Thinking inside the box

By Danielle Zerbonne - August 2, 2007

What hangs on the walls of your living space says a lot about you. Do tattered posters of sports teams and rock groups adorn your walls, like echoes of dorm rooms past? Do you cover your walls with formal pieces of artwork, or maybe nothing at all? One way or another, what you display and even more significantly, how you display it, makes a statement. A Monet print taped to a wall creates an air of impermanence and informality. But mat that same print, place it behind reflection-free conservation glass and surround it in an elegant silver frame, and you can elevate your $10 poster to an entirely different level.

For those who suffer from a faulty aesthetic sense, Island framers are happy and ready to lend their expertise. "Most people don't have anything in mind when they walk in the door," says Kathy Morris of MV Framing. "We start with the basics. People usually know what they don't like before they know what they like."

There are several things to consider when going over framing options. One of the first rules of framing is to aim to make the piece look great, rather than trying to match the couch in the room where you plan to hang it. But the décor of the room does need to be taken into consideration. If you are decorating an old whaling captain's house you are likely to approach the framing of your artwork differently than if you are renting a one-room garage apartment. If your space feels rustic and casual, like a summer cottage, there are many driftwood frames that would fit your interior design.

Another consideration is the value of the piece. Inexpensive prints are appropriate to dry mount, a process that physically bonds the artwork to a board to prevent a wavy and uneven surface. But your antique map or your grandparents' old wedding photo may be too delicate and valuable to risk submitting to the high heat process of dry-mounting. The general practice for valuable items is to use a linen tape hinge, so the art can hang freely and expand or contract with changes in the humidity, without any permanent physical alterations to the piece itself.

Most framers blanket the walls of their store with V-shaped frame-corner samples and often offer hundreds of mat choices, in all colors and materials. Mats can be made of suede, fabric, even bamboo weaving. Morris says, "Someone could bring in the same picture and 50 people could frame it different 50 different ways and they can all look good."

When it comes to framing materials, as in many other aspects of a consumer's life, you get what you pay for. Although you could save a bit of money using inexpensive paper mat or cardboard, such shortcuts will eventually lead to the degradation of your piece. Yellowing, fading, and mold spots can ruin a favorite print, which is why seeking out a qualified professional framer will ultimately pay off for years to come, by ensuring that your favorite piece has been framed well.

Ken Pailler and Arlene Connolly of Sharon Custom Framing have been framing Island artwork for 10 years. Like many local framers, they don't stock paper mats. "They're less expensive but we don't bother," says Connolly. They use Neilsen/Bainbridge acid-free mats ("An old, respected company," she says), a quality matboard available in a staggering array of colors. By choosing a mat that matches a color in your piece of artwork you can enhance or contrast certain colors, making some pop and others appear more muted. Besides serving an aesthetic purpose, mats also protect the artwork by keeping it separate from the glass.

It isn't just pretty pictures that are worth the effort of framing. Pillow cases, sports uniform shirts, diplomas, and newspaper articles are some of the items people commonly want to have preserved and protected. It seems every framer has a story of a strange item brought into their store to be framed. Kathy Morris remembers a customer coming in with a snakeskin. "It was a big one. We sewed it onto the board...well, I didn't touch it, I made the woman that frames with me do it!"

Richard Domitzer of Freewheeling Framer once framed a length of pipe with a large hole in it. "It was found after it burst during the winter," he said. "It caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage."

Technology plays its part everywhere these days, and framing is no exception. Although many framers still do cut mat board by hand, now many framers own computerized mat cutters, which allows for more precision and, ultimately, less waste. Connolly does most things by hand, but explains the concept behind the electronic mat cutter. "You type in what size cut you want, press some buttons, and little knives come out that operate electrically." Complex mat cuts, perfect circles and more ornate things like floral designs are much easier to create with a little technological assistance.

Kennedy Gallery is one of the Island framers with an electric mat cutter, and they also have some of the more advanced picture framing computer technology. Using a digital camera suspended from the ceiling, they are able to take a picture of a piece of artwork, then using a variety of digital tricks, are able to display your piece of artwork on a computer screen with different frames digitally superimposed around the artwork. It helps to decide what will look best when you have lots of options and trouble picturing in your head what the finished product might look like.

Once a piece of artwork is picked up from the framer, newly matted, framed, and ready to hang, people are often thrilled with the result. Uta Kirchiechner of Kennedy Studio says people have actually hugged Douglas Johnson, their framer, after seeing their piece completed.

And Arlene Connolly notes that whether beautiful, unique, or downright weird, "Your imagination is the limit to what you can frame."

Danielle Zerbonne is on staff at The Times.