Welcome to our

May Framer's Corner!!

Each month, we like to take a moment to share some of our favorite projects with our readers, giving you an inside look at the process of framing, meeting our designers, and the fun pieces of art that come through our shop. 

This months framers corner comes to you from our designers Heather S. and Heather C.

In the Frame of Mind frame shop we are very happy to have multiple great designers. One thing we love to do is work on designs together. From working with the customers choosing materials, to the process of prepping materials, building frames and the execution of putting it all together.

The project we want to share with you this month is a very unique, fun, and eclectic piece like no other.

This piece came to us from some first time customers that had just moved to the Missoula Area.

The piece they brought to us is a very large, sentimental, original family piece that was handmade by their relative in the 1970's.

With all our collective years of framing here at Frame of Mind, we have never seen something quite like this. At first glance, it looks like a mirror, kind of resembles a rug, has 3 dimensional pieces, hmmm what is this?

This beautiful mixed media piece is so unique and cool, made with glass, fiberglass, metal and a lot of creativity. We were very excited to work on it.

This piece arrived in a very outdated frame that did not do this piece justice. Our goal with framing is to add materials (mats and frames) that draw your eye into the artwork. The mat and frame are meant to be an extension of the artwork not the focus.

For this project in particular, no glass or matting was needed. So, we started with the frame. The large size (40" x 60") of this piece would mean that we need to use a large frame.

There are a few reasons why a large frame was needed.

First - the frame needed to be large enough and structurally sound enough to hold the weight of the very large piece, second - we want the frame to aesthetically fit the size of the piece so that it doesn't disappear.

In this case the frame is a grounding aspect of the design because there is so much going on in the piece, there is no matting so we need the frame to draw your eye into the artwork.

We chose to use a frame that emulated the shine and chaos of the piece, yet grounded the piece at the same time. There were a lot of colors to choose from when selecting a frame, we went with the darker tones as they drew your eyes into the piece the best.

In order to achieve the look we were going for we chose to do what we call stacking frames. This means we chose two frames that go well together, that draw from different places in the art and really make the art pop!

The frames that we chose come from two different companies that we love to use for moulding. The larger outside frame is a Raku Bella frame that has a metallic finish with a red/copper marbled looking texture, the inside frame is a Fotiou frame with a blue metallic finish. These two frames together really draw you into the artwork, while the metal and gold of the art act as matting.

This piece turned out better than we could have imagined. The clients absolutely loved it. We loved giving this old, priceless artwork a new life. What do you think?

1706 Brooks Street

Missoula, MT 59801

406-549-8589