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
Framing Kevin Brown for “Beloved California”
We fell in love with this painting when Kevin Brown brought it in a few months ago, had a great time framing it, and are very excited to finally be unveiling it. The 19″ x 21″ oil on board is titled “Snowy Egret, South Lake,” an scene Kevin spott... continue reading.
Framing Bill Cone for “Beloved California”
Another post on the wonderful new work we’ll be exhibiting in our annual all-gallery show, “Beloved California,” which opens November 16. This pastel comes from the masterful hand of Bill Cone. “Cliff A.M.” (12″ x 9″) shows a be... continue reading.
Framing Beloved California
“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”—Gary Snyder Our first show after moving to Berkeley from Emeryville three years ago this past summer was an all-gallery exhibition of our outstanding roster of Northern California landsca... continue reading.
Framing Photography—and the Pictorial Revolution
In preparation for tonight’s event with portrait photographer Nan Phelps, I’m thinking more deeply than usual about portrait photography and how it’s framed. As I touched on in my last post, the essential problem of framing black and white portrait photography... continue reading.
Framing Nan Phelps and Black and White Portrait Photographs
We’ve just hung a new show on the same idea of recent exhibits at the gallery, which have each featured a particular pictorial medium and emphasized our approach to framing it. Having covered antique Japanese prints, watercolors, and historical California painting... continue reading.
Framing a Lucia Mathews Watercolor
Here’s a pretty special recent job: a watercolor by Lucia Kleinhans Mathews, “Portrait of a Young Girl Seated in a Meadow,” from about 1914. Measuring 14″ x 11, the painting is characteristic of Lucia and her husband Arthur Mathews’s distinctly har... continue reading.
Framing Herman Herzog
We’ve decided to extend our show, Historical California Paintings. Originally scheduled to close tomorrow, August 31, we’ll keep it up for another week (through Saturday, September 7). If you haven’t seen the show yet, it’s a great opportunity to... continue reading.
Re-framing Bill Bender
Two paintings by the notable California landscape and genre painter Bill Bender (1919-2016) recently came to us from a collector with a deep love of California’s deserts, and thus a great appreciation for this particular painter’s affinity for the desert lan... continue reading.
Framing Three RTK Studio Tiles
RTK Studio, of Ojai, California, makes beautiful tiles, and it was a pleasure to frame these three critters. Each tile is 6″ x 6″, with frames all 2″ wide and made in stained quartersawn white oak. The three hang in the same room, so we wanted the fram... continue reading.