Five Things To Know: Jo Powell on the Art of Framing

It started with a class that Jo Powell took as a military wife living at the Kadena Air Base in Japan, where her husband, Jim, was assigned. 

“Next thing you know,” Powell said, “I asked if I could volunteer (at the frame shop on base) and the operator asked, ‘Wouldn’t you like to get paid?’ And I said, ‘Don’t you have to know something first?’ ”

“You took the class, didn’t you?” the operator said.

Powell concurred, then followed orders to check in at human resources.

“By the time I got home,” she said, “the phone ran and I got the job.”

And so a career — and eventually a business, “Frames by Jo”— was born.

Now, living in the Greater Brandon community of Valrico, Powell sets up shop in her garage, where she initially worked in the heat and alongside “mosquitoes and bugs."

“When we renovated, Bob Shiver put in the air and James (my son) built counters and tabletops and we’ve been in business ever since,” Powell said.

Over the years, Powell knows that her job depends on these five things:

• Color — Choose wisely your matte, that sheet of cardboard that acts as a mount or border around the showcased item. “You want to bring out the colors in the picture,” Powell said, and not create a distraction.

• Math — Frames have to measure up.

• Tools — Knowledge of saws, matte cutters and glass cutters is essential.

• Preservation — Paper yellows with age. Acid-preservation techniques are constantly evolving and imperative.

• Passion — “When someone picks up the finished piece and opens it for the first time and you see the smile on their face,” Powell said about her best moments in the business. "That’s when you know you got out of that picture exactly what they wanted.”