Take the plot of any PG-rated love story but instead of another person opposite me, it’s frames.
Buckle up, it’s about to get luke-warm up in here.
It all started when I needed to show lithograph prints I made in the campus gallery for printmaking credits I took as part of a summer printmaking experience in New York City. One of the requirements was that all 2-dimensional work must be framed. It was last minute and I stuck my prints in any random frame I could find. They met a requirement, but wasn’t something I was excited about long term.
The next time I wanted to show in the gallery was for a Student Juried Exhibition. I wanted to submit a graphic design and a printmaking project to be considered. I did not want to repeat my previous awkward presentation, so I explored alternatives. Ultimately my options were buy or build. Since none of my pieces were a standard size and I was too poor to pay for custom frames, it was basically decided for me that I would need to learn to build my own. Enter, Ken Brown, Shop Master. Building frames was relatively common in the art department and it was Ken who taught me and many others how to build our first ever frames. You could say he introduced us.
Ken gave me pointers on where to go to get my lumber, the size board I should get, and recommended the species of hard wood that would work best. Over what I imagine was a couple of days, he patiently walked me through the entire process. By the end I had two beautiful frames. The frames transformed my pieces from class projects into something polished and professional.
Both of my submissions made it into the show, and my graphic design submission won a Juror’s Choice Award. These accomplishments seem like the obvious highlight but, looking back now, I don’t think they are. It didn’t stoke an ambition in me toward winning awards. I did, however, have a constant itch to frame more and more. It felt like I possessed a new superpower—the power to make things important, to make anything art.
I fell in love.
To cement this new skill into the fabric of my being I started framing prints I traded for with my printmaking classmates. I framed more prints bought at our student art show. I framed fabric and dried flowers. As often as I could afford or had reason to, I was framing.
Now, this is not a relationship without snares. I do not look forward to cutting mat. Thankfully it’s toward the end of the process where the satisfying results are so close at hand that my dislike for it falls to the wayside. And sometimes mat is not needed at all. A true Christmas miracle. Thankfully, like all healthy relationships, perfection is not the goal or expectation here.
To watch this struggle in real life, here’s a recording.
I continued framing once I graduated and moved to the Twin Cities for work. Thankfully, Ken allowed me and other alumni to come back and use the shop on days when classes were not using the shop. This small gesture was huge to me, and is the reason I continued to make frames and other woodworking projects after college. I would drive up on a Thursday night, crash at a friend’s apartment, and start a 3-day frame-making binge the next day. By the end of the weekend I would be exhausted, but I’d have every frame complete with the art inside. On my most ambitious trip I made 16 frames. I need a nap just thinking about doing something like that now.
When Ken retired, the world ended.
Or at least my world inside the shop I had worked in for over 10 years had. Rules change and such is life. If I wanted to keep the flame alive, I’d have to find another way.
I messaged in my work’s Slack channel ‘Makers Gonna Make’ asking if anyone had woodworking tools or a shop at their house that they would be willing to let me use to build frames. My co-worker Rick generously offered to let me use the shop he set up in his garage, and that is how I ended up building frames in the middle of winter while five months pregnant in my co-workers garage. Love finds a way. Thank you Rick!
For a long time a year wouldn’t go by without me making frames. After my second child was born and we moved to a new town, almost four years had passed since I’d made any frames. I didn’t know how I could get back into it. I was actively inching my way toward having my own space and all the necessary tools, but I didn’t have the space, or the tools. Even if I had those things, just making the time felt overwhelming.
But I missed it.
There were projects eating a hole in my ‘To Frame’’ list. (Yes, this list exists.) Then I read the offerings for my town’s Community Education classes, and wouldn’t you know there was a class dedicated to Open Woodshop.
Moons aligned.
It was $50 to sign up, and took place in the high school wood shop one evening a week from 6-8pm for five weeks. It meant missing my children’s bedtimes which wasn’t my favorite, but it was February and I have needs...like, needing to get out of the house and cut a bigger piece of wood into smaller pieces of wood types of needs.
I signed up. I showed up. I met Steve.
Steve is the open wood shop advisor. If you need a problem solver, or an extra set of hands, he’s your guy. Turns out we have the same gift of gab and we hit it right off. I was in a new space with different tools and almost immediately hit a snag that not even Steve could remedy. The high school table saw safety guards would not allow the partial cuts I needed to cut the space out of the wood where the glass and art set into. Day one ended with me cutting one piece of wood into three pieces of wood. It was a start with a full stop. After asking around I found someone I knew with access to a table saw and within a week the notches were cut and I was back in business. It truly takes a village. After four years I was rusty as all get-out, but I got three frames assembled.
This continues to happen, where, when I look for help I’ve found unexpected levels of generosity, even friendship. If it weren’t for Ken, Rick, Steve, and Paul sharing their knowledge, space, and tools I would not be making frames today. Let’s not forget my husband and the solo bedtimes he orchestrated so I could pursue my hobby. Thank you!
A note about the future.
I am so close to being able to build frames in my own space. I have been gifted tools over the last many Christmases. I designed our garage to have a third stall that is very nearly sheet rocked. My husband and I built a work table together this summer. I finally landed the big kahuna when my former co-worker and neighbor gave me one of their surplus table saws when he found out I was looking for one. I would say traded for it, but trading a table saw for homemade cherry-rhubarb cheesecake ice cream does not seem like a fair trade even for an ice cream enthusiast. It has been 15 years, at least 100 frames, sheer determination, and a lot of support…I’m almost there.
I wouldn’t change the road frame-making and I have been on, and clearly acknowledge the value of the village that has supported me along the way. I don’t want to diminish that. I see frame building as a relationship that needs to keep growing and evolving. In my own shop I’m looking forward to having the flexibility to make frames more often, and, maybe one day, be able to pay that hands-on experience forward with others.
Until then, I’ll just keep collecting wood.
A love story for all ages. We never gave up on each other through separation and adversity—standing the test of time to become a love, like art, worth preserving and admiring.
Leave a Reply