My Word | Getting in the right frame of mind

Although I would imagine a bishop’s mitre to be equally as unforgiving if it didn’t fit.

Because I’m a struggling artist who often struggles with reality, I set myself the task of learning how to make picture frames rather than pay a professional picture framer, who, in my experience, are all jumped-up box makers and frustrated artists.

My old dad always said if you want something done properly, do it yourself, and he was a scientist and a military-grade bomb maker, so he knew what he was talking about. I mean, you wouldn’t trust a campfire lighter to make your bombs, would you?

Now, the most exciting part of any new project is the research. I just love digging deep and discovering those handy little tips and hacks that make your work a cut above all the idiot amateurs out there.

So, I went straight to YouTube, which contains the total sum of human knowledge on video.

I soon realised that all professional mitre-makers use a common-sense approach based on sound technical knowledge accumulated over centuries of experience.

I went down a glorious wormhole on the history of the mitre to find the ancient Egyptians used mitre joints in chair decorations; the Chinese invented the super-strong three-way mitre joint in the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644), and the term mitre does actually come from the joints used to construct European bishop’s hats in the 15th century.

Absolutely fascinating stuff but completely useless if you’re learning how to make a mitre joint.

What I needed was a cordless electric sliding compound mitre/drop saw with a double bevel. Now we’re talking.

I chose one with a blade coloured in deep earthy carmine — slightly purplish but much closer to red than crimson. This wonderfully complemented the bold Cubist sheen of the base and other moving parts. It even had a red laser beam.

The only problem was that it terrified the living daylights out of me. Yes, I know I’m a bloke, and I live in regional Australia, and I have a tough wood chopper beard, and I helped refurbish my own verandah, but I find power tools just plain scary.

Anyway, my yoga teacher says overcoming a phobia is a stone to be stepped over on the path to spiritual enlightenment, so I bought some wood, placed it on the saw table, pressed the start button and pulled the blade down. When the blade hit the wood, it sounded like a jet engine swallowing a flock of fat cockies. No wonder I can hear every backyard building project from here to Numurkah on a Sunday morning.

The noise was so excruciatingly loud that it even made Prince Finski sit up — and he’d been stone deaf for years.

Three days and $150 worth of splinters and offcuts later, I held up my first mitred picture frame.

It was perfect. It looked like the first mitred frame on the first morning of the Renaissance. All it needed was a picture to complete the logical marriage of mathematics and art.

Unfortunately, the picture was one millimetre too big for the frame. I left it as a conceptual statement on the ability of the artist to think outside the frame. I haven’t sold it yet.

John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.