In January 2017 I ordered three prints from Wordbird. We had just returned from spending a somewhat cursed Christmas in Ireland, the highlight of which was both of us getting terribly ill because the whole country seemed to be terribly ill. If I have any resistance to COVID-19 it’s thanks to whatever rogue Celtic strain of COVID-16 I acquired that holiday.
I can’t remember now if I had a specific reason for getting the prints or if I just happened upon Wordbird in my usual post-Ireland bummer zone (also, I would have had a very high fever), but nevertheless at some point they arrived and I took them out of their sturdy shipping tube and admired them and said “I should get frames for these” and then put them back in their sturdy tube and that’s pretty much where they’ve been for nearly four years now.
Do you do this? Buy prints and say you’ll get them framed and then at some point you have to leave them to someone in your will because you’re never going to get them framed? Custom framing is expensive and, worse, involves making a lot of decisions. No thank you! If I want to feel paralyzed by choice I’ll spend some time in the yogurt aisle at the grocery store.
Now that I’ve solved some of the curtain problems in my house I’ve turned my attention to my framing problem. Most anything that is a standard size is just going to get a frame from Michaels, sorry “art” but I only have so much time on this planet! BOGO 50% off craft store frames for everyone.
Around the end of March, when being locked inside was still just something we were doing for a couple of weeks, I bought this print as a…I guess…souvenir of coronavirus? Grimace! In retrospect, it seems slightly tasteless, like framing a WW2 propaganda poster about the danger of catching the clap from fast girls who hang around the docks. But I ordered a frame and it will have a place of honor in our ugly and seldom-seen-by-outsiders second-floor bathroom.
I also got frames for the Wordbird prints but something drastic happened in transit – the box had obviously split open at some point and was haphazardly taped back together. All of the glass in the frames was intact but two of the frames were in pieces. Replacements are on the way, and mark my words, those four-year-old prints will be on the wall by the end of the week.
If I…decide…where to hang them.