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FINE ART | PHOTOGRAPHS | MEMORABILIA | POSTERS | NEEDLEART| AWARDS | DIPLOMAS | DRAWINGS | PAINTINGS | JERSEYS
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Experience matters when handling your most precious memories!
Poster from an exhibition that I worked on in college, even before I started framing.
I began framing in 1984. My experience includes:
Museum head framer and preparator
Wholesale distributor framing educator
Retail framer, manager and shop owner
I've been Preparator at the University Museums at Colgate in Hamilton, NY since 2017. There, I've created museum mounts, framed artwork for the galleries and also executive offices. I've installed exhibitions for both the Picker Art Gallery and the Longyear Museum of Anthropology.
I built the 42 foot long case in the photo above for an accordion-page book. In essence, it's a floor-mounted frame.
For nine years before that I was head framer at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where I was responsible for all exhibition framing as well as all the framing needs of the museum. I was entrusted with some of the most important contemporary artwork in the world. I also worked directly with professional artists in presenting their work for exhibition.
The hand-painted movie posters in the photo above required custom sized stretcher bars that I designed. Sometimes, the frame is on the inside!
While working at a picture framing materials supplier, I ran the education department. I wrote curriculum and taught framing classes to customers who were either starting up their framing businesses or sending their employees for training. I ran a five-day framing school once per month, which was supplemented by a series of intensive, one-day courses on specific elements of framing craft such as needleart framing, mounting of artwork, and decorative matting.
As a retail framer and manager, I did custom work for private customers, and commercial framing for restaurants, hospitals and health care clinics—even a movie set or two. The shop also did work for the Minnesota Twins baseball team and the Minnesota Wild hockey team.
For the Twins, we would mat and frame a photo of a player, with a second opening in the mat for a plaque. The team would give these frames to their commercial partners as a holiday gift. We framed 80-120 of these every year.
When the Wild franchise began and opened the Xcel Energy Center arena (now the Grand Casino Arena) in St. Paul, we framed real hockey jerseys that bore the number of the luxury suite along with the sponsor name where the player's name would be. Some suites had multiple sponsors, and each sponsor required a unique jersey to be framed. That first year we framed 75 jerseys during our Christmas rush.
We also framed jerseys, souvenir pucks and autographed player photographs that the Wild sold in their gift shop, and other framed items that the team gave away as thank you gifts to their sponsors or auctioned off to raise money for their foundation.
In addition to museum quality conservation matting, mounting and framing, I also build frames, display furniture and custom mounts from brass and acrylic for presenting all kinds of artwork and artifacts for private collectors and museum exhibitions.
Please visit my Gallery page to see more projects.