I have spent a good part of my time recently going through my storage racks in order to find picture frames that might be recycled in preparation for my exhibition during the coming summer. It has been a very frustrating, and largely unsuccessful, activity. I managed to find an old frame that suited perfectly one of the items I have decided to show, but there is one other piece to which I am rather attached (and two others which might possibly make the grade) for which I can’t find anything with exactly the right dimensions. Professional framing is expensive, and do-it-yourself frames are invariably identifiable as just that. It is infinitely preferable to be able to present work in a manner that looks professional.
As I rummaged with a growing feeling of frustration I found myself reflecting on the experience of visiting the Courtauld Institute recently. One of the things I noticed was that there was a marked inconsistency in the approach taken to framing. This is hardly surprising, as the work on display will have been assembled over many years from a huge variety of sources. I had to ask myself whether my appreciation of the items I had seen had been diminished in any way by the “irregularities” in presentation. It didn’t take my long to realise that my answer would have to be a decisive “No!” The most important factor, of course, is the quality of the work on display, which is able to speak for itself. I will return to my search in the coming week with a rather more relaxed (and realistic) set of criteria in mind.
Of course, life would be a great deal easier if professional framers were willing to take on the task of providing new mounts for insertion into old frames. In my experience they are very resistant to this suggestion …. even where they were responsible for the manufacture of the frame in question. I think that in industrial circles this is known as a “restrictive practice”.