In a stuffy room, we found a man in his 30s sweating over painting frames. My friend showed him an oil painting with a boat under the rising sun. She explained to him the canvas was loosely mounted and the original frame didn't match the painting. From the piles of sample frames, we finally settled on one that had silvery abstract relief patterns. The man quickly set to work. He sawed a stick about 4 m long into four parts and stuck them together to make a frame. While he was working on the frame, his wife took the canvas off its old frame and retightened it.

"We've been working in Beijing for some eight years," said the woman with a slight Jiangsu province accent. "It is only in the past few years that we've seen a sharp increase of customers asking for Western style mounting."

Most people who mount paintings come from Jiangsu and its neighboring Zhejiang province, where small private factories are quick to produce new painting frames according to market demands, she said.

The couple rents three rooms of a courtyard house in a village outside the southeastern 3rd Ring Road of Beijing. Their neighbors, too, have all come to the capital seeking a better life by using their artistic talent. Next door, a young couple from Northeast China paints abstract art, which they sell in a nearby art building.

In fact, it was from that building we began the journey of searching for the best painting and frame to match. We, like many Chinese eager to add more artistic style to their newly furnished homes, were looking for pieces that were both attractive in price and as a work of art. Due to the growing popularity of Chinese art in the international market, there are more places to find art than ever before, and more people have found jobs in the booming business.

Most of the stores in the unobtrusive four-floored building had copies of Western arts on display. But, we lingered in a store that showcased pieces on rural scenes of Northeast China. "These are done by an art professor," said a young lady.

I particularly like one piece about 40 cm wide, which depicted a snow-covered birch forest. But, the lady asked for 1,200 yuan ($170), way beyond my modest budget.

Nevertheless, she recommended us to her neighbor, whom she said does a good job with mounting paintings. A big table took up most of the small room, where a woman was flattening out a piece of calligraphy to put it into a glass cover and wooden frame.

We were dissatisfied with the lack of choices. She recommended her younger brother's studio, where more frames were on display. Across a labyrinth of narrow alleys, we finally found the couple among the rows of similar-looking studios.

To our joy, the couple asked for a very reasonable price. A mirror with an elaborately decorated oil painting frame 1 m wide and 2 m tall was a mere 350 yuan, half of the market price. "We believe honesty and credibility will sustain our business," said the man.

(China Daily 06/26/2008 page20)