A Frame-Maker’s Journal
Updates and reflections on our work and mission to revive the art and craft of framing pictures. Here I'll show you new jobs we're especially proud of and keep you up on what's going on at the Gallery, as well as discuss topics germane to our work, including handcraft and work generally, the place of art, and ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement (especially its greatest leaders, John Ruskin and William Morris).
I hope you’ll subscribe (see the form in the left column) or at least check back often. And I welcome your comments!
—Tim Holton
A Continuous Harmony
We are in the final stages of framing and preparing the gallery (a minor remodel is underway!) for next Saturday’s opening of our show, “A Continuous Harmony: New Tonalist Paintings by Robert Flanary and Paul Roehl.” The reception for these wonderful a... continue reading.
Great Re-framings: William Keith, John Muir and the Wilderness
We’re finishing 2014 with a flourish, having just re-framed two paintings by one of California’s greatest landscape painters, William Keith (1838-1911). The first is dated 1872, the year his fellow Scot John Muir introduced Keith to Yosemite, and so has grea... continue reading.
Framing a Hudson River School Painting
Feeling very privileged indeed to have had the chance to frame this classic view of the Hudson River by a Hudson River School painter, Charles Wilson Knapp (1823-1900). Just completed this week, the frame is a 4″ wide Compound Mitered frame, in a slope form with a... continue reading.
Framing the Simple Home (One by Raymond Dabb Yelland)
There’s something about a cabin in the wilderness, a simple home completely at home in the natural landscape, making us part of the landscape ourselves—placing us in our true element, placing us in the great frame of creation. One of the images in my last post (... continue reading.
Good Citizen’s Picture Frames
We’ve recently framed some pretty great pieces in the fairly plain and simple, but hefty mortise-and-tenon frames that have been a specialty of ours from day one (twenty-one years ago!). You can scroll down to see notable examples. I like to borrow a phrase from W... continue reading.
An Event Framing John Ruskin and William Morris
This past spring I helped organize an all-day symposium called “Helping in the Work of Creation: John Ruskin and William Morris Today.” The event came out of The Hillside Club Round Table, which I began and lead at Berkeley’s historic Hillside Club, an... continue reading.
Fixing a “Very Prevalent Error”: Recent Re-framings, and a New Page on Wood vs Gold Frames
In the nineteenth century, reflecting the great turmoil that the arts were going through, many painters protested what could be called “the gold frame convention”—not only a prevailing taste but an actual rule among exhibitions that paintings must receive ... continue reading.
Framing Arnold Friberg
A year ago I posted in the portfolio a large painting by Arnold Friberg, “The Eyes of Chief Joseph”, which we were especially proud to frame. Just recently we got to frame three more by this important American illustrator. All are in substantial carved quart... continue reading.
Reviving the Art and Craft of Sign Painting
A shop selling handcrafted frames should have a handcrafted sign. So a few weeks ago we had our name painted in the window by a for-real sign painter—a breed of artisan that not long ago many thought would soon be made extinct by vinyl signs. Derek MacDonald and Tina ... continue reading.