A frame is a window, and this window looks out on a burning medieval village. The frame too, then, would be burned. And so it is.

Karima Cammell, “Fire with Fire.” Oil on panel, 12” x 9”.

I made this tabernacle frame in oak for Karima Cammell‘s 12″ x 9″ oil painting, “Fire with Fire,” then took a blow torch to it. (Maybe you know about the Japanese burning technique of shou sugi ban, used to finish wood.) Flecks of gold carry the embers of the fire into the frame. Because it’s a window, naturally this one, like the last two I’ve posted about (here and here), has a sill for the bottom rail. The joints are all mortise-and-tenon. The bottom one’s haunched to conform to the beveled sill.

Process pictures—

Didn’t get many pictures of this one being made, but here it is raw, about to be burned with a blow torch. The second photo shows the sill.

The completed frame, and details—

Come see “Fire with Fire” in person! “High Water: Works by Karima Cammell” runs through Friday, November 5.

Read “Sill Frames—I: Framing Karima Cammell’s ‘Atlantis’”…

Read “Sill Frames—II: Framing Karima Cammell’s ‘Aqua Alta’”…

In my last post, here, I introduced sill frames, featuring one we made for Karima Cammell‘s “Atlantis,” an impressive egg tempera painting included in our current solo show “High Water.” I pointed out how I carved the frame’s beveled bottom rail—the sill—with a simple pattern extending out from the painting the masonry seams in the stone floor of the room the painting depicts. The sill frame for another painting in the show, the dramatic “Aqua Alta,” featured here, also extends the image’s foreground, which in this case is that unsettling element from which both the show and the painting draw their titles (actually the same term in different languages). 

Karima Cammell, “Aqua Alta,” oil and 23.5kt yellow & 12kt white gold on linden board, 18″ x 24″. Sill frame in walnut with white gold and 23 kt gold and oil paint.

If the goal of harmony and unity are to be reached, architecture in a picture is always and naturally a cue for the architecture of the frame (which I think of as architecture at its most refined). This painting of the spectacular gilded interior of St Mark’s Basilica as filtered through Karima’s extraordinary imagination—which also transformed the painter herself into a mermaid in order to adapt to Venice’s increasingly frequent flooding (called by Venetians the “aqua alta”)—presented a clear frame-making challenge, and one for which the highly architectural sill frame genre seemed to me ideally suited.

The frame is 2-5/8″ wide (and just as deep, to accommodate the painting’s support, a heavy solid linden wood panel with dovetailed oak battens to keep it flat), and made of walnut with a clear oil finish, with 23 kt and white gold and paint. For the molding profile, I distilled the combination of arches and bands of molding in the painting to a fairly simple profile: a cove bounded by two gilded flat straps. The straps are carved, the inner one to extend the architectural details of the painting where they meet the frame, and the outer one painted with a simple pattern of alternating red circles and green diamonds echoing patterns in the moldings. Where the painting most dramatically spills (literally) into the frame, of course, is at the bottom and foreground, and that’s where I took advantage of the sill. The water line is carved into the sides of the frame, and from that line down the sides and sill are leafed with white gold. I cut and chamfered the sill lip in a wavy pattern, and carved the face of the sill in soft, water-like undulations. 

One thing I love about sill frames is how the molding profile of the side members intersects the sill, creating the illusion of door frame moldings or columns of a building meeting the floor.

Except the sill is not simply a floor but a threshold—a word of great significance to Karima’s beloved Venice and it’s brilliant cathedral in an age of rising sea levels, and also descriptive of the transformational age we live in. It is also, as we’ll see in a later post, a word profoundly significant to the art of the picture frame—the frame’s efficacy and transformational power.

In any case, I cannot end this post without acknowledging the kindness of Karima Cammell, a painter who welcomes and encourages the artistic collaboration of her frame maker, and so keeps alive the cooperative ethos of medieval artisans immortalized in the stones of Venice and its great basilica.

Process photos—

View “High Water: Works by Karima Cammell” online…

Read “Sill Frames—I: Framing Karima Cammell’s ‘Atlantis'”…

Read “Sill Frames—III: Framing Karima Cammell’s ‘Fire With Fire'”…

In framing Karima Cammell‘s work for her solo show “High Water” here at the Gallery (check out today’s great review in Berkeleyside), the recurring historical subject matter pushed me to explore a kind of frame construction frequently seen on medieval and early Renaissance work. I call them “sill frames” because their distinguishing feature is the bottom horizontal member which, instead of being a mirror image of the molding at the top of the frame, is made to resemble a threshold or window sill. We used three sill frames in the show. In this post I’m introducing this type of frame with historical examples from an incredible online resource, as well as sharing a few process shots and details of the frame for Karima’s 18″ x 24″ egg tempera painting, “Atlantis,” below. I’ll post on the other two pieces in the show later, as well as share my less technical discoveries—which have led to nothing less than an epiphany for me—regarding the surprisingly profound significance of sill frames, certainly in relation to the show but also, in fact, for the art of the picture frame.

“Atlantis,” egg tempera on linden board, 18″ x 24″ in 2-1/2″ sill frame in quartersawn white oak (Dark Medieval Oak stain).

Some history

Hans Memling, “Christ Giving His Blessing,” 1478

I’ve admired Northern Renaissance (especiallly Flemish Primitive) sill frames for a long time. (One famous example you may recognize and that I’ve posted about is Hans Memling’s “Christ Giving His Blessing,” at right.) Karima’s show was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at them. Research led me to an incredible treasure trove of examples—a 734-page online book dryly titled Frames and Supports in 15th and 16th Century Southern Netherlandish Painting, by Hélène Verougstraete (2015, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels). Written for painting conservators tasked with treating work of that period, it is also a frame-maker’s dream—a gold mine of excellent high-resolution photographs of paintings in their frames. (It’s shocking how frequently paintings are shown in books with their frames cropped out—even frames made by or in cooperation with the painter, or in any case original to the painting). But just as exciting for me is the exhaustive research on joinery [“We have observed 38 different joints, which we have classified into 6 families: mortise and tenon joints, dovetail joints, slotted joints (also known as bridle or open tenon or tongue and fork), lap joints, joints with inserts (splined or keyed joints), end-to-end joints…”; you get the idea], and loads of clear diagrams of all those joints and how the frames and supports were constructed. Not all, but the vast majority of the paintings in the book are in sill frames, suggesting that in that region (today’s Low Countries) it was the dominant type of frame for over a century.

Examples from “Frames and Supports…”—

Below is a typical page from Frames and Supports in 15th and 16th Century Southern Netherlandish Painting. This one shows an anonymous “Adoration of the Magi” from Bruges, ca. 1510. The joinery in the diagrams at the bottom right are what I used for the frame for “Atlantis.”Here are more pages and details from the book. What becomes abundantly clear is that these frames and supports were real works of craftsmanship.

Making the sill frame for “Atlantis”—

So, armed with my research, I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

Details of the finished frame—

Note how I extended the cracks in the floor by carving them into the sill, using that key feature of the frame in the same fashion Memling did in the painting above… But that gets in to the significance of sill frames and the wonderful lessons they hold for us for what a picture frame is—which I’m saving for another post.

Come see “Atlantis” in person! “High Water: Works by Karima Cammell” is on now and has just been extended through November 5 so that we can be included in Festive First Friday on Fourth! And again, you can read Gabrielle Selz’s excellent review in Berkeleyside, here.

Read “Sill Frames—II: Framing Karima Cammell’s ‘Aqua Alta'”…

This is a portrait by living Navajo painter Andersen Kee. We framed the 16″ x 13″ oil on board in a 3″ wide carved Cassetta in quartersawn white oak with Saturated Medieval Oak stain. The carved liner is leafed in 18 kt gold. The carving on the liner and narrow inner molding are keyed to the beadwork in figure’s attire, while the corner carving echoes the feather. Trevor Davis made the frame, and did a beautiful job.

One of the greatest English Arts and Crafts architects and designers was Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857—1941). This is a lovely bit of Voysey wallpaper design we were asked to frame recently. Had fun grabbing the bold outline of the pattern for the bold outline that is a picture frame, as well as accentuating the print’s elongated proportions (it’s 21-1/2″ x 10-1/2″) by using different widths for the frame’s vertical and horizontal members: its sides are 1-3/4″ wide while the top and bottom are 2-1/2″. Made in quartersawn white oak with Medieval Oak stain, the basic profile is a flat with inner and outer filets (our No. 15).

CFA Voysey (1857 -1941)

We were proud to be asked by Gus Bostrom and our friends at California Historical Design to frame this important oil on canvas by Laura Adams Armer (1874 – 1963), titled “Hopi Woman Oraibi Village,” 1929, 38” x 30”. In fact, we re-framed it; here it is, at right, as it came to us in a gold painted factory molding. The beauty and significance of the painting cried out for something more worthy. The painting is available on California Historical Design’s website, here. (UPDATE: This work is sold, although there’s still a webpage for it.)

The frame, made by Trevor Davis, is carved quartersawn white oak with Dark Weathered Oak stain. The 4-1/2″ wide mitered compound is our No. 109 CV + Cap 811 CV, and is complemented with a 3/8″ wide carved beveled liner with 18 kt gold leaf.

California Historical Design has published the following biography of the artist.

Laura Adams Armer was an American photographer, painter, illustrator and author who was born in Sacramento, California on January 12, 1874. She was educated in the public schools of San Francisco and then studied painting and drawing under Arthur Mathews at the School of Design between 1893 and 1898. She established a photography studio in the Flood Building on the corner of Powell and Market from 1899 to 1902. After her marriage to Sidney Armer in 1902, she moved to Berkeley where she continued her photography studio in her home.

In the early 1920s, she developed a keen interest in Indian subjects and began sketching and photographing the Hopi and Navajo reservations of Arizona. During the late 1920s, Armer lived for awhile on the Navajo Reservation. From her experiences there came Southwest, published in 1935 by Longman’s, Green and Company, which she also illustrated. She also wrote children’s books on Indian culture, which were illustrated with her photographs and her husband’s illustrations. Common to artists during this time, photojournalism was a venue that allowed Armer’s photographs to be published. Her books and photographs are listed in various sources on the Internet, for some of which she has received awards.

Armer, along with some others, worked closely with Navajo singers and collected many sand paintings, often from previously unrecorded chants. Armer also made what was probably the first movie of an actual ceremony in February 1928 (Armer 1956, 1961). It was filmed on the sixth day of a nine-night Mountainway ceremony, at the hogan of Hosteen Tsosie near Ganado under the direction of Na-Nai. The movie cost trader Roman Hubbell $15,000 to produce exclusive of goods and gifts. (Everyone who participated in the ceremony had to be given gifts to lessen the opposition.) This film was shown at the International Congress of Americanists in 1929, the American Anthropological Association meeting in 1930 and to numerous civic and women’s groups around the country. It greatly expanded Anglo knowledge about Navajo religion. Armer also made a short film of a star gazing divination rite in 1929, which included two sand paintings.

There is record of Armer’s work as being exhibited at the San Francisco Art Association in 1925 and the Berkeley League of Fine Art in 1925. Her works are held in the collections of Hubble Trading Post, Oakland Museum and Eureka Public Library.

Mrs. Armer moved to Fortuna, California in Humboldt County in 1938 where she remained for the rest of her life. She died in a Vacaville rest home on March 3, 1963.

This is a woodblock by Berkeley artist Chiura Obata (1885-1975), titled “Upper Lyell Fork, Near Lyell Glacier, High Sierra,” 16″ x 11″. The carved frame, made in walnut with a black wash, is a variation on our No. 14 CV, a frame I like to use for woodblock prints because, with its raised lines and carved recess, it’s made exactly as are the woodblocks that produce such prints, and thus invariably enjoys a special harmony with the picture. This variation on the No. 14 CV is shaped to repeat the rendering of the old tree that’s the central subject. For the wavy edges, I used a drum sander to do that on the back and sight edges of each member, then carved the inside of each raised band parallel to the outside line (see process shot at right). In addition to the wavy sides, I played off the tree’s verticality by making the frame’s sides narrower (3/4″) than the top and bottom members (1″).

I used a plain 4-ply solid core rag mat matching the print’s tan paper, and Museum Glass (our most common choice for works behind glass; it’s both u.v.-filtering and glare-reducing).

As it happens, Fine Arts Magazine, a publication of the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco, recently wrote about the Museum’s acquisition of an Obata watercolor that served as the basis for this woodblock (another print of which they also have in their collection). According to the article,

In the summer of 1927, Obata spent several weeks on a sketching tour of Yosemite, the Sierra high country, and the Bay Area foothills, producing more than one hundred sketches and ink paintings of the landscapes he encountered there. It’s likely that the three landscape drawings recently acquired for the Museums’ permanent collection were based on observations from those hiking trips. They capture the essence of “Great Nature” that, Obata said, reinforced his belief in the insignificance of human pursuits in relation to the powerful forces of nature. The drawings, rich with calligraphic brushstrokes and washes of color, were preparatory works for a color woodcut project that he began in 1928 with the Takamizawa print workshop in Tokyo. This ambitious effort was grounded in ukiyo-e traditions in which Obata oversaw teams of carvers and printers who replicated his designs into color woodcut prints. The result, published in 1930, was an edition of portfolios of thirty-five prints each, titled World Landscape Series… Comparisons of the drawings with the prints reveal the incredible skill of the Japanese artisans who faithfully recreated Obata’s sophisticated designs.

Postscript

With UC Berkeley back in session in-person and the campus full of students again, I thought it fitting to include this 1930’s ink painting by Chiura Obata, who taught at the University from 1932 to 1954. (Another Obata ink painting we had the privilege of framing was featured in this post a couple of years ago.)

Chiura Obata, untitled (UC Berkeley students), ca. 1930’s. Ink on paper, 15-1/2″ x 20-3/4″.

Finally, a lovely bit of wisdom from the artist and teacher:

“You must always see with a big vision, and if you keep your mind calm there will be a way, there will be a light.”

I’m very happy and excited to announce our next show, High Water: Works by Karima Cammell. The show will open with an artist’s reception on October 9 (scroll down for details) and run through October 30.

In addition to being a painter, Karima Cammell is an author, teacher, and entrepreneur, and the proprietor of Castle In the Air, a studio on Fourth Street around the corner from us here in Berkeley. Karima is a formidable force of creative energy and influence—and, simply, a wonder. So I can say that it’s a joy and privilege to have been framing her work the last few years. (Pictures and links on those may be found at the bottom of this post.) Lately, she’s been mastering the difficult medium of egg tempera; one example being “Venise” (18″ x 24″), below.

The powers of such art forms, animated by and animating the artist’s imagination, are now summoned to respond to an increasingly perilous world. Karima Cammell writes,

In 2015, at 41, a confluence of chemical imbalance and stress caused my mental health to become untethered. I woke up flooded by night sweats, tears, terrifying news, and noise.

HIGH WATER illustrates one woman’s vision of the changing shoreline as she becomes unmoored by internal tidal shifts. Looking for a place to land she scans the shore, finding a world both on fire and drowning beneath waves of social, political, and climate change.

To save herself she becomes a chimera—a fire-breathing monster with scales and wings—armored and able to swim and fly. The magic to transform herself comes from love.

In my crazy philosophy the power of transformation is the old magic that makes us human. Transformation can be as simple as turning apples into applesauce or as complex as facing the discord of anxiety and fear and retuning it to harmony and wellbeing.

When we add the power of imagination to this old magic we discover art, a power that makes anything possible.

Framing Karima Cammell

Karima Cammell’s paintings are tremendously rewarding to frame. I’ve largely assumed that’s because of the way they’re painted—the particular way Karima uses line and form—as well as the architecture and other decorative arts that populate them and express a profound regard for all the arts and their unity. These aspects of her work welcome the art of the frame-maker and are completed by it.

But reading the artist’s statement for the show makes me realize that another reason framing her work is so rewarding may have to do with “the power of transformation,” she speaks of—“the age-old magic that makes us human”—to which she adds the power of imagination. For imagination, including a work of imagination like a painting, is transformative—it transforms reality. And for a work of imagination that is a painting, the first encounter with reality is the architectural setting, beginning with the frame.

So I wonder if, of all the traits that make Karima’s work so welcoming to the frame, it’s the evident plea of a human soul in a distressed world, a plea the frame-maker is in a unique position to heed by proving the painting’s efficacy—the imagination’s vital power to affect its surroundings, to transform reality.

HIGH WATER: Works by Karima Cammell

View show page here…

Please join us for the reception, October 9th, 4–6 PM
The Holton Studio Gallery
2100 Fifth Street, Berkeley

Opening After Party at Zut! on Fourth Street—
After the reception we will stroll over to Fourth Street for wine and hors d’oeuvres in the parklet.

COVID Protocol:

• The reception will be held outdoors.
• Vaccinated guests only please.
• Masks are required inside the gallery.
• The number of people allowed in the gallery at one time will be limited to 20.
• Please RSVP so that we can keep you updated if information changes.

Previous posts on framing Karima Cammell’s paintings—

It’s not often that we re-frame a picture we’ve framed for the gallery, but especially smaller paintings often get very plain frames, and sometimes customers want something a little more elaborate.

“Backlit in Monterey” as originally framed

Such was the case with Kim Lordier‘s pastel “Backlit in Monterey,” our “poster child” for Little Windows II—which, by the way, ends this Saturday, the 28th. The customer spotted the frame we used on a painting by Ernesto Nemesio a few years ago and wisely surmised that it would serve as a great setting for this iconic coastal scene.

The frame is quartersawn white oak with Weathered Oak stain and a gilt slip, and is carved on the sight edge and back edge, with outset rounded corners. Both the rounded carved elements and the corners pay tribute to Kim’s surf-beaten tidal rocks.

See Little Windows II before it closes—or check it out online.

This one above is sold, of course, but we still have another coastal scene by Kim Lordier, “Sparkling Sand and Cliff,” below. It’s in a carved and parcel gilt walnut frame.

Kim Lordier
“Sparkling Sand & Cliff”
Pastel, 6″ x 12″. $2,550 framed.
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