Adjacent panels in each row were bolted together through the frames on the back. Then each face was walked up into vertical position by a crew of hands, like raising a barn. The two backsides of the wall were connected by horizontal and diagonal braces nailed to the frames, and any open ends were capped with a piece of 2x12' 3/8" ply. Partitions of any miltiple of 4' wide were easily constructed; with a small assortment of 2' wide panels and other special angled boards, innumerable configurations were possible. They could abut each other or the wall. Panels were stored vertically. At roughly 4"x48" each, an 8x8' square of floor could hold 24 panels, enough for 48 linear feet of partitions or 96' running feet of wall. Pretty economical. Finishing was done by a strip of 1" white masking tape over the joint between panels, and a bit of touchup paint. They were a bit "rough", not as slick and flawless as your sheetrock constructions, but they were relatively quick and easy and made the gallery an incredibly plastic and dynamic space. Sometimes I miss the good old days of quick turnarounds between shows, I certianly think of the crews I used to work with... ============================================================ Stephen B. Ringle, Registrar [log in to unmask] University of Maine Museum of Art 5712 Carnegie Hall, Room 109 vox: 207-581-3257 Orono, Maine 04469-5712 fax: 207-581-3083 ============================================================