Making a piece of art can be notoriously difficult. But what can often go unnoticed is the frame housing the art.
But that’s OK for Michael Clare, owner of Clare Framing and Art off 68th Street and Thomas Road in Scottsdale.
“I would prefer we’re not even noticed really. The frame needs to be a part of the artwork,” Clare said.
For over 40 years, Clare has labored away making frames for pictures, paintings, plates made by Picasso, or anything else that a customer comes to him with.
“Someone came to me with a number of sports jerseys, and they were growing this collection. Football, baseball, basketball and others,” Clare said.
It’s something that can require days and weeks of planning alone in order to come up with the best idea to present what people want displayed. In order to make the frames for sports jerseys, Clare worked with a cabinet maker.
Clare had to work with magnets, wood, acrylic and metal slides to house the frames.
“I built a total of 60 frames, 30 in each cabinet. And the cabinets have sliding glass doors in the front. So you open the sliding glass door on one side, you're able to actually pull out a frame and then slide it back into the cabinet. So that just took a lot of engineering,” Clare said.
It’s a business that has faced dwindling numbers throughout the years.
“The 2008 rehousing bubble, there were roughly 20,000 people doing picture framing in the United States of America, whether at a Hobby Lobby, Old America, Michael's, or a custom shop like this, or out of their homes, it's a large number of people. From 20,000, I think it dwindled down to about 6,500, because no one needs a picture frame the way they need a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk,” Clare said.
And the frames can come with high prices. Those prices have admittedly created conflict with customers.
“Most people don’t know what goes into the crafting of a frame, how long it takes, the expense of raw materials, and the rent and everything else. So picture framing is exceedingly expensive, I know I would think that if I were walking into a shop,” Clare said.
One frame that Clare is working on to store African masks has a price tag of about $5,700.
“Gulp. That’s a lot of money,” Clare said.
But those prices have had to go up as the costs of materials and prices from his vendors have climbed over the years.
But it’s something that Clare said people keep finding value in.
“Art has an impact on our world. Whether we turn on the radio, we go to the symphony, we listen, we see, we feel the world of art. And to not have the arts would be a very lonely existence to me, to walk into a home, whether an apartment or a multi-million dollar mansion, and to have zero art in any place would be sad,” Clare said.
Maintaining the business for so long has required smart money practices, and getting started required the kind help from a lot of people. His mother let him use her car to drive to clients, and his father helped him get off the ground.
“My father was very kind to me, he saw the passion I was germinating and he said, ‘You know what, there's that spare bedroom back there. Use it,’” Clare said.
From there, he was able to get clients who stuck with him for years, helping him stay afloat.
“I had these people who really truly believed in me and they said, 'Michael, you can make a picture frame but you can do so much more with the display of art,'” Clare said with glistening eyes.
For Clare, the business has been an opportunity to foster and nurture a community, something that art is intrinsically able to do.
“All of the arts are very nurturing for one's soul, for one's community, so we can have a Phoenix Art Museum, have a Heard Museum, have a museum of the Southwest here in downtown Scottsdale. People attend those places."
"Why? They nurture. They love those things. They love being part of the community. ‘Oh, Sally and George, meet me at the art museum. Let's get together for lunch after that.’ It's a part of who we are as a culture,” Clare said.
So Clare keeps working away in his studio, contributing his part to the community he loves, cutting oaks and pines, building frames for the pieces he takes on, ensuring they shine with the life and spirit imbued deep within each one of them.
“I'm addicted to art. I'm addicted to woodworking. And it's with me forever,” Clare said.
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