There Is Nothin' Like a Frame
Ah, cheesy puns. My specialty. For those of you who have not had to sit through South Pacific, here's the bit:
In my case, it was 1988, and I was sitting through it from the perspective of the stage. Each year my high school had a musical, and, as someone with the vocal talents of a cat with laryngitis, I was relegated to parts like "man in bar" or "sailor #3". In South Pacific I played a sailor nicknamed "Professor" who had a few speaking lines, but generally lounged on the stage for two hours with the rest of the sailors. I did get to sing "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame", though. Here's a Throwback Thursday worthy snapshot of the ensemble:
I'm standing to the right of Stewpot:
Hit the fast forward button 26 years to 2014, and you've got the context for me humming that song as I began cutting the mat for "Adrift" ("There is nothin like a frame, nothin in the world...."). Framing's a much anticipated part of the process where everything hopefully comes together. Usually I order a frame from FramesbyMail with foam board and plexi, cut the mat myself, then do the art mounting, point settings, dust jacket, and hardware. I often struggle when selecting the mat color because my pieces tend to be on darker papers, and white mats are too harsh in contrast. Nonetheless, my first cut at the piece was a black frame, white outer mat, and dark gray inner mat:
Not surprisingly, the white was a bit too stark. The next color tried was "Before Dark":
Better - but the gray was more of a French Gray 70%, which looked brownish. I also wasn't happy with how thin the mat spacing was for the picture size, so finally I broke down and got professional help: I took my work to Marquis Art and Frame to have it professionally framed. This week I got the final framed piece back, and it looks great:
Marquis chose a larger medium dark gray mat with a light gray inner mat. The frame itself is an expresso color with a nice profile:
When we chose the frame and colors, we needed to carefully ensure the dimensions were within the maximum allowed for CPSA shows. The final frame is about 1" away from maximum in both directions (it's a little exciting to have a piece big enough to hit the size limit). If you compare the final product with the first white mat version, you can see the difference having the right mat and frame makes. Now I just need to box it up and get it ready to be shipped for the CPSA show!