The effect of framing a picture has surprised me on several occasions. This week-end I’ve had quite a startling experience of this. There have been two pieces of my work on the pin-board in the studio …. one of them for several months. Next week I will help to hang the winter group exhibition in the Unit 9 Gallery, at the South Square Centre, and I have been prompted to make a decision about which piece of my own work I will offer to the show. I have a solo exhibition booked for this space in the spring, and I don’t want to put forward any of the material I will exhibit on that occasion. So my attention turned to the pieces on my wall.
I had sufficient confidence in them both to think that they might justify exhibition, but was still very cautious. Nevertheless, I rummaged around in my racks to find a couple of old frames that might be recycled tov this purpose. By good fortune there were two of the right size, and in colours that were suited to the two items I had in mind. During yesterday and today I found time to repurpose them, and I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the result in each case.
The experience has made me think about exactly what it is about framing that has this effect. In part, at least, I believe that it comes down to the result of isolating the image spatially from its surroundings in a way that is not possible otherwise. This is particularly the case with work in pastel, where prior to framing the image remains surrounded by the support, and this is typically chosen for its harmonious relationship to the picture, so that the image tends to be absorbed into its background rather than distinguished from it.
This realisation does present me with a problem, of course, in that I came to a decision not long ago that I would be cautious about framing work in order to economise, only doing so when I was confident that it was worth the expense. Ah well!