One day on my way to my hairdresser I passed a framing shop. They had some beautiful golden frames hanging in their windows and I told myself: "This is a place, where I want my artworks to be framed..."
A year later I released my first prints and I packed my print carefully in its shipping tube and went to this framing shop.
I entered the store and all walls were covered with frames. Golden, silver, wooden, decorative, modern, thick and thin. "The ones on the left are all handmade and covered with reals gold leaves." said the master gilder. Yes! A master gilder!
Have you ever heard of gilding?
Gilding is the process of applying thin layers of gold or other metals like copper or silver on objects like frames, furniture or when you enter a building an see architectural elements being covered in gold.
"Wow, this is so impressive" I said, still gazing at all the lovely details. "These will be great for my original Oil Paintings. But today I have brought this fine art print."
"Of course" The gilding master put some minimal silver frame samples onto the desk. "These are the standard selections for prints. It does not draw too much attention from the artwork itself, Galleries prefer these as well.”
"Mhh, these are nice but I still want something golden and decorative. Something magical!"
There was another lady in the room and she brought these frame samples:
My eyes lit up when I saw the golden leaf frame sample: “Wow! The leaves! These are perfect!” It felt like the leaves brought the little girls from my fine art print into an even more magical place.
“Great! The next question, which Passe-Partout should we choose?"
They had a big stack of all kinds of colors, and also so so many white tones.
The lady suggested a white tone which seemed perfect.
"This white tone looks nice, but mhh do you have a soft pink tone?” I asked.
The purpose of a passe-partout:
What a fancy word, which also means universal key able to open every lock. But in the framing context, It's made of cardboard which surrounds the artwork and adds to the aesthetic and visual space between the artwork and the frame. It also protects the artwork from direct contact to the protective glass.
The final question I got asked was with which glass my print should be protected with.
I chose the middle one, with an UV protection. It also looked like an invisible glass.
“Can I film the process of how you frame my Print for my YouTube Channel? I’m sure my subscribers would love to see your craftsmanship.”
“Of course” replied both. “ Let’s have an appointment next Monday and we will do it together.”
I filmed the whole process and you can watch it here: