Services of the Orem rigging yard
Six working lines, one skipjack, one measured rig
Skipjack Arts LLC is a maritime art studio organized around a simple discipline: measure the rig,
then paint the water. The six services below are the ways that discipline leaves the yard, and each
one is available to collectors, owners and institutions who want a working boat documented rather
than decorated. Our address is 299 W 1380 N, Orem - 84057-6516, United States (US), and the studio
phone is +13692408534.
The list
What the yard undertakes
Every service begins with a conversation and a survey sheet. Nothing is quoted from a photograph
alone, because a working skipjack hides half of its geometry below the rail.
Service one
Commissioned Boat Portraits
A commissioned portrait is the largest undertaking in the yard. We begin at the dock with a survey
that records the hull profile, the mast rake, the position of every stay and the small working
details that owners notice first: a repaired rail, a rust stain in the shape of a former fitting,
the particular sag of a boom that has carried the same load for decades. Photographs are used only
as reminders after the survey is complete, never as a substitute for it.
Painting happens on the deck under north light, in oil on stretched linen, at a working size agreed
with the owner before blocking begins. We offer two standard sizes and will consider a third when
the hull requires it. The palette is built from a warm ground, and the water is mixed to the harbor
that was actually present during the survey week rather than to a memory of it.
A finished portrait arrives with a rigging sheet that names each fitting in the order the studio
recorded it, a note on the weather conditions of the survey, and a small set of reference prints
from the same session. Owners of working boats can add their own corrections to the rigging sheet
during a review standing, and many do.
Service two
Rigging Study Prints
The rigging study is the most technical work we do and the most plainly useful. A study takes a
single mast plan, draws it at true proportion, and labels every working line using the name the crew
would use rather than the name a catalogue would use. Halyards, shrouds, peak lifts and throat
halyards all appear where they belong, and the fittings are drawn with enough weight that a reader
can see how the load travels down to the chainplates.
Studies are printed in small runs on cotton rag, with the plate number set in the margin and the
survey date set beneath it. We produce studies for individual owners, for boatyards that want a
record of a vessel before a rebuild, and for schools that teach rigging and want a legible diagram
rather than a photograph. Runs are usually capped between twenty and sixty sheets depending on the
complexity of the plate.
Because the studies are drawn rather than traced, a reader can follow the line of a halyard through
a block without losing it. That legibility is the whole point. We would rather print fewer studies
and print them correctly than chase volume with a crowded plate.
Service three
Sail Cloth Series
The sail cloth series grew out of working with offcuts. A retired sail carries the shape of every
wind it ever met, and the studio treats those shapes as landscapes. We stretch a section of cloth
across a frame, prime it so the weave stays visible, and paint the memory of a belly, a leech and a
roach until the piece reads as water and sky rather than as fabric alone.
Pieces in the series are produced as related sets, usually three to five panels that share a weather
and a harbor. They are hung in ruled rows and signed on the reverse of the frame so the face stays
uninterrupted. Collectors who own one panel often return for the rest of the set, which is why we
document each set in the studio register and keep the group together for a reasonable period before
releasing individual pieces.
The series is the most accessible entry into the yard. It is also the place where we experiment with
seams, patches and repairs, so a panel from the sail cloth series can carry the actual history of a
sail that has been mended more than once.
Service four
Harbor Scene Weeks
Once a season the studio clears its benches and spends a full week at one fixed vantage on the
harbor. The rule is simple: one place, one week, no moving the easel to chase a better angle. What
emerges is a sequence of small studies that share light and weather but never repeat the same
composition, because the water refuses to repeat itself.
Harbor scene weeks are open to visitors by appointment. Guests can watch the first morning blocking,
ask about palette choices, and see how the same hull changes across five days of shifting cloud.
The studies leave the yard as a numbered sequence rather than as individual pictures, and the
sequence is documented in a printed note that travels with the group.
For institutions, a harbor scene week can be arranged around a specific waterfront so that the
resulting sequence documents a place as it stands in one particular season. We have done this for
small maritime collections and would welcome another. The studio address and the dock are the only
two locations involved, and the week is planned well in advance.
Service five
Print Run Assemblies
When a study or a harbor week deserves to travel, we assemble a print run. An assembly is equal
parts craft and bookkeeping: proofs are pulled and checked, edges are trimmed square, sheets are
signed and numbered, and the whole stack is collated with a printed colophon that records the plate,
the paper and the closing date of the run.
Each run is capped at a stated number and closed for good once the last sheet leaves the press. We
do not reprint a closed run, and we record every assembly in the studio register so that a collector
can later confirm where a sheet sits within its sequence. That record is the reason a Skipjack Arts
LLC print can be traced years after it is framed.
Assemblies are typically delivered as a numbered stack in a cloth folder, with the colophon sheet
laid on top and the rigging notes folded behind. Larger institutional orders can be delivered as
separate parcels with a matching index, provided the order is placed before the run closes.
Service six
Studio Open Deck Days
Several times a year the yard opens its deck to the public. Visitors watch a mast stepped in
miniature on the rigging model, handle a working set of fittings, and see how a portrait is blocked
in before any detail arrives. The purpose is not sales. The purpose is to keep the working method
of Skipjack Arts LLC visible, because a yard that never opens its door slowly forgets why it exists.
Open deck days are free and unhurried, and children are welcome with an adult. We usually run a
short hands-on table where guests can pin sail corner shapes to a cable and see how a rigging cable
behaves under load. The day ends with a walkthrough of whatever is currently on the deck, which may
be a half finished portrait or a rack of sail cloth panels.
Dates are posted in the studio and announced by email to the inquiry list. Groups of more than six
should write ahead so that the deck can be arranged for a comfortable visit. All open deck days take
place at 299 W 1380 N, Orem - 84057-6516, United States (US).