Erin Salguero

Custom framing is a career that finds you. No one grows up with the dream of becoming a Picture Framer. Subtly, it moulds itself into your life until the craft is so ingrained that you can’t picture yourself doing anything else. It found me through my dream of becoming an entertainment photographer, and over the last 18 years the frame has burnished its way into my heart.

Framing is one of the quiet arts. When done well it does not shout in your face “Look at me!” yet it can still be as grand and opulent as the architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome. How times have changed. In history the master frame craftsmen were more revered than the artist. Today we are flooded with mass consumerism and low quality products masquerading as this ancient craft.

Wanting to learn more about the ancient craft that has such a hold on me, I traveled to New York to intern with Lowy, a company 104 years old. Here at Lowy their craftsmen work with ancient recipes and techniques to create frames that are themselves works of art. These techniques are used to conserve frames hundreds of years old so that artworks can be hung true, in the frames that would have supported them all those years ago. Replicas of these frame designs are also made using historically true techniques again with the purpose to keep the art true. To keep it pure.

Combining knowledge, well-crafted products and the techniques I have learnt at Lowy I hope to keep the craft alive and to keep the art pure.
Artis Pura.