Don't Mess With Texas

But first a brief lesson on gallery style framing.

Standard gallery style convention dictates that a wide white mat and matte black frame should be used to best display art. The mat should be 3" on the top and sides and 4" on the bottom.

I have done a few other variations, a gallery show of miniatures was done with 2" top and sides, and a 2.5" bottom mat exposure. But mostly the entire Western World accepts 3TS, 4B as gospel.

And then I got a call from Texas. A man placed an order through a series of phone calls and emails. His daughter was moving to Philly and he wanted to frame some giclees of his originals to hang in her new apartment. As we got into it, he said he wanted them done similarly to how they had been done by his local gallery. 4.5" top and sides, and 6" on the bottom! Texas-style!


I must admit, they look pretty hot.

Oh, and this is no ordinary matte black frame, either. Gramercy black Shadow box. 2" deep.

Frame and Framer

There's been a run on oversized jobs at the shop. Here are 2 recent stand-outs. Above is a huge linen-backed vintage French advertising poster for foie gras. The piece is SO oversized that it is greater than 40 x 60" (the largest glass we use), and the customer requested museum glazing. Luckily, almost on the same day the order was placed, 48 x 96" museum plexi was born and made available to framers. Hooray!

And this one is a pencil sketch done 40 years ago by a fascinating customer who is a master hand-carver of wooden ventriloquist dummies and also a professional exterminator. (I meet the most amazing people!) It's roughly 20 x 60" and is framed with a suede top mat.

A Taste of Asia

Some interesting asian pieces came through recently. Above is a 4 panel 2-opening job where the top opening is a fan shape. It is a simple looking shape, but yet it cannot be cut on a straight cutter or oval cutter, and also does not exist as a template on a popular computerized mat cutter. The boss had to cut it freehand (I WILL cultivate that skill one day, it shames me that I have not.). I did not ask the customer, but I would expect that these represent the 4 seasons.

And this is actually an oversized job (24 x 60-ish") for the same customer. I am very pleased with the result of the asian-style mat borders: wider on the sides and narrower at the top and bottom to elongate the finished size and maintain the scroll proportion. The customer did tell me that this style of calligraphy is called "waterfall." Also used in the design is a shantung silk top mat, with the grain of the mat running top to bottom, as is proper, and museum glass. Just lovely.

Child's Play

Since I left the 'burbs to be a Big City framer, I have consequently seen very little kid's art, cruise art, and family photo collages. I really miss the kid's art. However, on the rare occasion that kid's art comes through, I am totally prepared for it.



Kid's art calls out for vivid colors. Here is the shop's full complement in vinyl & suede mats from Bainbridge (the colors of these are more saturated than paper mats could ever be) and shimmery vivid metallics metal mouldings from Nielsen.



This is a preschool needlework project where I even sold the client's mommy a weighted bottom mat to achieve the proper look for a serious pre-k artiste.

And here we see a thank-you note to a grandma for a wonderful vacation.

I will never dismiss kid's art as not being real art. One of my favorite museums doesn't either.

You again?!

Gramercy on giant paintings...before the last ones even left the building!

The odds are astronomically against this, but lo, while the last test of my framing mettle still took up valuable real estate in the small Pine Street shop, in walked three oversized 3-dimensional canvases for a prestigious Graduate Program art show. What moulding was selected? Gramercy! Oh, but also not your ordinary fit. Gramercy Shadowbox was to become Gramercy Deep Floating Frame, just needed to turn the moulding upside-down and paint the bottom, which is now the top. No problem.

Floating frames look awesome on contemporary abstracts. They are a different construction than conventional frames, they do not fit on top of the art and hang over it, but rather they reveal ALL of the canvas top, and just cover the sides. They can also be positioned a distance away from the canvas to allow a glimpse of the canvas sides (but this is only done with finished canvas sides or gallery-wraps). This new job would place the frame directly against unfinished canvas sides.

freaking gorgeous

and the art's not bad either.