‘Little Left from Before’, ready for this week’s home delivery

This has been a busy week for the matting, framing, packing and shipping division of the studio! ‘Little Left from Before’ was framed about a month ago and is awaiting a home delivery date this week. And this past week, two pieces sold and are ready to head to their respective homes. One piece, ‘Brook Trout Dreams in Winter’ is painted on floating panel —to expose the painted edges and raise the work away from the wall— and requires no additional framing. But all work on paper requires some form of support. Pastels —due to the dust they can produce— require a particular style of double layered protection with an inner ‘shelf’, called a ‘bridge mat’.

Here’s a look at the process of matting ‘Winter Window’, from start to finish, beginning with foam cutting and ending with plastic wrapping. This piece will be packed and then ship to Los Angeles later this week, where it will be framed.

Today, we cut ten bridge mats and fitted 6 pastel paintings in 8 hours. Although the process speeds up a bit with practice, there are many more pastels to go, with more than three years worth of artwork waiting to be matted and framed for exhibit and sale. Much work to be done!

 Cutting foam board backers

 Face mats

Placing pastels within the bridge mat

 Checking fit, measuring and repositioning before hinging the pastel at center with archival, linen tape

 Unless a piece immediately goes inside a glass-faced frame, it is placed within a clear plastic bag and sealed shut until it can be framed

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