Framing Art

French landscape, antiques, painting, corey amaro, blogging, living in France

 

Do details matter? Is it necessary to read between the lines? Does our unconscious ever take a break?

The antique frame above is three feet by four feet wide. Hand carved wood with peeling gild. I bought it at the brocante fair in our town about a year ago. The painting is from a Russian painter who has lived in France most his life, I met him several months ago. French Husband and I appreciate his oil on canvas landscapes that have a modern twist about them. Gina, our friend who stayed in the house next door and is coming back this month, bought many of his paintings and plans to have an opening later this year. 

An ornate frame such as this one is suited for a less complex painting. If I put the frame in Cassis, where the rooms are small but the ceilings are high it could work. And put the painting off to the side.

Out of frame.

But in focus.

Cassis has my thoughts, I arrange and rearrange furniture and objects, visualizing dreams to be. 

Where things will go, or if they will go remains to be seen.

 

 

 

 

French landscape, antiques, painting, corey amaro, blogging, living in France

 

 

Thank you for your thoughtful, helpful, kind comments about my stirring/writer's block. I appreciate your reading my blog. Your constant generous spirit and friendship. Your putting up with my spelling and grammar errors, my French blog that has a weird name, my jumping from one subject to another… I am rarely focused on one thing at any given time, that makes for last minute decisions or a prettier word spontaneous behavior.

 

 

framing goodness

 

 

 

In writing about my "stirring" and then hearing your responses I felt relived. In the end this is one person's journal and not a literary, newsworthy, travel guide, antique expert, poetic living undertaking.

Just me and you and that is all I need to remember when writing.

So thank you for reading my blog and encouraging me to keep it up as it is.

The stirring will stir bringing me around and around, just as decorating does in my mind about Cassis. I guess if I see it that way then I will have an easier time letting it be.

 

 

French landscape, antiques, painting, corey amaro, blogging, living in France

 

 

The frame is not flat, its angle does not turn inward to show case the interior, as the painting is meant to be at the frame's inner edge to center stage the painting, to bring it forth. If I turned the frame around it would be more typical of other frames. The boarder is about ten inches wide.

In the end what matters about things that aren't important to anything life threatening or serious is how it plays in us and where it leads us to be.

Creative unfolding.

 

 

French landscape, antiques, painting, corey amaro, blogging, living in France

 

 

 What do you focus on? And if you turned it around would the focus be the same?

The challenge for me is to see things not as they are, but what story, life, feeling is between the lines.

To see with more than just with my eyes.

 

 

 



Comments

17 responses to “Framing Art”

  1. Taste of France

    Somebody with as much output as you has a different definition of writer’s block than someone who rarely writes. 😉
    That frame is beautiful. I have a large oil painting by my mother. She let me have it the summer before she died, and I successfully shipped it to France. It is not easy to find the right frame. The professionals keep telling me to do something modern, but I think that is because those are the kinds of frames they have in stock. My mother would not have approved.

  2. I like today’s musings. They fit me – as you so often do. The New Year always brings that soulful contemplative period which has me examining everything, wondering what to keep and what to toss.
    Painful bits included. Lately I see myself for who I am, the things I have done and the things I have collected, rather than who I think I want to be, do and have. I find that if I look at that, I quite like who I am, and I am comfortable with her and not at all worried about what others think.

  3. lanmangina@me.com

    Thanks for the mention honey! Interesting frame and I like it just the way you have it! Beautiful simple or with quirky fun arrangement that you have you always make it interesting! What makes spaces and interiors work in my mind is when it is not completely conventional. You have nailed that over and over! xo

  4. I am LOVING LOVING LOVING this painting in this frame and particularly that the painting floats within the frame, L O V I N G! My mind is reeling, trying to figure out how I can achieve this same look some where in my house of little wall space. This frame is glorious and I love that you know the artist and man, if you ever hung one of my paintings in a frame like that, I’d be over the freaking moon! I am more of a modernist, I love abstract, lean to the look of this combination of old and new and how well they compliment each other. There are more than a few things in your Cassis home that speak to me very invitingly and if anyone has an artist’s eye, I believe you do. There are more ways to paint than with a brush.

  5. I never would have guessed that you experience writer’s block.
    I love the fact that you jump around to different topics and locations. It keeps it all fresh, unexpected.
    I think pictures are words too. And you’re wonderful at taking good ones.

  6. lanmangina@me.com

    Sorry I had to edit. ~Thanks for the mention honey! Interesting frame and I like it just the way you have it! Beautiful simple or with a quirky fun arrangement like you have here, you always make it interesting! What makes spaces and interiors stellar in my mind is when it is not completely conventional adding an element of surprise. You have nailed that concept over and over! xo

  7. I have a friend that uses this saying often, “notice what you notice”. I think if our life is in focus we will notice and be able to share. By the way that is a lovely painting and frame.

  8. I SO agree with pc Brown and the comments made. I absolutely LOVE the painting with that frame. That, to me, is what makes both pop. I see the picture and than I see the frame. Simply stunning.
    I’d love to have that painting. I’m so glad you met the artist. Blesss him and his works.

  9. Just a quick idea. Wd maybe insert a mirror; thus you’d make it work in two sensés for you. You’d enlarge your small flat and make it a statement/use of the very large frame. We have a HUGE mirror in a heavy walnut frame opposite the stairs leading to the first floor. We had to strip it from glued-on fabric-wallpaper, sand it down, not knowing what and how the wood would look underneath. It’s so heavy that you’d have to be three to carry it, it’s safely fixed to the wall and it does wonders to our entry hall! Go for it – and find another frame for your painting…. And beauty is ALWAYS in the eye of the beholder. You’re doing just fine love 🙂

  10. Frame and painting.. Fantastique!!!

  11. Christine

    I love your writing Corey, and thank goodness your mind is like a butterfly. How tedious it would be to be stuck on the same page forever. You take me down your windy lanes each time I read you. Thank you xxxx

  12. That frame is perfect for the picture. Just get some kind of a liner around the picture. Looks fantastic.

  13. Suzette Bannister

    I love what you’ve done with the frame! I’ve always thought there doesn’t need to be anything between the frame and what goes behind it. I did the same thing with a large bronze piece I found in Carpentras on our trip in May, behind a beautiful gilt frame from Belgium. Love it. Now I wish I’d taken that frame from you and shipped it home when I was there! Another lesson learned….what’s one more piece in a big box?

  14. Corey, what a creative, imaginative and oh so successful arrangement for the painting to just float in the frame. It is a beautiful frame and a painting that, I agree, is perfect for the Cassis interior design plan that is coming together beautifully. Your writing today, again, fills the well of need for stirring the creative in me each morning as I begin another day. With so much appreciation for the years of pure delight in walking down the road of exploration and imagination with you.

  15. Alison Whittington

    So lovely, Corey. The frame and painting go perfectly together.

  16. Natalie Thiele

    I’m with you, Kiki. A large mirror in a small space really opens up a room and throws light around. A glorious frame on an enormous mirror-even better!

  17. Shelley Noble

    yep yep yep. I see it.

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