In my daytime job as a picture framer, I come across work that’s literally bigger than me and this was one of them. Though not the largest (that was an old Schweppe’s poster that was about 5 ft. x 7 ft. and I had to hire a U-Haul truck to deliver it) it’s a good size at 42″ x 72″. It’s often a feat of engineering to figure out how to put something like this together when acid-free mount board and matboard only comes in sizes up to 40 x 60 so some splicing of the materials had to be strategically made with consideration for both aesthetics and structure.
When cutting the materials–and most of this had to be cut by hand since the usual cutters also go up to only 40 x 60–it takes a lot of constant measuring as being off a hair can result in being off a quarter-inch in six feet if the angle is off. While I normally would insist on using plexiglass on a piece this size, I had to use glass because the customer was in fact a glass dealer. Luckily, he was also willing to maneuver it into place for me so I could then finish up the piece, working from the back. Braces and proper wiring techniques completed the process and this was the result.
I had to take a picture of this before the customer picked it up and believe me, I was so glad it was out of here with nothing worse than some pulled back muscles from stretching and bending. Obviously in my line of work I’ve gotten loads of glass and razor cuts–the worst from a piece of glass 8 x 10 that required a dozen stitches in my leg. I imagined losing an arm or leg to this one if anything went wrong.
But it’s done and I’m sure this collage of old movie stars (it’s a wonderful print!) looks just grand in someone’s home tonight.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology