Warning: Giant post.
Gah....... I know. The curse of the white mat cult.
I use white mats freely whenever it's the right thing,
but some people are fixated about using them on
everything. It's interesting that this art teacher was
open to more, because around here, it's the college
art department people who tend to be cast in stone
on this one. They believe that the only way to display
paper art is with a blindingly white mat and either
a natural wood or black frame. Period. It's a stultifying
sort of aesthetic elitism, and it can be so limiting. There
are works of art that would really come to life with other
treatments, but those white mats go around them, and
they can look so starkly brilliant that they steal the focus
from more subtle images.
I don't deal with designers and decorators very often,
and the two who do come to me a couple times a year
are very easy to deal with. They'll bring the piece in and
ask me to come up with what looks good on it. I really
enjoy working with both of them. But I have had that
experience of when a customer attempts to direct the
design of someone else's framing. Only a few times, but
it happened last month.
I was designing a photo for a fellow, and he had chosen
what he wanted. It was the best design, and I was adding up
the estimate. Another customer of mine, a woman who has
boatloads of money and likes any frame as long as it's huge,
came into the shop. She proceeded to tell him that the little
inner mat we had chosen was all wrong for the piece, and that
the frame we had chosen was too small. She grabbed out
a frame that was almost four inches wide and held it up to the
piece, telling him that this one was far better. I'm a subtle person,
and not one to feel the need to jump in at a moment like
that, so I just let her do her thing and when I had added it up,
I walked back over. I got her to leave us alone by 'helping' her
go over to pay at the desk, and I went back to my fellow.
Then I had to re-iterate why what we had chosen was the best,
in a low enough voice that she couldn't hear it. Including how
the inner mat picked up the light perfectly, and why the other
frame was so big that it dwarfed the subject in the photo.
He was very relieved that I had the confidence to gently and
immediately steer it back to what he had liked, and he agreed
that it really was what he wanted. I'm sure that when she
left, she thought he would go with her suggestions, and that
she had done me a favor.
The finished job was beautiful, and I felt good about having
saved the design idea from going in a wrong direction. I don't
know where people get the idea that they can jump in and
tell someone what to do. I would never interfere in that way
with someone and the person they had gone to for help.
Rick
Rick
