Saturday, March 31, 2007
Framed! Well, Almost.
The unbelievable is happening!
Today, after several ultra-busy weeks, I finally took the time to look after my own matters.
Almost felt guilty doing that.
"Did you go to a SPA?".
No.
"Relaxed in the garden, listening to the chirping birds and gazing at plant-ruining squirrels?".
Nooooo.
"Ah - of course!! you painted!!!'.
Nope.
I started to frame my paintings!!!
The show, to which none of you bothered to come, is going to be taken down tomorrow, and we are putting a new one up on Sunday. And this time, I am having two paintings there.
Oh yes, of course I'm one of those who'll be taking down the show tomorrow.
And hanging the new one on Sunday.
My name is Nava, and I am addicted to volunteering, Eh.
Took me a while to pick paintings for this upcoming exhibit, as this one is spring-themed, and my colors are, well, usually more in the November to March zone. And yet, I managed to find two paintings that would fit this show.
And they need to be matted and framed.
"A matter of 20 minutes", you say.
Well, not quite.
I am not one of those who trot to the framing store and leave heaps of money just to come back a couple fays later and pick up the framed work.
I am doing it on my own. Cutting the mats (yep, I have a mat-cutter. Logan. Love it), the backing board, assembling the frame - with help from The JohnnyB, the guru of precision and the human level.
Started at 3:15pm.....
- - - - - - ....finished around 11pm, with lots more white hair and wrinkles than I started off with, and exhaustion beyond belief.
WHY?
Because it took forever to decide which size frame I want for one of the paintings, several Emails and phone calls to some wonderful artist friends who helped me with great advice and encouraged me to put a small painting in a huge frame, so it looks fancy rather than apologetic.
Then - because the first and last mat I ever cut was 6 months ago, for the first show I participated in - it took a long time to reincarnate the memory of how-to, while arguing passionately with the dude on the Logan DVD that came with the mat cutter (the DVD; that is; not the dude).
Then The JohnnyB and I had some educational debates about the most efficient way to do it. Me, I would simply cut it the stupidest and fastest way, just to get it done with; but The JohnnyB actually wants it to be efficient so it's easier next time. Well, who cares about next time? I'd rather do it now quickly, and get all stressed up again next time, as long as I don't need to spend more time now... Opposites attract, they say? Whoever "they" are, they are right.
Then I finally cut the outside dimensions of one of the mats - and soon realized the mat was not perfectly straight. That intriguing fact has thrown me into a catatonic state for a while, putting me on the verge of stopping to do art altogether and going back to hi-tech. (I was tired, OK?).
Then angelically-tolerant The JohnnyB figured out how to fix it, and became my hero forever and ever.
Things were starting to look bright, and I was starting to actually enjoy it - until, as I was cutting the second mat for the first painting, acting in sheer confidence and swift movements and a pinky raised in nonchalant craftswomanship, I, like, well... forgot to change the production-stop thingy to the right size. And, as I was cheerfully pulling the beveled-edge cutter towards me for the very last cut, it did not stop where I wanted it to.
ahhhHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A bloodcurdling scream was then sounded all over the Bay Area, with some echoes reported in Southern Oregon, and I went into a frenzy of wrath.
Have I ever mentioned I am an Aries? one of those who need immediate satisfactions, and if something goes wrong, no matter how small it is, we go crazy for 2 minutes, scare our surrounding to death (poor The JohnnyB), and then go back to business?
(Hey! I never said we are mature! Never!)
Of course, that was the last matboard of that color, and it was 7:45 pm. Friday.
A hysterical call to the neighboring Aaron Brothers revealed that they are out of this color.
Another emotionally-imbalanced call to their further store revealed that they have 2 sheets left, and The JohnnyB and I jumped into the car and drove there with screeching tires, snatching the two matboards from the astonished and slightly amused cashier, who was eyeing me with growing concern as I was hugging them as if they were the very last matboards of Frost color, #8466. Well, they were!
Came back home, finished cutting the mats for one painting, cut the two mats for the second one (which was totally uneventful), and then, with a huge sigh of relief and intense sense of achievement, cleared the kitchen. And the living room. And the corridor. And the den. (the alert reader will notice that all our house space was recruited for this task - except for my studio, which is messy beyond entry).
And then we finally had our early dinner, at 11pm. Bread, cheese and grapes, like true artists.
Mind you - we haven't even started framing!
All that chaos was just about mat-cutting... and merely four perfectly-cut mats were produced. Only one matboard was harmed during this blog.
But - I have to say, the two paintings look truly impressive in their mats.
Put a nice mat around any piece of crap - and it becomes magnificent art. Well, sometimes.
And no, theses two paintings of mine are not crap. I am actually very proud of them!
And, in all that saga, the JohnnyB had his favorite little joy, that he has each and every time I get near the mat cutter.
OK, so the mat cutter has this production-stop thingy, that you put on the ruler-thingy it stops the beveled cutter. This is a brilliant feature, as you don't need to recruit all your senses in order to come to a halt exactly on the line and screw up the corners (as usually happens).
However, the only fault is that this little genius thingy has a weird shape and a screw, and I always fail to decipher how to put it on.
And so, The JohnnyB buys first-row tickets, brings popcorn, sits back, relaxes, and watches with awe as his lovely wife, who has been a pretty damn good engineer for over 9 years, is struggling with this little nasty piece of metal, tongue out in extreme concentration, expression such as that of a caveman who's trying to figure out the Geiko commercials, and bascially acting like a slow-developed one-year-old who's consistently insisting on shoving the square piece of the puzzle into a round hole, hoping the hole will eventually surrender.
Add to that his lovely wife being tired and cranky and sleep-deprived and wanting to get done with it and being somewhat(!) short-tempered - - - - you can imagine the festivities.
And we are still together.
It's like all the patience that I lack, The JohnnyB has extras of.
Sometimes, I check his back for wings.
And tomorrow, we frame!
Labels: Art, Wonders of The JohnnyB
# posted by Nava @ 1:09 AM 
Comments:
Yeah - mat cutting is right up there with packing for a vacation in the "fun" department.
Actually, Nava's getting much better at packing - the process now starts days before, with selecting the clothes, and finishes the night before (instead of after we're supposed to leave for the airport). But there's still the "I don't know" phase, and the waffling on whether to take a 3rd complete set of clothes or not (just in case 2x what you need isn't enough).
Ahh - mat cutting. Where 16-4 is 8 (16" frame, 4" mat border on 2 sides yields 8" of picture visible). Ok - it involves 1/4" and maybe an 1/8" sometimes, but still not advanced math. Just draw it out. I'd think about making a spreadsheet to help out, except in matting, it's pretty important to understand what you're doing and why, so not so good to just be told the answer.
Oh - and the joyous explosions of anger at small mistakes. Guess being a pent-up kind of person (I'm simmer and simmer and simmer and then explode), working with a expressive type (basically no simmering - something goes wrong, explode - and don't change the explosion size based on the magnitude of what went wrong...) is always so much fun.
Good thing I love her.
Hey, it's not my fault that you peoples are working with this stupid Imperial-method, where there are 12 inches in a foot, 16 ounces in a quart and 17.43 wehuohs in a khghod! And let's not forget that damn Fahrenheit.
I even have to translate cold and hot to English!!!!!
Even the Brits have upgraded to the more logical metric system. Wake up!
HEY!!!
once.
Once.
ONCE in a millennium we eat just cheese, bread and grapes, and The JohnnyB's viruses are now blamed on me?
All them dinners I make him while he is conquering the world with "Civilization IV", all those dishes I wash - - - I am soooooooooooo protesting now!!!
The whole matting and framing thing sounds like a nightmare.
Mark and I bought a the supplies once to make our own "stencil" for the foyer. I was going to be creative and do an original piece that wouldn't look like a store bought one. Well, after a bit it looked more like a butcher job and of course there's the tension from the expectation of perfection that's NOT being achieved and the fact that we both thought it would be EASY.
Good to look back an hour later and try to apologize for the remarks we made to each other like,
you're not doing it right!!!
and
why don't you do it then?!!!
bread, cheese and grapes sound like the perfect meal.
# posted by 
: 4/01/2007 7:58 AM
Welcome back, Rhonda!
For the record: it never, EVER, turns out the way you want it to.
you always have this perfect outcome in your head, and once you put it to reality, it is soooooooo far from it... but then again, that's part of the fun - otherwise, why bother, when you know the result, Eh?
Glad it's not just The JohnnyB and I snapping at each other over nothin'.
And yes, it IS the perfect meal.
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Actually, Nava's getting much better at packing - the process now starts days before, with selecting the clothes, and finishes the night before (instead of after we're supposed to leave for the airport). But there's still the "I don't know" phase, and the waffling on whether to take a 3rd complete set of clothes or not (just in case 2x what you need isn't enough).
Ahh - mat cutting. Where 16-4 is 8 (16" frame, 4" mat border on 2 sides yields 8" of picture visible). Ok - it involves 1/4" and maybe an 1/8" sometimes, but still not advanced math. Just draw it out. I'd think about making a spreadsheet to help out, except in matting, it's pretty important to understand what you're doing and why, so not so good to just be told the answer.
Oh - and the joyous explosions of anger at small mistakes. Guess being a pent-up kind of person (I'm simmer and simmer and simmer and then explode), working with a expressive type (basically no simmering - something goes wrong, explode - and don't change the explosion size based on the magnitude of what went wrong...) is always so much fun.
Good thing I love her.
I even have to translate cold and hot to English!!!!!
Even the Brits have upgraded to the more logical metric system. Wake up!
once.
Once.
ONCE in a millennium we eat just cheese, bread and grapes, and The JohnnyB's viruses are now blamed on me?
All them dinners I make him while he is conquering the world with "Civilization IV", all those dishes I wash - - - I am soooooooooooo protesting now!!!
Mark and I bought a the supplies once to make our own "stencil" for the foyer. I was going to be creative and do an original piece that wouldn't look like a store bought one. Well, after a bit it looked more like a butcher job and of course there's the tension from the expectation of perfection that's NOT being achieved and the fact that we both thought it would be EASY.
Good to look back an hour later and try to apologize for the remarks we made to each other like,
you're not doing it right!!!
and
why don't you do it then?!!!
bread, cheese and grapes sound like the perfect meal.
# posted by : 4/01/2007 7:58 AM
: 4/01/2007 7:58 AM For the record: it never, EVER, turns out the way you want it to.
you always have this perfect outcome in your head, and once you put it to reality, it is soooooooo far from it... but then again, that's part of the fun - otherwise, why bother, when you know the result, Eh?
Glad it's not just The JohnnyB and I snapping at each other over nothin'.
And yes, it IS the perfect meal.
