For an upcoming exhibition I went through the artwork I wanted to exhibit. And I had to make some decisions whether to frame some of the work or not.
Up to now I never was a fan of framing textile work, I do not know why. Maybe because of the tactility of textiles…
But now things changed and I tried different solutions. Maybe the reason was that I need to display a whole series of work, and a similar display does group the work as one. Here some examples of my thinking:
This work was mounted on paper (left). I put it in a photo mount and a narrow metal frame. The textile piece is fixed only at the top. I think the framing adds importance and value to the work and the black mount emphasizes the colours.
In this example the work had irregular edges and the straight edge on the right did not match to the frayed edge of top and bottom. The black mount with the narrow white edge matches well with the work. The dark mount and frame emphasize the flower motive.
Nevertheless for display I will always remove the glass of the frame. It enables loose threads or even layers to flow freely from the work across mount and frame. It would be pressed flat under glass and would not have the same effect.
And then I tried some stretchers (wooden frame with canvas) which are normally used for paintings. It worked well for some of my openwork fragments and takes the work slightly off the wall:
I used this method for another piece. The surface can be painted in any colour beforehand.
Left: mounted on white paper. Right: mounted on black painted stretcher.
It was good to think about display and framing and try some options which I ruled out before. This opens up a range of new display possibilities.
Quinary 