Wide lipless plein-air style length moulding?

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SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
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Have pretty much sold the concept picture below for a neo-adobe-retro-techno project in Santa Fe. Yes, I know, but it will look awesome in the overall context, trust me.

Anyway, the total frame size is a little more than 6 feet wide with 4.5" plein-air-ish, leafed-looking moulding with a wide flat inner panel and a raised outside rim. Just like a big cassetta except no inner lip, the panel just stops at the picture. No lip, that's the key. Liplessness is what adds the retro-techno quality, got it? ;)

So, does any moulding supplier you know about carry stuff like this in length by the box? The budget is pretty decent but not enough for the real McCoy, surely there's gotta be something out there in length, right? Or am I in deep trouble? The guys down in San Diego/Tijuana can't help. Thanks.

plein_air_5inch_RIVEREDGE_WALL.jpg
 
I don't understand the lipless concept. Is the piece going to be floated on top or you say butted up against it. If it is butted then something has to hold it in place. More explanation would be helpful.
 
Sorry, I meant no "raised" inner lip visible to the viewer. There must be a rabbet underneath the flat part of the frame, as normal. It's a standard plein-air style you see all the time on the smallish imported gold leafed readymades. The only raised part of the frame is the outer rim.
 
Like Randy said you will most likely have to stack them. Most of the plen aire's are stacked together mouldings to achieve the look.
 
What is a "Plein-Air" frame?

Is it a specific profile?

is it a specific style?

Both?

"Plein-Air" - another goofy, meaningless term?
 
Yes, but what is a Plein-Air frame?

When an artist comes in and asks for a Plein-Air frame what do I sell them.

I have had them ask and when I tell them I don't know what a Plein-Air frame is they don't seem to know either.

I can Google "Plein-Air" and I get pictures of various frames but nothing specific.

So once again, what is a Plein-Air Frame?
 
Bandsaw,

The Plein Aire, simply means painted on site..... which today is almost meaningless....

But in the 1880s up though the 1920.... it was a tour de force to mount an expedition to go paint in the Yosemite Valley, or Red Rocks, or Death Valley in the spring.

The style started originally with the Hudson Valley School of paintings in the 1820s... the power of the pictures painted had those snobs in Europe branding them as "Fantasy Paintings" or "made up of Plein Air. . . or "of no substance". There were no areas that had the powerful colors and intense textures left that were being painted, save the Alps.

The Americans grabbed on to the title (as they had painted out in the Plein Aire") and it all stuck.

The group out in the Southwest were painting a new style that is best described as "Oils in the school of wet watercolors". The style we know to day and the Plein Aire look of the Southwest School of art.

The new style called for a new style of frames, and the Southwest/Taos/Early California look was born. As a great carver once explained it to me... the look was to let a modestly accomplished Mexican carver, study a Louie XII/XV for about 30 seconds, then have him replicate it a month later. To give it some dress up . . oil guild it in 22kt gold. . . with little to no tone.

The panels are plain, wide and open. Any carved details are puffy voluptuous widths but flat to the plane. The hallmark of a true Plein Aire frame is that you can look at it and know.... it's wood and gold. NO COMPO.

There are some other frames, such as the crossed corners with fluted runners, flat panel with beaded sight.... but those are Arts & Crafts that didn't show up until the Roycroft was in full roar, the Stickleys were at each other's throats and the Green brothers were laughing all the way to the bank.

Marty Horowitz produces probably the closest thing to an excellent Plein Aire... but even his carvers are getting too experienced and good.
 
We have one profile, in several finishes, lipless. I can not recall what size it is off the top of my head.
If you wish drop me an email with your number tomorrow and I shall call you with the size.
Turnerassociatesdy@yahoo.com
 
Oh come on people!

We're all adults here..... lets drop this "lip-less" koi dropings.

The term is "unadorned sight". It means "the sight edge has no markings that would distinguish it from the field."

Resume your discussion.
 
Baer Charlton said:
Bandsaw,
...The hallmark of a true Plein Aire frame is that you can look at it and know.... it's wood and gold. NO COMPO.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the background. The other indispensable quality of a wide plein-aire is that the miter joint must be visibly pulling apart, a little more in the inside than the outside. This mandatory quality is due to wood shrinkage in the dry Southwest air, as any real plein-aire will be made of fairly green wood. Those building a plein-aire from the git-go will initially want to adjust their saw about 1/4 degree off of true.

Forgot this is a Southwest thing. You can't find a single gallery within a day's burro ride of here that doesn't have at least 4 of these things on the wall. 5" moulding around around 8"x10" oils, that's the basic concept. The big flat panel amounts to a sort of ad hoc matte, so it's really not as bad as it sounds. If you own a frame shop in these parts you had better stock these things or lose your Community Art Guild customers to Mr. Blick.
 
I actually knew what Pleinair meant in the world of art - it was the frame style thing that lost me.

I had a Larson Juhl Concerto display in my shop last month and I could have refered to some of the frames as Pleinair - missed an opportunity but then again Concertos would miss the price point by a long way.

It will be fun to tell the fancy artist from California that looked down her nose at me because I didn't have any Pleinair frames that I don't sell low end junk like that - I fired her as a customer but she keeps coming back.

Thanks Baer.
 
Just drive up to Santa Fe and visit Marty Horowitz at Gold Leaf Framemakers. Whatever you need, they can do it for you.
 
PaulSF said:
Just drive up to Santa Fe and visit Marty Horowitz at Gold Leaf Framemakers. Whatever you need, they can do it for you.
Click to expand...
Marty is my idol. Problem is, he wants more than $10 per linear foot, which is at the near-wishful upper end of my budget. Anybody passing through Santa Fe needs to visit his showroom/gallery. You will be beyond dazzled.

http://www.goldleafpictureframes.com/

showroom.jpg
 
Every time I read "lipless".. all I could think of was chickens.
 
Bandsaw said:
I actually knew what Pleinair meant in the world of art - it was the frame style thing that lost me.
Click to expand...

Plien Aire frame to me means the artist wants it cheap.

It also means using a gold spray painted 1X4 as the liner. Usually under a 1" gold cap with a rounded outer edge.

Oh, and it can't look cheap, so after you join the 1X4 then you can spray paint it so that you get the closed corner look.

Sure you could use gold leaf, but since they can buy it from Dick Blick for a third of what you are gonna charge them you just have to sell it to them for $5-$10 or they'll go elsewhere... or so they proclaim as they march out the door.
 
Plein Aire?

Here's mine - Painting 9x12 $950, frame $1000. Doesn't always have to be cheap. (Painting by Lindy Duncan - a California Plein Aire painter that I feature - from her Venice trip.)


StMarks.jpg
 
Baer Charlton said:
Is that a Munn, Pat?
Click to expand...

Abe Munn American Impressionist 234C Gold Spanish Hassam.

Lindy paints in standard sizes so I can sell a painting with a different frame and just pop another one in (the reason I made a deal for a couple of demos). Since I've put them on her paintings, I've sold about a dozen of them [frames] - some in antique metal, though. It's a killer style on any "impressionist" painting.
:popc:
 
The thicker, beefier outside rail/frame was the give-away. It's more of a "framers" style.

So.... what does that say about us framers that we personally like chunkier, beefier frames.... :eek: :D
 
And we aren't afraid of ornament, either. The American Impressionist frames are my favorites, but my customers recoil in terror at the idea of ornament in the corner.
 
HEY!!! I resemble that remark!!
 
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