ARLINGTON — Walk into the back of Penway Media and you’ll see Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and other masterworks of art on display.
The paintings are copies, images downloaded from a Google initiative to bring well-known art to the public.
“As long as I don’t sell it, it’s public domain,” said John Peeters, Penway’s owner.
What excites Peeters isn’t the art, but how it’s made.
The art is emblazoned onto aluminum plates in a process called dye sublimation, using heat and pressure to attach the image onto the metal surface.
“We just chose the art because it resonates with people,” Peeters said.
Dye sublimation has been used for years to put images onto fabric, coffee cups and other items. But it’s a leap forward taking the same concept and using it on metal.
The advantage is clear to Peeters and Artisan Finishing Systems owner Wally Thomas, who bought the machinery to do the process at his Marysville shop.
The image embedded into the metal lasts longer than paint or vinyl. The image is sharper and clearer. And the finished piece is able to be bent or manipulated without the image stretching or becoming distorted.
“There’s a lot of potential in this,” Thomas said. “It’s just having the imagination to get it.”
Thomas, who has a background in manufacturing management, has owned Artisan Finishing for nine years. It’s a company that paints metal pieces for doors and windows for high rise buildings and skyscrapers for developers around the country. Last year, Thomas became intrigued with the dye sublimation method of adding imagery to metal.
It’s a process pioneered by Italian company, Decoral Systems, and used in other parts of the country, but very little around the West, Thomas said.
Aluminum plates are dipped into a caustic liquid, then an acid and finally chrome phosphate. Then, the plate is sprayed with a special powder coating.
The sheet is wrapped in a special film with a dye, put into a tight membrane that creates the pressure and baked in what looks like a giant pizza oven.
Inside, the heat and pressure is used to convert the dye straight into a gas that imprints the image into the powder coating.
The result is a piece of metal with an image that lasts far longer than paint or vinyl, which fade or crack after six to eight years. Thomas can guarantee 15 years with this method.
“I think it’s really fascinating stuff,” Thomas said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have bought the machinery.”
The process has been mainly used to create faux wood panels and marble columns.
“The bread and butter of the system is wood grain,” Thomas said.
But Thomas belongs to the Arlington Rotary with Peeters, who bought his business from his parents, Wayne and Penny, a year ago. They also have played on the same soccer team with Thomas serving as the goalie.
The pair started talking about using the same method to emblazon other images or logos onto the metal plates. So they started experimenting.
They made aluminum cards with Artisan Finishing and Penway Media on it with sharp, crisp images of water, fire, air and earth in the background. They made the paintings that adorn Peeters’ back office.
They’re experimenting with creating plates that have a rust look to them.
“You wouldn’t believe how many architects want rust in their project,” Peeters said.
Peeters said that Italians are still puzzled about their experimentations.
“It doesn’t make sense to them that we’re doing something other than wood grain,” Peeters said.
After trial and error, they’re feeling confident enough to start offering it to customers. It costs about $20 a square foot for a color image; about $7 a square foot for wood grain.
“This is an expensive product,” Peeters said. “You’re paying a premium price, but you’re getting a premium result.”
One of the first customers is the Arlington Fire Department, which is having the pair create the image of the New York skyline pre-9/11 for a display with a World Trade Center beam. The piece is to be unveiled outside a fire station in downtown Arlington on this year’s anniversary.
“We’ve made lots of mistakes,” Peeters said. “But we’ve fallen forward with all of it.”
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