“I don’t really like frames for the most part,” said Andrew Berg, a professional framer operating out of a large studio in Potrero Hill. “I don’t like the way they look, and I want the frames that we make to be — best-case scenario — just like a complement, or disappear completely.”

Berg owns Small Works, which makes bespoke frames that look nothing like the wooden boxes that encase most pieces of fine art. His frames are made to fit each piece, either merging with the image or contrasting boldly through curves, complementary colorways, and surprising materials. Along with his team of young framers, most of whom are also artists, some of whom have studios in the shop’s attic, Berg has made frames for the Whitney Museum in New York and mega-gallery Gagosian, and just about every major artist and art-hanging institution in the Bay, from SFMOMA to Tartine. 

“He’s really a framer for the artist,” said San Francisco gallerist Jessica Silverman. She first worked with Berg in 2013 for her show on the artist Kori Newkirk — a show the framer credits as his first big art-world break. Silverman also worked with Berg on the 2019 Isaac Julien show “Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow.” 

“Isaac wanted the frames for these tintype photographs to be totally of the period, with this really glossy ocean of black. So Andrew used guitar paint on them,” Silverman said. “He’s very happy to go deep on what the best frame for a particular piece will be.”

Wry and lanky, Berg has a mop of greying blond hair and blue eyes that read as exhausted but happy to be here. And he appears to be everywhere: he is a ubiquitous presence at gallery openings across the city, and once a month, he holds a dinner at his house, connecting artists with curators and others in the scene. It’s his attempt to expand and fortify a community he’s been part of for two decades.

“I run around a lot,” he said. “I do feel like my social life is basically my work life. Bringing artists and new people together to create the kind of community that I want this to be —  it feels good.”

After moving to San Francisco from New Jersey in 2005 with the goal of being a rock musician, Berg held odd jobs, working as a substitute teacher at Mission High School and a cashier at a liquor store. He took month-long trips to Los Angeles where he honed his carpentry skills building furniture for storefronts. After learning to frame at Sterling Art Services, a museum-quality shop in Oakland, Berg began using his newfound skills to help friends with their art projects.

Many of those friends, whom he met when they were entry-level designers and early-career artists, have become important figures in the local scene. Before making his name as a Northern California interior designer, Jesse Schlesinger was putting together a photo show at City Hall in 2010 and asked Berg to make frames. 

“The way that his frame elevated the work kind of blew my mind,” Schlesinger said. “It’s not like there isn’t a long history of frames being integrated with the artworks, preceding impressionism, but something in the way that Andrew thought about frames — how they could become a part of the work — fits really well aesthetically.”

Then came the project with Silverman and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Soon, Berg had a rotating list of clientele from up-and-coming artists to established names. Not that he really knew what he was doing yet.

“I was literally charging $200 for a 10 hour job because I wanted to make $20 an hour and I had to have a friend tell me ‘Okay that’s not how any of this works,’’’ he said. “I didn’t know how to run a business.”

In 2012, Berg founded Small Works, moving it to Potrero Hill in 2017. In the upstairs gallery space, Berg regularly hosts solo exhibitions for local artists as well as open-call group shows where artists can come hang their works. Though the shop was just named one of the country’s top art-world professionals (opens in new tab) by ARTnews, Small Works is a remarkably scrappy operation. 

“We set prices where the market will bear, but mostly what feels right,” said Berg. “Artists have been a big part of this. This is a hyper-local business and I want it to be that — to produce things that are supportive of the local environment.”

Walking around Berg’s frame shop feels like being behind the scenes at a great art show. Bundles of art from the Bay Area’s most respected institutions are lying around in various stages of readiness. Hung on the walls is a large collection of works gifted to him by local artists in exchange for his frames. 

To buoy his business, Berg has opened an online art gallery that sells work by well-known local artists like Barry McGee and Ruby Neri alongside pieces by his employees and other unique artwork all framed by Small Works. The offerings range from LA Dodgers hats with “Luigi Mangione” stitched into them (opens in new tab) to interior design pieces he’s worked on.

On a large work table in the corner of his workshop sits a row of wooden corners, each with its own twist. During a recent visit, Berg plucked a dark walnut frame with two bulgy ribs that meet in a soft divet. This piece is nicknamed “The Blunk frame,” after the late Marin-based sculptor JB Blunk, who sculpted redwood into monumental furniture and expressionist pieces. 

Mariah Nielson, the artist’s daughter who also works as the director of his estate and runs a Blunk gallery in Point Reyes Station, says that Berg’s frames “felt like the perfect punctuation to the artwork. … Almost like a unique work of art for the unique work of art that I had given him.” 

“Having a good framer is such an important part of any artistic community,” she added.

Berg’s approach to each frame is inspired by intuition and his understanding the artist whose work he’s framing. 

To Berg, the distinguishing feature of Blunk’s woodwork is its biomorphic, tactile qualities. To complement its sensuality, he built frames with the same touchable allure. “There’s this feeling that if you were to touch them, they would feel like a body,” he said. “I wanted to have that feel of wanting to want to touch it.”

Small Works will exhibit the works of photographer Andrew Owen from Oct. 18 until Dec. 13.