Donna McGinnis: Framing timeless interludes

Donna McGinnis is an artist who can delve between pure abstraction and landscape with fluidity and painterly ease. Most frame shop's typically design framing for abstracts by pairing a neutral or high contrasting finished moulding with some aspect of the painting or the decor. And this is the correct procedure. But when Donna's work came into the shop via an independent collector I was reading on the paragonality debate (the "inter/exterior" of the frame and the artwork) and wondered how to design the framing with this high theory in mind.

The result was a solid ebonized walnut frame and a 1/2" inch float mount between the edge of the work (on heavy paper) and rabbet. The drawing, a grey color field processed over a lot of undertones, is floated above the mat and suspended just under the glass by an additional support with spacers keeping the glass firmly in place at the lip of the frame. The drawing is one of Donna's early works and had originally been framed using low-grade materials and had some mild discolorations around the edges.

Treatment for neutralizing acids in paper is possible but can be expensive, so we used archival adhesives for the spacers and backing to minimize 'off-gassing' in the framing package. I could imagine that some museums would line the inside of the frame with linen tape or tissue, but to keep costs down we're relying on the alpha mat spacers.