Ed’s Framing Tip of the Day

After more than seven years has a professional picture framer, one of my greatest pet peeves that developed was this insistence from customers that their framed art match their house and their decor. This is perhaps the greatest myth in picture framing, the notion that good art should match everything.  Then again, a lot of what people get framed, is not good art. Any framed item though, should always look classy in and of itself, in and out of any settings. A few basic rules to accomplish this are has follows. 

 Never let your mat and frame choices outshine the art itself, doing so results in tacky and gaudy decor. You spend the money to get it framed to enhance and preserve the art, not to have people only look at the framing. Choose neutral colors from the art for your mat and frame choices. Never choose the boldest colors or the lightest or darkest colors either, from the art. Artists like to use white mats, but again, this will be lighter than most colors in your art and  is going too far in the opposite direction. You do want some color and texture, but at the same time not drowning the art with them. 

For my mat choices, I like to work with whatever family of earth tones like red clay, blue-ish grey, taupe, grey-lavender or charcoal that suit a particular piece. For frames I like a nice genuine well-finished wood texture or a carved (not overly carved) design in pewter, dirty gold or dark bronze finish. Ultimately though, whenever you first see a piece of art, you should always notice it first, and then the framing. Who cares what the color the couch or your wall-paper is? In 5o years you will still have a piece of classy framed art if you do it right, when the decor is long gone.