Okay. Never go to your basic craft store with a framing department if you want proper conservation framing. Not unless you know what you're doing. Because they certainly don't know what they're doing. I just recalled that one of the purposes of a mat is to protect the artwork from the acid of wood frames. Well - a fillet is nothing more than a tiny frame on the inside edge of the mat. Right next to the artwork.

DOH!

I've never worked with fillets myself, so I didn't realize this very important fact at the time I was getting the matting sorted out for Shidou. And neither did the person who was helping me apparently. It can't be that they didn't realize I was going for conservation framing, because I said as much a couple of times. Sigh.

At any rate, it turns out that what you're supposed to do with fillets is have another mat under it. Not even necessarily showing from underneath the edge. Just a protective layer. I'm not entirely sure what I am going to do about it. I guess the best thing to do would be to go buy a piece of acid-free acetate from an art store and have that overlay my cel. I might also think about how it would look with a little line of mat showing from under the fillet. It'd only be about 1/8th of an inch. Maybe it would look good if it were a black mat with a black core. I could get it cut later on and then put it in place myself.

I'll have to think on what I want to do, but at least I caught onto the fact that there was a problem! I have a term paper assignment to thank for it. I've got a ten page paper to write about cel collecting and my last weblog entry inspired me to write a section about conservation framing this evening. But I think it's time for me to go to bed before I start thinking too heavily on the edges of my beautiful Shidou cel getting all yellow and brittle from the evil fillet acid of doom.

I like that. Evil Fillet Acid of Doom. It's clever and posh. I mean - what normal person has the luxury of thinking about fillet acid?