If you`re in the mood to redecorate your home, take a good look at your walls. That`s one place where your personality can shine.
Displaying art, photographs and other mementos is one of the best ways to add individuality. But it`s not just the objects that attract attention. Sharing the spotlight are frames of all sorts-from gilded to silvered, carved to inlaid wood; marbleized, painted, beaded; made from cloisonne, fabric, ceramic and glass. Materials also include a rainbow of colored metals, sterling silver, laminates and sometimes exquisitely decorated mats, handpainted or imprinted with fancy borders.
Framing is big business, a $3-billion-plus industry, according to the Professional Picture Framers Association (PPFA), an international group of about 7,000 retailer members.
In addition, some frame manufacturers are providing the art, which includes reproduction lithographs, silk screens, engravings, serigraphs and simple prints, offering framed art as galleries might but at more affordable prices than originals.
Framed Picture Enterprise, a Memphis-based company, engaged superstar designers Mario Buatta, Jay Spectre and Raymond Waites to create framed artwork that would be compatible with their respective furnishings
collections. Products range from $20 to $800.
At Pier I Imports, wall decor represents about 5 percent of the total business of 50 categories, that`s a substantial chunk, according to buyer Becky Baker. Wood, metal, acrylic and some ceramic picture frames are available, ranging from $7.99 for 5-by-7-inch to $44.99 for 24-by-36. The stores also sell inexpensive prints that look quite elegant when triple-matted and packaged in gilt frames; one 26-by-32-inch still life, for example, retails for $89.99.
Randy Bourne, who used to be management supervisor of an ad agency and before that a small-town photographer, launched a mail-order catalog that has evolved in just four years from one that focused on designer shoeboxes for storing photos to a sophisticated source for hundreds of styles of frames, photo albums and even lights for frames.
”We have tried to bring fashion into picture framing,” said Bourne, president of Exposures. ”Frames are an integral part of interior design, a very personal part.” Bourne`s firm, which is based in South Norwalk, Conn., now is designing and supervising production of about half its picture frames. Spiegel Inc. home-fashions director Bette Frank Rosenberg says the popularity and variety in frames is exciting. ”You can create your own look,” Rosenberg said. ”Express yourself through your wall decor, whether it`s with a family picture of a wonderful holiday, art from your favorite gallery or a piece of ceramic pottery.”
”The framing industry has become very design-conscious,” said Raymond Waites, whose New Country Gear frames echo the sophisticated country style in his interiors. ”Both men and women have an educated design eye today. They want quality, things that are special.
”We`ve found people responding to the very fashion-forward, of-the-moment styles,” said Waites. ”When animal themes started to become popular-leopard prints, alligator shoes-we started using animals prints as mats for pure drama. We did ostrich skin with gold inner liners, in baroque frames.
”When tartan plaids started surfacing three years ago, we did them in mattings and tied them to country horse scenes with burled framing.”
Exposure`s Bourne feels there`s room for a variety of styles. ”Most homes are eclectic. We do have a lot of points of view we want to appeal to.” Bourne said we`ll be seeing Murano glass frames as well as frames that combine fabric with wood and fabric with leather in the near future.
That doesn`t mean a frame style need reflect every decorating style in a room.
Waites is fond of unusual juxtapositions. ”Like the idea of wearing a wonderful piece of antique jewelry on a cotton shirt, I like those contrasts in interiors, such as taking a more opulent frame and putting it in a room that is very casual. Five years ago I would never have had gold-leaf frames in my house. I would have thought them wrong, too much. I recently framed a beautiful dog painting-my wife loves dogs-in nice traditional gold leaf. I hung it with my country folk decoys and rocking horses. It just brought the whole room into the `90s and made it sing. That contrast is what gives a room visual texture and interest.”
Trends in hanging art or photos also have been influenced by relaxing some old rules. ”For so many years there was just a single large important picture above a sofa, for example,” Rosenberg said. ”Today it`s almost anything goes.”
”The most wonderful room I ever have been in,” said Rosenberg, ”was one with white walls, white carpeting and two white love seats facing each other. On one side were floor-to-ceiling windows. On the other, two walls were covered with wonderful framed art collected over the years. The simplicity of the room and the drama of the art were really incredible. When you have pieces you love, that reflect your personality, sometimes that`s all you really need to decorate a room.” –
Sources: Exposures, 70 S. Main St., Suite 300, South Norwalk, Conn. 06854 (203-854-1610); Framed Picture Enterprise, 177 Highway 6 West, Batesville, Miss. 38606 (800-284-4939); I Was Framed, 1577 W. 132nd St., Gardena, Calif. 90249 (213-327-6265); Pier I Imports, 301 Commerce St., Suite 600, Box 961020, Ft. Worth, Texas 76161-0020 (800-447-4371); Professional Picture Framers Association, 4305 Sarellen Road, Box 7655, Richmond, Va. 23231 (800-832-7732); Spiegel Inc., Regency Towers, Oak Brook, Ill. 60522-9009 (708-986-8800).
