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"We are building tomorrow’s antiques,” says Rolf Gruller, General Manager and co-owner of Framer’s Workshop in Scottsdale, Arizona, recognized as one of the top custom frame shops in the USA in terms of quality.

He has just finished framing an original Jackson Pollock and a deKooning and they are both perfect, not just the parts you can see but all the way through to the inside of the frame that will protect these pieces for years to come.

The two frames are just as different as the paintings and the artists themselves, and both are exactly what was needed to set off the work and show them at their best.

He walks us through to the clean room of his large custom framing shop where three of his 9 employees, who have been with him for over 20 years, are mounting artwork and working on final assembly.

There he shows us the frame shop’s latest project which involved everyone. It’s a 129” x 98” frame of a vintage poster. It will just fit through the door of his shop if it is carefully taken out at an angle.

“We all did the work on that here,” says Rolf. “This was a shop project. When it was flat it took up all four tables. I’m proud of that one. Due to our extreme care it went perfectly”

“The mill doesn’t make that molding in those lengths so they had to do a special run for me. It’s something that looks simple when it’s done. You don’t take this to just any picture framing store. We thought we were going to have to build this on the client’s site. The first frame we selected was 5” wide. This is only 3” wide. With a 5” frame we would have had to have the parts shipped up to them and assembled all the components together on site.”

The finished frame, including the Plexiglas, weighs about 200 lbs.

The installation of the mounted and framed vintage poster was another adventure all of its own and Rolf along with a team from Art Solutions carried off the whole project perfectly. This sort of work takes the meaning of the term “custom framing” to a whole new level.

When it comes to framing, clients often assume that if it looks good, it’s framed well. Rolf says, “I’ve always held that it is those parts of framing that you never see that are the most important. I’d rather see a piece of art framed well with a modest amount of presentation than a really expensive presentation in which the artwork is compromised. In the market we too often see presentation emphasized and artwork compromised.”

One of the first concepts that Rolf indoctrinates into his staff is that he always wants frames coming from Framer’s Workshop to exceed industry standards. Quality is more important than speed. They are always to take the necessary amount of time to complete a project correctly and to always use the best materials and techniques.

“My philosophy here is, when somebody takes apart something that was framed by us, they can look at it and say, ‘Look somebody did it properly.’ We see quality too infrequently and we take apart and reframe a lot of work here. As a marketing philosophy it’s hard to share this idea,” Rolf continues. “Most people don’t get that. There’s a mentality of frames just being frames: you know, it’s easy, just put some sticks around a painting and it’s done.”

A most important part of the art of framing is in properly attaching paper artwork to its backing. Most paper art should be attached with hinges made of Japanese kozo paper with starch paste as the adhesive. The attachment has to be acid free, reversible, removable, non staining, and weaker than the art it supports so that it will release during a traumatic event. There’s only one thing out there that hits all 6 criteria and that’s starch paste and a mulberry paper. All adhesive tapes leave residues and should never be in contact with artwork.

“We see frightening things done to artwork all the time,” says Rolf. “We try to correct the damage and to always do the right thing to preserve the art.”

The frame serves a number of vital functions. First of all it protects the art from the environment. (This includes damage from handling, light, insects, pollution and everything else that our culture can dish out.) It also has a decorative function that gives us aesthetic pleasure. It contains and presents the art. It is possible to make anything look better by properly framing it. It is also easy to make a good piece look bad, by choosing the wrong frame. “The Frame is the reward of the artist” is a quote attributed to Degas. The framed piece must also fit into its environment, so the placement is also a factor in design.

Walk into Framer’s Workshop and you are immediately exposed to a whole room of samples of hand-made gold leafed custom frames. There are nearly 6,000 different samples on display, including every historical and contemporary frame style and finish imaginable. This collection of frame samples constitutes a major investment for the shop but is needed in order to work out with every client the best individual frame for each piece. Many of these frames are historically accurate replicas of actual antique frames.

Designing the right frame for the piece is one of the workshop’s key functions and Rolf, his wife Kris and the entire staff are experts.

“We specialize in designing with you,” he explains. We don’t just look for the easiest design that matches the colors in the picture, rather we try to embrace the future framed piece as a whole. We try to help our client visualize the completed item, all the while ensuring that the artwork is properly preserved.

Here is where the customization really enters in. “I can do any of these frames in any finish I want,” says Rolf. “We constantly customize them for the individual piece of art. Shades of gold, undercolors, tones, there are so many variables here and we try to really make the frame fit the artwork.

Rolf explains what it takes to make one of these antique replica frames.

“You start off with a raw piece of wood molding, cut and join it and then you hand carve it to follow the detail and style of the frame. You can’t mass produce this detail. Every piece is a different size. Most of our gilded frames are hand made by specific craftsmen who do that style of frame well. That French frame over there–there’s only a few people in the world who can make that kind of frame really well.”

“Once you have built and carved the frame, then you start building layers of gesso on it, usually about 12 layers of gesso, sanding in between each one. It must be perfectly smooth. You have to be a perfectionist to make a gold leaf frame. Some frames have become collectible as fine art in their own right.”

“We take this frame and coat it in layers of gesso. Now it’s all white and polished, then you paint it with yellow clay, which is a much finer earthen material than gesso. The adhesive used is rabbit skin glue and the mixture is applied warm. We paint yellow clay on the whole frame and then sand it again. Then you can really see if there are any imperfections. You know you are done sanding when you can’t see any more yellow. We use 400 or 600 grit sandpaper for this final step.”

“Then we take red clay and paint the whole surface of this polished frame and that is then hand polished again until it’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

“When the surface is perfectly smooth, you lay the 22 karat real gold leaf onto it. There are two methods for applying gold leaf, oil gilding and water gilding. Water gilding allows the frame to be burnished, which makes it shiny. Oil gilding leaves a dull finished that is gold colored, but dull. The gold sheets are microscopically thin. 1000 sheets are about the thickness of a dime. You carefully apply a water and alcohol mixture and then you literally float each gold leaf onto it.” (Rolf demonstrates as he explains. This is NOT a simple procedure.)

Real gold leaves lap lines from overlaps because you can’t butt the small sheets together. Sometimes customers are concerned about these overlap lines, not realizing that this is an inherent aspect of applying gold leaf and is a sign of a real gold leafed frame.

The silver effect on silver frames is created with sheets of 12 karat white gold. Silver tarnishes so it is not suitable for framing.

Then you use an agate burnisher to rub on every single spot to bring up the shine. It also pushes the gold down into the clay that’s beneath it. When it’s looking all bright and perfect you have to seal it and then age it and distress it. We have to antique them because these are antique replica frames.

Once Rolf tried to cut costs for his customers by getting in some cheaper gilt frames. It was a vain attempt. After a while the gold leaf simply peeled off and the frames fell apart. Lesson learned.

There are no shortcuts to quality

The moral of this story is contained in Rolf’s constant emphasis on quality in all aspects of the frames he makes and sells, and each individual, custom job that he does. It has to be done right, whether you can see it or not. And his frames not only look beautiful, if they are ever taken apart, you will see that each hidden step has been done correctly with the future of the piece of art in mind.

That may explain why, 29 years down the line, Rolf still gets excited about each framing job that is done by the Framer’s Workshop.

— David Charles | March 20, 2007

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