A Work of Art

For nearly 65 years, some of the most glorious art in Los Angeles has been enhanced by the hand of Ted Gibson.

Which makes the 90-year-old picture framer himself one of the city’s greatest treasures--at least to the generations of people who have entrusted him with their oil paintings, watercolors, engravings and prints.

“He’s a national treasure,” corrects Dorothy Real, a Pasadena interior decorator who has sent all of her clients’ paintings for Gibson to frame since 1952. “He’s an extraordinary pillar of Los Angeles.”

Gibson works in a crowded 7th Street shop a few blocks west of MacArthur Park.

The front of the store is filled with samples of his work. The walls behind his ancient, crank-equipped cash register are lined with more than 1,200 sample frame corners arranged as colorful, inverted Vs.

The back of the rambling building is crammed with mat-cutting tables, canvas-stretching racks and woodworking equipment. One wall is covered with deep, 15-foot-high shelves jammed with long strips of unfinished oak, maple and walnut molding.

The scent of varnish and paint fills the air. A light coating of fresh sawdust covers the floor. A feeling of pride permeates the walls.

“Here, look at this,” says wood finisher Antonio Oyarzabal, rubbing his fingers along the smooth joints and edges of an 11-by-14-inch ash frame he has sanded by hand.

Oyarzabal has worked for Gibson for 22 years. Others on Gibson’s work crew have spent as many as 29 years there.

They cut, carve and paint every frame by hand. Gibson will tolerate none of the computerized automation that mass-produces picture frames sold these days at other places.

“We have a fax machine. That’s about as far as we’ve gone,” he said.

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And that’s just fine with Gibson’s customers, who routinely drive from San Diego and Santa Barbara or ship canvases and prints from as far away as British Columbia and Connecticut.

That’s different from the 1940s and 1950s, when the busy Wilshire Center area was home to the city’s fanciest department stores and interior design shops--not to mention four major art schools.

Otis, Art Center, Jepson and Chouinard classrooms were located within walking distance. Thousands of art students studying under the GI Bill bought supplies from Gibson and then came back to have their work framed.

Gibson was more than happy to oblige. He had come to Los Angeles in 1933 to open a New York art supply company’s West Coast branch. Soon, he was framing pictures for customers.

“I’d been doing framing since I was 14,” Gibson recalled. “At first the old-timers wouldn’t share any of the secrets about things like mixing glue. So I went to the library and read up on it. When the old-timers saw I was serious, they opened up.”

Los Angeles artist Marion Pike quickly took notice of Gibson’s work.

“I said, ‘Ted, they don’t appreciate you. You should go out and start your own company,’ ” remembers Pike, who now divides her time between homes in Hancock Park and Paris and has displayed her paintings in Gibson’s frames for more than 50 years.

After World War II and a stint on an Army water purification team, Gibson took Pike’s advice.

Soon he was framing works for such artists as Georgia O’Keeffe, June Wayne and Robert E. Wood and for celebrities like Zero Mostel, Katharine Hepburn and Vincent Price.

Actress Joanna Cassidy, whose art collection includes 18th-century paintings as well as contemporary works, said she trusts Gibson like no other framer. “The amount of years he is doesn’t even come close to the amount of wisdom he’s garnered,” Cassidy said. “You really get a sense of the changes our world has gone through since he’s been here when you talk with him.”

Longtime customers say Gibson’s enthusiasm has never faded, even in the face of personal challenges. His wife, Lillian, died in 1991. His daughter-in-law died a short time later and his son David died eight months ago--orphaning three of Gibson’s grandchildren.

He now supports the three children, including a 17-year-old grandson who lives with Gibson.

Nicole Ruskey, a Los Feliz art collector and a Gibson customer since the early 1980s, said Gibson also looks after an elderly former employee. “Ted takes him out to dinner two or three times a week to make sure he has food,” she said.

Adds lawyer Robert Sandler of Beverly Hills, who has taken artwork for Gibson to frame for 25 years: “He’s someone you’d like to be the grandfather of your children.”

Artist Lew Deetz, who bought paints and canvas from Gibson 40 years ago as a Chouinard art student, now works for Gibson. He helps write up framing orders on the same carbon-paper forms that Gibson has used for half a century.

They were up to order number 822,923 (“I hope to reach 1 million,” Gibson says) the other day as Deetz and Gibson chatted with customer Jose Casillas about a frame color. Casillas is a hair salon owner from Los Feliz who has brought pictures to Gibson for framing for 17 years.

“We sometimes disagree. But we always come to an agreement in the end,” Casillas said with a laugh. “Most of the time Ted wins.”

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Casillas and others say they were jolted when Gibson talked of closing the business after his wife died. That prompted such a rush of work that the old framer was forced to reconsider. He now says he has no plans to retire.

That means his make-them-from-scratch way of framing pictures will continue. For now.

“When I die all of this will be dumped,” Gibson said, gazing at his shelves of unfinished molding, including such rare woods as the “wormy chestnut”--so named because it comes from trees killed by a 1922 East Coast insect infestation.

“No one keeps inventory now. They just order chop service--lengths of molding cut to size.”

Customer Wilson Winnek, a tax expert who lives in the mid-Wilshire area, has proposed that Gibson donate his wood inventory to an organization that can teach others the art of hand-crafting picture frames.

Winnek acknowledged that some things--like Gibson’s personal style--may be difficult to pass along, though.

“Like last December, when he framed a Chinese robe I got as a Christmas present for my wife,” Winnek said. “When I came from work to get it, it wouldn’t fit in my car. So Ted put it in his station wagon and drove it home for me.”

There’s an art to kindness, too.