Art Is Where The Heart Is! Story

A 36" X 36" Batik that my wife and I bought in St. Maarten
It is on canvas and we rolled it up to bring it home. Made by 
"Mare" and hangs in our living room.  The light mat and dark
frame seem to draw you deeper into the artwork.

It was an ordinary day.  Reading an article in my morning newspaper titled, "PICTURE PERFECT."  Had to do with how to frame your artwork.  It can be harder that it looks!  Framing a piece of art seems simple enough, but that's before you actually try it.  How do you decide which frame style is best?  How large should the frame be?  Does the art or photography need any frame at all?  Tough decisions to make before you hang something on your wall that everyone who comes into your home will be able to see.  I read that there is one overarching rule for framing....it has to make the work of art look attractive to whomever is viewing it.  And...if you are the only one whom will ever see the piece of art, frame it however you want.  Now...if it will be seen by just about everyone who enters your home, that creates a different problem.  First of all...should you place a mat on the photo or artwork, or just place a frame around the art or photo? My wife and I have quite a few pieces of art in our home that have no mat at all on them, just the frame...and they look great...at least to us....and we're the ones who have to see them everyday.  We also have a few pieces of art that have one mat or multiple mats on them.  And, if you place a mat on the piece of artwork...you don't have to make the mat white.  At times, white mats could make the mat stand out more than the piece of art or photography that you matted.  Actually, one of the simplest ways to approach framing is to use a frame that fits the exact size of the artwork or photo without a mat.  This often works for posters, large photographs and other works on paper - especially if they aren't valuable and can be trimmed to fit into the frame.  The downside to this method?  This approach offers the least flexibility for enhancing the appearance of the art and the way you want it to look in a room.  Determining whether you want a mat or not is really about how large or how small you want the work to appear on your wall.  An exception is a painting on canvas, which almost always looks best with just a frame around the edges of the work so a mat wouldn't take away from the painting.  If you do use a mat on a piece of artwork, it doesn't have to be white!  White mats reflect more light than any other color and at times what you see first when viewing a piece of art or a painting is the white mat.  That's not the reason why you put it on the wall!  You put it on the wall for the viewer to see the piece of artwork!  The mat should be secondary.  I know I'm not a professional when it comes to matting and farming, but I will show you a few of my pieces of art that I have hanging in my villa and MY reason for what I did.  I did work at an art and frame shop that was owned by a former student of mine for a few years after teaching Industrial Arts and Photography for over 30 years.     Remember, I'm not a true professional, but at times you don't have to be to make a piece of artwork or a photograph look great on the wall of your home.  PS - What I will show you is artwork and glasswork that may or may not have a mat on them. It really is your choice which way you present it to your viewers.  Carol and I enjoy both methods which you will see in the following samples.  I have tried to explain what I did and why, but you may like something different than we do.  Our home is filled with art from various places in the United States and the Caribbean Islands.  I only had space to show you a few pieces of the artwork that we have hanging in our home.   It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

This is a three-panel framed article from the Vette Magazine.  
Story titled "Me & My VETTE" about our Vette that my wife and
I bought and enjoyed for many years before we finally sold it.
 I chose to make the mat red, since the Vette is red!

This is a linoleum block print that I did to demonstrate
to my Graphic Arts class how to carve a linoleum block.
I happened to have a strip of stamps of lighthouses and
decided to use those to finish the project.
  

This is a Wallace Nutting print that Carol and I purchased some time ago.

It is titled "The Maple Sugar Cupboard". It hangs in our guest bedroom.

It is the original mat which I hated to remove.  

This is a 4 foot x 2 1/2 foot acrylic painting by Hettic that covers the
wall behind our living room sofa.  We purchased it in St. Martin
and rolled it up to bring it home on the plane.  It has no frame around it.
Any frame wold have had to be so large that it would have taken away from the painting. 

This is a collage of altered Polaroid prints that I did a few years
ago.  All are original prints and the same size that they were
made.  I used a wooden tool to rub on them before they
hardened to make them look more like a painting.  To use
a colored mat would have taken away from the prints

This is a glass window frame print that we purchased and had
shipped to our home.  It is about 3 feet wide and 2 feet high.
Needless to say, no mat would have worked on this piece of art.
 

This acrylic painting is about 2 feet by 1 1/2 feet in size
and the artist is unknown since their signature is unreadable.
The black mat is to draw you into the artwork.
 

Photograph that I took while on Pinel Island which is near
the island of St. Martin.  Photo is about 3 feet wide.  I dry-mounted it
and then cut the center section out and placed that behind the 2" side panel
before placing it in the metal frame.  I chose to make a mat out of the
the outside few inches of the original print.  Seemed to add depth to the photo.

This is a stained glass window that I made
several years ago.  Framed it and have it
hanging in our dining room window.
It is 6 feet high and 2 feet wide with wooden frame around it.

Another photograph that I took while on the
island of St. Martin while I was relaxing in the shade.
It is close to 3 feet high.  I made the last few inches around it
the mat.  Didn't want a colored mat since it would have
distracted from the picture.

This is a acrylic painting by Paul Elliot Trudeau
titled Case Palmier - 32/100
Artist is from St. Martin
I chose a light colored mat so it wouldn't 
distract from the light colored print.

Another stained glass window I made that hangs in
our sun room which is next to our living room.
It is about 2' high and a bit under 3 feet wide.  Frame is wood.
Shells and stones are from the island of St. Martin

This final artistic photograph was taken by our neighbor Bill Stein.
It is a photo of our house on Harrington Drive in Lancaster, PA after a heavy
snowfall many years ago.  Bill lived across the street from us.
We moved from the house about 2 years ago to Woodcrest Villas.
Were we nuts?  It became just to much maintenance for us to handle!
I chose a mat that brought out the colors in the print,
rather than a color that would conflict with the print.  The color
takes you deeper into the print the more you look at it.