Step Into the Frame

A peek inside the “crazy exciting” world of custom framing

By Kierstin Gunsberg | Aug. 16, 2025

On the surface, custom framing may seem like a calm, quiet career where picking the just-right shade of cream matting to accentuate a favorite childhood photo is the gist of the gig.

But, as Jane Garrett, manager of Traverse City’s Fusion Fine Art Framing and Gallery (located in The Camera Shop on Front Street) and Jennifer Nowak, owner of Juniper Framing Studio in Petoskey (located inside the antique store, August) explain, it’s actually quite the adventure in social studies. Clients bring them everything from spoons and toilet paper to disco dresses to eight-foot flags to ready for display.

And when asked what the most interesting piece she’s ever been tasked with framing was, Garrett is a little hesitant: “I don’t even know if I should tell you,” she says, before revealing that it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill black and white candid or heirloom oil painting but a certain phallic walrus appendage, a project she recalls as “not overly pleasant.”

True, not everything the framemakers work on is overly pleasant, but as Nowak puts it, it’s almost always “crazy exciting” because “you’re like, ‘Wow, I would have never have thought of that.’”

Creativity and Restoration

For both women, who have a combined 50+ years of experience in the custom framing industry, and who both started off in the niche role downstate before working their way Up North, their job is a cool behind-the-scenes peek into what folks in their communities hold near and dear. “It’s their desires, their loves and passions,” says Nowak.

It’s also a service that—despite the gamut of websites and apps now offering custom framing for a fraction of the cost of in-person—is as in-demand as ever, especially with those who feel overwhelmed by the endless combinations of frame materials and mat colors.

“I think people are uncomfortable with their own creativity,” says Garrett who describes her role as part design guide, part preservationist. “I just like to let them know it’s okay to be creative—what you like might not be what I like or what someone else likes, but you’re the one who’s going to be looking at it, you’re the one who enjoys the art. So, let’s make [sure] that you can enjoy it for a long time. You know, preserve it.”

That last part is one of the most important aspects of Garrett’s job, and one of the best reasons to visit a custom framer instead of grabbing something off the clearance shelf at Target where there’s no one to help choose the right glazing (that’s the clear glass or acrylic layer) or to make sure there’s an adequate amount of space between the glazing and artwork to prevent UV and moisture damage.

Tricks of the Trade

Nowak, who opened the doors to Juniper Framing Studio just this past December, also helps clients figure out the best way to display their mementos while keeping them safe. Sometimes, the mementos are the frames themselves. In her 500-square-foot workspace, Nowak not only builds custom frames for clients, but restores old frames too, some from as far back as the 1700s.

And just like the pieces she carefully works her way around, restoration is an art form unto itself—one that Nowak learned on the job starting when she was 19, with a little homegrown inspo and instruction too. “My mom restores furniture,” explains Nowak. “So, growing up around that, it really helped to bring me a love of antiques and it was almost a natural step being around it and learning how to do it.”

Restoring frames that are decades, if not centuries old, is a delicate process of Nowak finessing her way around gold leaf and grooves with dremels and brushes. One knee-jerk move and things could go awry.

“You’re picking through the design of the filigree…cleaning it, prepping it,” and she says, working toward the goal of casting a mould to create a replica of any pieces missing within the frame, then adhering that replica “to make it look like nothing ever happened.”

Sometimes, the design (or damage) is so complicated that she has to ditch the mould and hand carve the new pieces herself. Ironically, less intricate designs are tougher to work with, since they don’t have as much to distract from the toll time has taken on them. For her most elaborate projects, Nowak’s hourly rate might jump from $60 to $100 per hour, but not everyone who rolls through her studio has big bucks to spend.

When clients come to her on a tight budget, she says she’s all about upcycling, pulling out her generic stock of moulding or turning toward secondhand frames. She jokes that she’ll even suggest scouring her clients’ yards for wood to chop down for free. “I want to be able to help people that need hands-on [assistance]. I think that’s what keeps people coming,” says Nowak.

Changes Ahead?

Even though the framing industry isn’t challenged by a lack of demand, tariffs on the materials custom framers use has their supply chain looking a little murky, with some suppliers putting shipments on hold or cancelling them altogether because “they don’t know what they’re going to end up paying by the time it gets to the States,” says Fusion’s Garrett.

Those tariffs are also impacting the styles her clients are opting for. “In the ’80s and ’90s, everything was in a metal frame,” she explains. Shiny brass, matte black, and that moment in the early aughts when gold Victorian and baroque framing was all-in, has kept metal as the top contender for decades. But now, it’s not the cheapest or even the most popular option anymore.

“Now we’ve got barnwood and we’ve got hardwoods,” says Garrett, who juggles upward of 18 project deadlines each week as a nearly one-woman show.

As word-of-mouth spreads across the Petoskey community, snowballing traffic for Nowak—she’s worked with over 100 clients on multiple projects each since opening Juniper—she guesses she’s likely to outgrow her current space in the near future. When she does, she hopes to bring on a couple apprentices to pass her skills and, eventually, her business on to.

“As I get busier, I’m hoping to be able to bring my family aboard and train them how to assist and truly make this a family business,” says Nowak. “That’s my goal, having something I can hand down to my family, my children or my husband or whoever ends up with it.”