Kirstie Bennett and Jeff Goldberg, The Framer's Workshop, Berkeley, CA, framed the University of California Home Plate in a shadowbox. Double mats were cut on the Wizard CMC in University of California colors to outline the shape of the base and its plaque. Jeff constructed a triangle made from stretcher bars that were on hand. The triangle was attached to the three flat rubber sections on the back of the home base. A matching triangle was then cut out from a sheet of Coroplast. The stretcher bar triangle was then dropped into the Coroplast The package was backed with another sheet of Coroplast running in the opposite direction and installed in the frame The shadow box was made with mat walls in Cal blue.

[Note: The Framer's Workshop was mentioned in this closing section of a much longer to-the-trade article about Computerized Mat Cutters (CMCs) in Picture Framing Magazine, September issue, 2008. Included in the article was a photograph of our framing of a UC Berkeley Softball Home Plate.]

The Mat Doctors

Safe!

The University of California Home Plate was created by Kirstie Bennett and Jeff Goldberg, whose challenges included mechanically supporting the home plate. A CMC was used to cut the multiple opening mats into the irregular home plate shape. Most CMCs have the ability to pull an existing shape from a library of files and change the proportions and rotate and scale it so that with a few clicks a unique shape is ready to cut. Plus, the subsequent layer is also in perfect registration. With a mat design like this, a CMC holds a distinct advantage versus manual mat cutters

When very unusual shapes are needed that do not exist in the files/library, most CMCs have some software typically built in to create what is needed.

Computerized mat cutters are useful and can enhance your creativity as well. Many times complicated design patterns or ideas can be accomplished by programming a CMC. CMC design opportunities are endless and quite often allow you to produce imaginative pieces in less time and with more accuracy than a manual cutter can. It is up to an individual framer to decide when it is appropriate to use a CMC and when a manual cutter is the better choice.