Shoji-Inspired Tension Frame
A Project From 2023
I FOUND A POSTER for one of my favorite movies, Spirited Away, in a surf shop on the Jersey Shore. Interestingly, it was a Japanese version of the poster. It was also printed on fabric. As soon as I bought it, I thought … okay … what am I going to do with this? So, it sat for a few years.
One day while wandering through my head, I kicked over a pile of old neurons, and a memory suddenly jumped out at me of something my mom had on the wall when I was a child: a fake “oriental” garden scene on fabric hanging between a couple of pieces of split bamboo. Thus inspired, I set out to make a fancy equivalent of that hanging frame upon which to stretch my movie poster.
The frame is made from poplar. There are horizontal rails behind the fabric that make it vaguely reminiscent of a shoji screen. The top and bottom of the frame are shaped a bit like the kasagi from a torii.
If I do say so myself, this project exhibits my most apropos use of threaded rods. They function to keep the poster fabric taut.
A Japanese-inspired frame for a Japanese movie poster
Threaded rod stretcher detail
