Original art comes in many forms. Look very closely at the piece of art pictured with this article. At first glance it appears to be a painting, but it is not! This is an example of Chinese silk thread embroidery. Done entirely by hand, this piece took a team of 3 women months to finish. It is created entirely of fine silk thread stitched into a white silk "canvas". The fine shading and details are created by separating silk thread into thinner strands, occasionally just a single filament that is only about 1/10th the thickness of a human hair. Sometimes after tediously preparing a filament it is used to do only one stitch. The result is amazingly realistic.
This art form has evolved with the history of silk in China, dating back over 4600 years. Silk thread art is done in other parts of the world, most notably in India and Africa, but no one produces silk "paintings" with the detail and subtlety of the originators of the craft.
The vivid color and complex textures in this masterpiece suggest that the framing be simple. While the subject of the art is anything but modern, a contemporary style framing defines the image well while allowing the art to capture all of our attention. To maintain the theme, the frame is a black cube with just a hint of a raised natural wood grain and it is lined with course unbleached silk fabric, naturally! Because of the delicacy and fine detail of the art, museum glass protects both the image and the silk liner. While it is practically invisible to the viewer, it will protect from physical and light damage for many, many years. The picture you see here was actually taken after the glass was installed. We hope you enjoy seeing this beautiful piece as much as we did in our shop when we had the honor to work on it.
This is an example of “custom” art framing, where the nature of the artwork, it’s theme, the story it tells to the owner, and conservation considerations are all planned into the design and production of the final framing presentation. The term “custom framing” is often used loosely to indicate any frame cut to a non-standard size. This is unfortunate as it leads to misunderstanding of the many considerations that should go into properly framing decorative art.
Additional examples and useful background information on “custom” framing can be found in the resources section at www.fastframelakeville.com or at www.facebook.com/fastframelakeville.
