As a member of the Lincoln County TN Art League, I was asked to participate in a community project. The library was moving into their new building and the Art League was in charge of reframing some old photographs of the members of the “Round Dozen Club” which founded the Library in 1892. I was asked to provide mats for the photos with the names and titles of the ladies along with a small plaque listing the originial members. 

My personal challenge was that I had to cut and letter the mats without knowing what would be going into each one and no idea what the framing would look like. I was told the frames were being donated as well and they were going to be cherry wood or something like that. I only had a list of the names of the ladies and their titles and I had not seen the photos that were to be placed in the mats, only some scans that were sent via email. I was told that the photos would be 8×10 so I should make the mats to fit. Since I was responsible for the writing, I was assumed to be the best judge of what materials would needed. I could “choose any color for the mats as long as it was white”, keeping in mind that some of the photos were black and white only while one or two had distinct cream tones. Anyone who’s ever looked closely at paper, paint or envelopes will know just how many variations there are of white! I managed to find a color that seemed to strike what I hoped was a happy medium. My next challenge was to decide on what color gouache to use. I know that black would be too stark but I also had to think about what the frames might look like so I finally mixed some brown/burgandy that I hoped would work very well. The plaque was lettered on a piece of matboard from the center of one of the mats. Once the mats were cut, the lettering was done relatively fast and I was able to deliver the mats on time.

I had my own hurdles to jump doing this task but I’m very proud of the way they turned out. I hope to eventually get to the library and get photos of the pieces as they are framed and hanging on the walls.

Here are some pics of the work I did: