You’re assured best-quality work, completion by deadlines, and your overall satisfaction. Getting things absolutely right is second nature (“that’ll do” is not good enough for The CornerShop).
Matching up wood-grain patterns at the corners; aligning knots (if they prove unavoidable) to a picture’s vanishing-points; using colouring-techniques similar to those of the artist; echoing an image’s compositional elements in the mount-textures, or in the sectional shape of a moulding: these are the “meat and drink” of The CornerShop’s everyday ideas. Such subtle points make the surround an inseparable part of the whole, so natural that you can ignore it and get on with enjoying your picture.
By welcoming the unusual, problematic, or special-to-you, The CornerShop has experienced a large range of work that most framers never see. So-called “non-standard” processes, like displaying fabrics, are par for the course (makes you wonder why people feel the need to ask if The CornerShop deals with them — this is a framer’s, right??) Much greater-than-normal knowledge of conservation-techniques and -issues, means you can have confidence in The CornerShop’s advice in this field.
Paul Clarke’s CV
1977 – 78 Foundation course at Winchester School of Art (now University of Southampton).
1978 – 81 Honours Degree in Graphic Design, specialising in Photography, at Exeter College of Art and Design (now University of the South West).
1982 Framing course at West Dean College. First workshop, at St. John's, Portsmouth.
1983 Set up as AAA Framing under Enterprise Allowance Scheme. Moved to Victory Business Centre, Portsmouth.
1984 First major exhibition (paintings by Eric Meadus (1931 – 70)) gave full reign to develop style of ‘sympathetic’ hand-applied colouring (echoing the artist’s method of using colour), then an almost unheard-of concept, even now rarely seen. Second course at West Dean (frame-restoration).
1986 Major commission, secured against tenders from top London framers: a restored English Civil War banner, belonging to a church on Box Hill, Surrey. First of extended series of articles for The Artist magazine, published all over the English-speaking world. Long project, refurbishing 23 frames for H.M.S. Dryad, the Royal Naval Officers’ Training School at Southwick, near Portsmouth.
1987 Framing of, and publicity design for, Two Memorable Men (an exhibition teaming L. S. Lowry (1887 – 1976) with photographer Crispin Eurich (1935 – 76)) at “The First” Gallery, which later toured all over Great Britain. Style of presentation (particularly for the photographs) was much remarked on by curators at tour venues.
1988 In London: work for the Saatchi Collection; the London Lighthouse Project; City of London (Harold Samuel Collection); the Anthony Caro Studio; and many leading – and more obscure – artists.
1989 Left London to follow up other framing contacts, operating from “The First” Gallery. Framed Hampshire Maps exhibition for Hampshire County Council Museums Service, which toured its local circuit of six museums.
1991 Set up as The CornerShop in Woolston, Southampton. Framing for The Animated Eye, Peter Markey’s touring exhibition, which had rapturous reception countrywide. One review even singled out the frames, assuming them to have been coloured by the artist himself! On the road until 1999, it visited over 30 venues and attracted much favourable comment.
1994 Framed all 89 works, in just five weeks (!), for John Hansard Gallery exhibition Photo-Reclamation, later seen in Glasgow, Russia, and Japan. This needed no little imagination: instructions were often rather vague written notes from the Russian artists involved, such as requesting an appearance like “the look of supermarket shopping baskets”. Back then, one couldn’t simply Google "Moscow shopping basket" to get information!!!
1995 Moved home / workshop to Bishop’s Waltham. Framing and publicity design for Architect at Leisure, “The First” Gallery’s third national touring exhibition (of private work by Arthur Mattinson, who designed Blackpool Tower), shown at eight venues.
1997 Made and designed re-vamped security-crating for The Animated Eye. Moved within B.W. to The Old Granary, a multiple-occupancy craft venue.
1998 Framing and publicity design for Passage from India by Jacqueline Mair (seen across England).
2000 20 large photographs by Crispin Eurich, framed for the new Milestones “Living History” Museum, Basingstoke.
2002 – 07 Tutoring framing courses at ACE (the Adult Education arm of Peter Symonds College), Winchester.
2004 7307 Stage 1 Teaching course.
2005 on Tutoring similar weekend and evening classes at Barton Peveril College, Eastleigh.
2010 Set up semi-permanent mini-workshop space back at “The First” Gallery, pending securing new premises in Bishop’s Waltham.