Certified Picture Framer (CPF)
Understanding the Certified Picture Framer (CPF) Designation
A Certified Picture Framer (CPF) is a prestigious designation administered by the Professional Picture Framing Association (PPFA). The PPFA conducts the five-hour CPF exam twice a year, testing in the following areas:
Art and framing preservation
Framing knowledge
Mechanics of framing
Mathematics of framing
Art and image mounting
To ensure that CPF-certified framers remain current in the professional framing field, they must retake the exam and recertify every five years.
This is an arduous and rigorous process, which is why very few framers pursue CPF certification. Red Wing Framing Gallery is proud to be one of only five active CPFs in Minnesota.
We take great pride in our professionalism and our commitment to the highest industry standards. This dedication should be important to any client who values their art.
Art for hire
Re-Framing a Norman Rockwell Concept Sketch
Recently, this Norman Rockwell concept sketch came into the shop to be re-framed. Rockwell would rough sketch a proposed painting, present it to a potential client, and solicit feedback. Hopefully, he would be awarded the project, complete the piece, get paid, and then move on to the next project.
Does the fact that an artist is directed what to paint diminish the art itself? Not at all. Artists who can support themselves solely through their creative output are rare. Taking on commissioned projects is only a small step from being a full-time commercial illustrator. The final result might not always be the artist's first choice, but finding opportunities to be creative within the boundaries of a client's expectations requires a unique skill set and artistic maturity.
This brings us to an exciting upcoming exhibit that was just finalized this week. The working title (subject to change) is "Tough Guys and Tough Cookies." It will showcase original art used for pulp magazine covers, which often depict dramatic scenes with someone in peril. This sub-genre of illustration art required artists to be efficient and productive. The paychecks were smaller than those of their peers, but it allowed them to make a living creating art.
This marks the third consecutive year we've had the pleasure of collaborating with Grapefruit Moon Gallery. The first two shows (original pin-up art and original Cream of Wheat art) were very successful. This exhibit will be a bit different but consistent with our mission of presenting 20th-century illustration art and its various subsets. More details will be shared next week.
New name - new web site - new challenges
Evolving with the Times: Our Business and Website Update
People who invent snappy metaphors to describe business principles might say something like, "A small business today is like a great white shark—always on the move, never resting, never sleeping." That sounds way too contrived. It’s best to simply say that a business must constantly ask itself what it does for a living, and whether it's where it wants to be in doing that thing it does.
The name change is more about acknowledging how this business has evolved. We frame, we print, and we do anything in between. It was also time to freshen up the logo—to shine our shoes, so to speak. This was harder than you might think because the fonts used are fabricated for our needs. They aren’t off-the-shelf fonts, but they do have a basis in the history of this business. It’s too difficult to explain without hand gestures.
The new website is another matter. The changes appear mostly cosmetic, but under the hood, it is an entirely different animal. It would take a rocket scientist to explain the differences, and unfortunately, one isn't immediately available.
With any new website, it’s very easy to be driven crazy trying to chase down every image resizing requirement or some dropped HTML code. This is called 'overhead' and produces no income. Overhead bad. Income good.
But, you do what you have to do, when you have to do it.