12/30/2025
by Victoria Ritter
Painting can be stimulating, fun and even therapeutic. Finding a way to preserve your masterpiece can be especially challenging. Ampersand Art Supply provides a range of surfaces that can help with both processes.
President and CEO Elaine Salazar founded Ampersand in 1994 after learning how her artist friend, Charles Ewing, created Claybord at his home in Colorado. “Little did he know that what he was doing was figuring out how to create a truly archival painting surface,” said Salazar.
Salazar, who was in the MBA entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas at the time, worked with Ewing and his wife Barbara on a business plan to launch Claybord to the art materials market. Salazar and her teammates won the North American Invitational Business Plan Competition in 1993 which provided initial funding to launch Ampersand.
The next step was showing the product to retailers and educating them on the benefits of this new painting surface. “Most people were painting on canvas,” Salazar recalled. “Claybord was unique because you can apply any kind of media to it – and you can scratch it, erase it, rework it. There was a huge learning curve about the product itself, let alone the category that we created.”
Headquartered in Buda, TX, Ampersand now distributes across the U.S., Mexico, the U.K., Europe and Australia. It regularly exhibits at Creativation by Namta and Creativeworld in Frankfurt.
Through it all, Salazar and her team have never forgotten the integral part retailers have played in creating and developing a new category in the art supply industry. Ampersand doesn’t sell its products directly to consumers through its website, choosing to be “totally retailer first,” said Salazar. The company drives awareness, promotions and traffic to retailers and closely works with stores on merchandising and training. “We partner with the retailer,” Salazar observed.
Different strokes
Ampersand has more than 800 SKUs, including 11 panel categories, floater frames and accessory tools. The company stands apart with its specialty panels which are split into two categories. The Museum Series panels are made with high-density hardboard and sealed with a proprietary Archiva-Seal. The Value Series is made with medium-density fiberboard that’s also sealed, but doesn’t have the high level of protection as the Museum Series.
Woodpanel is the newest addition to the Ampersand line of surfaces, launched at the SLS Arts show in November. The Woodpanel is an economy grade panel with a birch top and solid wood strips.
Claybord’s launch was closely followed by Scratchbord in 1995, Gessobord in 1996, Aquabord in 1997 and Pastelbord in 1998. “While we thought Claybord might be the all-end surface, traditional oil or acrylic painters found the surface too absorbent and smooth. So, we engineered several other surfaces to meet artists’ different needs,” Salazar explained.
Ampersand has a robust product line, as each product is unique in terms of the artist medium used. Claybord, with its smooth, absorbent surface, is ideal for acrylics and mixed media. Like Claybord, Aquabord is coated with a clay-based ground, yet is best suited for watercolors. Meanwhile, Gessobord has an acrylic-based surface and is less absorbent, making it great for oil and acrylics.
Salazar is also very proud of Encausticbord which was made in collaboration with R&F Handmade Paints. “We worked together to come up with a coating that was going to hold up to encaustics and mixed media,” Salazar said.
As acrylic and oil painting is popular at the moment, Gessobord is Ampersand’s strongest performing product. Its ready-to-use surface saves artists time and effort from having to prime and sand their own panels. The finish also makes controlling paint applications easy, allowing for fine detail and heavy paint layers. “We worked with a lot of artists to get that finish just right for oil and acrylic painting,” Salazar said.
An artist’s friend
Many artists have used Ampersand’s panels in their work. “There are so many great painters who work on our product,” Salazar said. “They do amazing work.”
Amado Peña’s “Bridge to Success” at Austin Community College’s new art building is comprised of custom-built Gessobord panels surrounded by 12- by 12-inch Gessobords painted by students. Jos Sances’ “Or the Whale” combined 119 24- by 36-inch Scratchbords to create a 51-foot mural of a sperm whale. Ali Cavanaugh demonstrates how painters can use Aquabord to create watercolor pieces that don’t have to be framed behind glass.
“That’s revolutionary for the watercolor market, because you always had to take your paper, mount it to a backing, then frame it under glass,” Salazar stated. “Aquabord takes all this away, making the watercolors a lot more intimate to the viewer.”
Salazar is proud of how Ampersand closely works with artists in developing its products. Together, they apply what works and what doesn’t work for artists and turn those ideas into quality panels.
Compared to other application surfaces such as canvas or paper, Ampersand’s panels better reflect light, creating crisp, vibrant colors. The panels’ rigidity allows for more brush control and can withstand layers of paint. From a conservator standpoint, Ampersand’s panels are more archivally sound.
“It is important to seal the wood before you put your grounds on the panel,” Salazar commented. She went on to explain that Ampersand is the only wood panel company that seals its wood surfaces with Archiva-Seal before applying different painting grounds. “This seals off the board completely, preparing it to receive the different grounds for painting. This process ensures that, over time, an artist’s painting isn’t going to yellow or crack.”
Quality and attention to detail are cherished values at Ampersand. Each product in its Museum Series is handmade in the U.S.
“We touch every single panel,” Salazar stated. “We inspect the board as it comes off the coating line and through the sanding, cradling and finishing processes. We have a high commitment to quality. We hand-hold that board through the entire cycle until it goes out the door to the retailer.”
