FRAMING AND MATTING YOUR ART

I'm getting some questions about how to frame and mat your art. There are a zillion ways and a zillion tastes. I'm going to give you just one that has worked beautifully for Louise and me. You may find, like us, that you have to work with a limited budget. You may have limited space or family considerations. So this may all be nonsense for you, but here goes:

This is a picture that would be, by itself, about 15" x 22". If you have the space and resources, you can have this piece make a statement in your room by giving it a large mat of six inches. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS. Remember, I'm just saying that this works well. You can have a smaller mat or no mat. That's your choice too. That said, having your framer put a double mat on the picture (the blue line around it) gives the mat a chance to highlight the picture. It may be a thin black line. I've chosen here a mat that picks up the blue in the picture. My outer mat, again a matter of personal taste, is off white. The total size of this picture, framed and matted, would now be about 31 x 38 inches. In my neighborhood that frame and mat will cost about $150. If decorating matters to you, it's something to consider.

Short story. When Louise and I were in Berlin in the 1970s, we lived on the top floor of a villa owned by people who had inherited a large collection of German woodcuts from the early 1900s. Before we left they asked us to take one home for them and try to sell it for $1,000. It was a tinted woodcut of three sailors. I wasn't smitten with it, and we didn't have a thousand dollars. One of my colleagues at the university bought it. I thought no more about it until we were at his home one night for an open house. And there was this picture, beautifully matted and framed in a way that picked up the light blues in the picture. I was stunned. I never quite got over it. Recently I found a copy of that woodcut online and printed one for myself. Will I be able to get the picture with the same effect as my colleague's? Not quite, but the framing and matting will make a huge difference.