A Frame-Maker’s Journal

TimHolton writingUpdates 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

Mr Turner and Martin Luther King: Framing Visions of Social Justice

Posted on February 15th, 2015

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of one of the key moments of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil rights leadership—an event that’s the subject of the film “Selma”, which is up for an Academy Award next weekend. Hardly anyone will note t... continue reading.

Congratulations to Oscar Nominee Dice Tsutsumi!

Posted on February 9th, 2015

Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, one of our artists who works at Pixar, has been nominated for an Academy Award! His movie, “The Dam Keeper,” which Dice made with Robert Kondo, is among the five selections in the Animated Short Film category. Of the five... continue reading.

Robert Flanary—Paul Roehl Show Opens Tonight

Posted on February 7th, 2015

Tonight’s opening of “A Continuous Harmony: New Tonalist Paintings by Robert Flanary and Paul Roehl” will be extra-special as it will also be the debut of the make-over of Holton Studio Gallery. Come join us from 5 to 7 and celebrate these two greatly ... continue reading.

A Continuous Harmony

Posted on January 31st, 2015

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

Posted on December 27th, 2014

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

Posted on December 22nd, 2014

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)

Posted on December 8th, 2014

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

Posted on December 6th, 2014

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

Posted on November 29th, 2014

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.