Mounting a Memory

One of my favorite parts of being a custom picture framer is that each job is unique in its own right. Some require more creative design than others. That was the case when a client came into the shop the other day with an animal skin.

Her husband is an avid hunter, which is something we’re pretty familiar with here is Tuscarawas County. But in this case, he had returned from a safari hunt in Africa. While there he had managed to bag a Kudu. In case you’ve been alarmed by recent news reports on African trophy hunting, Kudu populations are large and healthy and their hunting delivers needed tourism dollars, permit fees and even meat to the local people.

Our client’s husband had already mounted the Kudu and hung it in his office, but they still had the hide in a bag where they had never decided what to do with it. As we spread it on our work table, we talked over the possibilities of how we could include the beautiful Kudu skin alongside the existing mount. We eventually decided to keep the skin looking rustic to fit with her husband’s personality. We also talked about what to mount the hide to in order to best create the feeling she was looking for. We hit upon the idea of using something meaningful to their family. They have an old family farm that’s always been important to them so we decided to incorporate it into this piece.

We went to the farm and got some weathered wood from the barn. We then sent that wood to a local woodworker whom we work with who planned it down to a uniform thickness and finish. Then we used some rustic tacks to mount the hide to the reclaimed wood. Finally, since it was such a heavy piece, we mounted it for our client alongside the existing Kudu decorations in the office. To keep is secure, we got some heavy bolts and painted them with a hammered metal finish. Then we use the bolts to secure fix the finished piece to the studs and spaced out some additional bolts to give it a final, finished look.

This was a first for us, but we love new challenges and new ideas. And in this case, we also got to take a peek inside a new industry and a new family.