Years ago, when in Hawaii, I bought some notecards that had
tropical flowers such as orchids and Hawaiian grass embedded in lacquer. I
loved the cards for they reminded me of my cherished nature place. I brought
them home and I delightedly informed my then husband that I planned to frame
them. He scoffed, “They’re just cheap notecards, Liz.” Undaunted, I had a frame
store fashion custom mats and gold edged frames for them. I proudly mounted the
notecards myself, Windexed the glass, sealed the backs of the frames with
masking tape and hung them – six of them – in an elegant arrangement on my
wall. Those pictures have hung in five different homes over the past thirty
years.
My daughter’s a professional photographer, but you already
know that, for her stunning photos are part of my blog. She has taken some
amazing pictures all over the world – and yes, she has done photo shoots in
Hawaii. In comparison to her brilliant work, those notecard flower pictures
have become too dingy, too impersonal and much less relevant.
A few weeks ago, I decided replace the notecards with photos
of tropical flowers that Stephanie had taken, thinking I could re-use the old
matting and frames. Excited to begin my project, I cut out prints from a weekly
calendar that Steph had gifted me with some years ago. The frame matting was an
olive green, completely the wrong color to complement her photos. Undaunted, I
came up with the bright idea of repainting the mats, using long ago stowed away
watercolors. I brushed on layer after layer of red and yellow in an attempt to
hide the green and finally succeeded in achieving a muddy rose tint. I wasn’t
completely happy with the results but I pushed on, only slightly discouraged. I
mounted the photos in the mats only to find that the sizing was completely off:
the mats were not wide enough in one direction and were too long in the other. Erg!
I kept at my floundering project, plodding on, refusing to give up. I added a
white strip below the picture: “Steph can sign here – make it kind of like a
formal autographed print,” I reassured myself, halfheartedly. By this time I
was getting pretty tired and frustrated from my less than stellar artistic
attempts. Nevertheless, I pushed on, wanting to finish the dratted project. I hurriedly
placed the pictures in the painted mats, put them in the frames and mounted
them on my bedroom wall.
“No, no,” Stephanie announced as I sheepishly showed her my
botched creative endeavor. My daughter was absolutely right: my framed
concoction looked awful. She and I are planning to have new prints made and
will mount them in new matts and frames that will fit perfectly.
And therein lies an important lesson: I can’t always use an
old frame for new work, no matter how hard I try to make it fit. And hasn’t
that been true in my life as well? I’ve so often had to reframe how I view the
world. How about you?
Nice!
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