Exactly one year ago, we had the opportunity to witness a total solar eclipse.  Below you can read about how this special occasion turned into a framed craftsmanship that a customer will cherish forever.

 

 

The story

 

The total solar eclipse of 2017 was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and one of my customers wanted to capture the memory by framing a piece of memorabilia from that day. It was a poster commemorating the event created by a local artist he had bought at a concert, signed by friends with whom he had shared the experience.

 

 

The design

 

Customers often expect designs for framing a poster to be simple. For this piece, we wanted to do something special. As we looked at the elements of the poster, we began to identify some opportunities to take this flat item and create a multi-dimensional piece that brought the sense of movement of the sun to life. Our idea was to add a mechanical function inside the framing package, something we had never done before, to represent the shifting sun and moon. The unit is actually a clock mechanism with images of the sun and the moon at opposite ends rotating within a half-dome so that only one or the other is visible at any single time, inspired by this feature often seen on grandfather clocks.

 

 

Behind the rotating sun and moon is an image of the night sky with the major constellations embossed on a black mat. Below the half dome is the poster dry-mounted on foam board. These features are surrounded by an Artique winter (#A6200) mat with an Artique tangerine (#4987) mat providing contrast around the perimeter. The poster and half-dome are float mounted above another Artique winter mat embellished with sparkles to represent major stars and white puff paint to highlight smaller ones.

 

 

The frame is Global Art inlaid moulding, complementing the colors of the poster, anchored with a frame made with Global Art dark walnut moulding on the outside. The piece is glazed with Museum Glass®. Not only did the customer prefer this glass after seeing it on our display wall, but its clarity also made it the ideal choice for a piece with so much detail and movement. Given how often total solar eclipses happen, it was important to make sure this piece was well-preserved with the 99% UV protection Museum Glass offers.

 

 

Though the client was impressed with the piece — and surprised at the clock mechanism — this project wasn’t without its challenges. Working with the mechanical unit was very complex, and the weight it held needed to be precisely balanced in order to get it to work properly. Building the rest of the piece around it required the same attention to detail.

 

 

The response

 

The piece was revealed during a customer appreciation event I held at my shop, The Gallery at Finer Frames, in Eagle, Idaho, late last year. This type of event is a great way to engage the community and showcase the amazing ways custom framing can display, preserve and protect customers’ treasured memories. We were thrilled to be able to surprise and delight our customer with our creativity and inspire others at the event to consider how we might be able to help them capture their own frameable moments.