In the last few days I have posted snapshots of recent teaching tours in Australia (Sydney, Brisbane/Gold Coast, Melbourne) and Russia (Moscow). If you care to have a look, here's a link. September was a crazy-busy month, not to mention the additional month of work to prepare in advance. The experiences were wonderful, but it's good to be home for a while.
The Australian framers are very much like American framers, in terms of materials and equipment, practices, and the industry's body of popular knowledge about specialties such as preservation, object framing, and production framing. Their retail market has not deteriorated as far as our has - at least, not yet. The influence of mass-marketing framers and big-box craft store chains is not prevalent, but those segments of the framing industry are getting started down under.
The Russian framing market is entirely different. Generally, they are unfamiliar with what we call preservation framing and other specialties, but they are eager to learn. Moreover, their framing industry is much less mature than ours. There are plenty of framers; a leading Russian supplier noted that there are about 600 framers in Moscow alone, but they have not had educational opportunities or even an awareness of framing education, until recent years. They're all working and learning on their own, with little or no technical guidance. I wonder if the Russian framing market is something like the American framing market might have been back in the 1950s or 1960s.
In addition to a couple of UK framing educators, Mal Reynolds and Lyn Hall, John Ranes, Tim Framer, and I attended the Moscow International Framing Forum. The MIFF was the second of two major framing trade shows in the same place, about two weeks apart. Two competing supplier factions have not been able to come together in organizing one large, successful framing show, but the two smaller venues seemed to fulfill the intended purposes. The MIFF was well attended and successful by all accounts.
The first show was attended by Rob Markoff, so maybe he will comment on his impressions of that show and the Russia framers in general.
The Australian framers are very much like American framers, in terms of materials and equipment, practices, and the industry's body of popular knowledge about specialties such as preservation, object framing, and production framing. Their retail market has not deteriorated as far as our has - at least, not yet. The influence of mass-marketing framers and big-box craft store chains is not prevalent, but those segments of the framing industry are getting started down under.
The Russian framing market is entirely different. Generally, they are unfamiliar with what we call preservation framing and other specialties, but they are eager to learn. Moreover, their framing industry is much less mature than ours. There are plenty of framers; a leading Russian supplier noted that there are about 600 framers in Moscow alone, but they have not had educational opportunities or even an awareness of framing education, until recent years. They're all working and learning on their own, with little or no technical guidance. I wonder if the Russian framing market is something like the American framing market might have been back in the 1950s or 1960s.
In addition to a couple of UK framing educators, Mal Reynolds and Lyn Hall, John Ranes, Tim Framer, and I attended the Moscow International Framing Forum. The MIFF was the second of two major framing trade shows in the same place, about two weeks apart. Two competing supplier factions have not been able to come together in organizing one large, successful framing show, but the two smaller venues seemed to fulfill the intended purposes. The MIFF was well attended and successful by all accounts.
The first show was attended by Rob Markoff, so maybe he will comment on his impressions of that show and the Russia framers in general.
