The Matter of Framing

The Frame Matters. I used to think not, but I am now convinced this is indeed to be true. Looking back, it has been just over a year that I started experimenting with various framing systems and approaches, and three years since I started my first gridded landscape or Landscape Mosaic painting. The initial purpose of the gridded work has ironically yet to be fully realized. Originally, I wanted to be able work larger while traveling, and the gridded approach was seen as a solution to ease transport to remote locations. Little did I know that "tile" (official definition is tesserae) management would consume two years of my life outside of work. It was in the making, that the potential adaptability within the composition itself became an aspect of the design.

The simple prompt has unfolded an entire body of work that continues to evolve. The resulting Landscape Mosaics are interchangeable within themselves, adaptable and modular. Some have been translated into a series of sculptures I am calling, Kinetic Landscape Mosaics, while others live as modular paintings that can be rearranged by the viewer. What started as a simple question, has led someplace compelling and engaging.

Modular framing system of 8 columns. Backs of frames and sides are glued together, but interior ribs are "friction tight" allowing for adjustment to the system to accommodate individual variations in smaller canvases which make up the whole work.

Over the past year, as I've worked through various approaches, the framing system has simplified and adjusted to accommodate some of the nuances of the materials with which I'm working. For example, the individual pre-made canvases by Blick that make up many of my Landscape Mosaics are not uniform in size! They vary as much as 1/2"! quite a bit of difference for canvases that are only 6" x 6". Also since the goal of the Landscape Mosaics is to accommodate rearrangement of the works, framing systems that permanently adhere the frame to the canvas aren't desirable. Instead I've worked towards customizing a system that could be used for multiple pieces and adjusted and readjusted.

The most recent set of display frames were made with a few clamps, gorilla wood glue with 24 hour drying sessions, 1" x 2" pine, and 1/4" pine molding. Tools for cutting included a chopsaw and molding snips, a triangle, a metric ruler, pencil, and number 60 sandpaper and a finish sanding block. To see a step by step description check out this other blog post: https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/adjustable-columnar-frame-for-grids

With a working system finally fabricated, this week, I've been spending time in the studio, circling back with my new framing system to rephotograph some of the Landscape Mosaic Paintings. Here are some results from the photoshoot.

Wave Mirror in the Columnar frames. See last year's blog post about alternative framing systems. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/foray-into-frames That system was quite a bit more clunky with visible brads. I am appreciating the simple line of the 1/4" framing edge against the canvas.

Wave Mirror was the first Landscape Mosaic I painted. Based upon an October 2022 visit to the ocean and a walk along a sandbar near sunset in Lynn, MA. It was an unseasonably warm day, 80F, and the water was warm as it often is that time of year here on the East Coast. I waded out feeling the waves against my shins, the sand curling out from underneath my toes, and looked up and then down, and then up and down again, noting that the clouds were reflected in the skim of water at my feet and the view towards the ocean was so similar to the view back at land. The hope was to paint something that represented that sense of continuity and expansiveness, the pull out to sea and the tug back to shore. The original idea was to pixelate the two views so that tesserae from each view could be swapped out to blur the distinction between land and sea. When pushed together vertically, the upper half and lower half form a continuous wave of reflection from sky to water. The work began in Jan 2023 and I kept tinkering with the piece as I continued to work on other paintings. I brought it into the living room to reflect on and ended up changing the color palette on the lower half to better unify the two halves. It was finally completed in Jan 2024 and I as I played with various configurations, I realized that I had stumbled upon something with the potential to be greater than the sum of its parts. This way of working could bring the viewer into the art as a co-curator, choosing and adapting the arrangement of tiles to their space and own experimentation with color and adjacency.

Worlds Beyond Worlds in the Columnar Frames. See previous post about the process of painting edges, and various configurations, This can be split in half and one half flipped to create the reflection in water of the image above. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/worlds-within-worlds-part-b https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/edges-beyond-edges https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/grid-experiment-two-complete

Building upon the first painting, Worlds Beyond Worlds, the second Landscape Mosaic was inspired by a landscape video I made in the Fall of 2023 driving to the airport in North Carolina. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/landscape-videos?pgid=lsqazxab-e6250d1b-744b-4da1-bfbd-a9cb3258fc58 In the video, the pine trees formed a scrim between the car and the sunrise, creating an allusion that the tree canopies appear to peel away from view due to a visual effect known as parallax. I worked in photoshop to isolate individual frames a few seconds into the video and ended up overlaying several frames from the video to serve as a reference photo. In this painting I began to realize the value of each individual tile within the larger mosaic as its own composition and interior landscape. Because this painting is modular it also can be rearranged to simulate the reflection of trees over water or displayed as individual abstract panels. The grid of 4 columns at the left were originally painted to the right. The individual columns can be rearranged as well. This painting is also where I realized the importance of painting edges to allow the eye move freely across the tiles and allow the image to fold just a bit at the corners, eliminating white space or white edges which are distracting.

Dark Side of the Eclipse in columnar frames. This painting can also be displayed on a skew. See last year's blog post about an alternative methods and arrangements. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/foray-into-frames-part-4

The Dark Side of the Eclipse, the third landscape mosaic is a fabricated landscape inspired by camping in Howe, VT in the snow, plein air painting, and waiting for the total Eclipse in 2024. I was inspired by the symmetry of total dusk and the change in light across a 7 minute time frame. The light in the upper 12 tesserae was from the first half of the Eclipse and the light in the bottom 12 is reflected from the last half of the Eclipse. This work, I explored breaking the orthogonal grid and skewed arrangements. The simpler shapes of this composition lend themselves to being rearranged to form a new composition and arranged at 45 degree angles to further abstract the form. The eclipse itself was omitted from the composition (it still lives under the paint), as it interfered with the rearrangeability of the pieces.

September's Ever Flickering Light framed. Linnea the studio dog has been photobombing most of the videos/ photos during this week's session. An earlier version that was more complicated to make. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/foray-into-frames-part-3  In the end I went with something more sturdy. And the Final approach which I completed this week. https://www.rachel-loeffler.com/post/adjustable-columnar-frame-for-grids

Smitten with a 2024 visit to the Forests of Finland's Lahti Unesco World Heritage Site and the density of trees and the paradoxical presence of light (narrow canopies = magical backlight), and deep quiet due to the thick carpets of moss absorbing sound, I launched into a series of forest paintings and sculptures, that would serve as the basis for my first solo show. This piece is the second forest painting in the show and has been translated into a texture painting also. This particular piece works well with the vertical columns of the framing system almost as other vertical elements in the forest. Each column can be rearranged, and at several points, I've mixed up the order of the columns. This piece taught me that a certain level of complexity within the mosaic will lend itself well to creating patterns.