Inspiring Gene Simmons from Kiss

Starting With A 1920's Baseball Uniform

There's nothing like a competition to encourage a framer to flex some creative muscle. Several years ago I entered a national picture framing competition hosted by one of our suppliers. At that time a dear customer had just brought in a very special project, to frame a baseball uniform of her late husbands from the 1920s. The perfect opportunity to create a unique and meaningful shadowbox.

Combining Printing and Framing Technology

Setting the stage by enlarging one of her original 3" photographs depicting the baseball diamond the background was printed on fabric and mounted to an archival backing.  A small but important detail, the image continues up the inside edge of the frame.

I love possessing the tools and ability and to be able to combine different technologies into our framing projects.  With a little creativity the possibilities are almost limitless.

The oversized image of the baseball diamond created the perfect stage for the rest of the design. The actual uniform was then hand stitched to itself and through the backing board to hold it securely in place.  The rest of the images were scanned and re-produced on the same fabric and wrapped over archival foam core to create mini three dimensional pieces mounted at different heights within the composition.  We also included a framed picture with in the frame for some variety. The final result was outstanding! 

Where Does KISS Come In?

This was my final entry to this national competition and I was thrilled to come in 2nd place.  Content with my second place offerings I went on to deliver this family treasure back to a very happy customer. Fast forward several months and my representative from that supplier happened to be doing his rounds. I mentioned to him how I would’ve loved to have won the display board that was part of the 1st prize. He wondered about my entry so I showed him a picture and he reacted by opening his sales binder. Within was a full page sheet showing my entry to illustrate what can be done with creative custom framing!  A framing rep in the States showed the same picture to Gene Simmons from Kiss and so I am told they created a project for him using this design concept.

So there you have it, what a local picture framer, a baseball uniform and Gene Simmons have in common. By the way the rep thanked me by sending me the prize I had wished for, win-win!