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 Thomas Hill—and the Enduring Human Spirit
We finished 2013 with a real flourish, completing the framing of this large (36″ x 60″) painting, “Figures on a Horse-Drawn Sledge with Fishers on a River” (no date) by Thomas Hill (1829-1908), one of California’s greatest early landscape ... continue reading.
Framing Peder Monsted
I’m very behind on blogging on some of the great jobs we’ve done over the past months. Here’s a spectacular winter scene—the Peder Monsted I showed the frame for on my Jan. 2 post and promised then to write about soon. Monsted was a Danish painter, b... continue reading.
Our Gallery Artists Exhibiting at California Art Club Annual Show
A number of The Gallery’s artists have been accepted to the California Art Club’s 103rd Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition to be held March 30 – April 20, 2014 at The Autry in Los Angeles. Below are the works accepted from Christin Coy, Mark Farina, Paul... continue reading.
Our Mission
Somewhat in the spirit of new year resolutions, it seems appropriate at the dawn of 2014 to say something about our mission. When I re-built the website, the launching of which was one of the Studio’s highlights of 2013, one of the many improvements was to include... continue reading.
Escaping the Old Year
As a frame-maker, I appreciate the wonderful trompe-l’oeil painting “Escaping Criticism” (1874) by Pere Borrell del Caso (Spain, 1835-1910) showing a young boy apparently of the peasant or artisan class climbing out of a conventional, academic-looking ... continue reading.
Framing the New Year
A quick post to wish all well this coming year—with a lovely message from the great California naturalist John Muir, via printmaker Yoshiko Yamamoto: May your new year offer wonderful new worlds framed with the beauty of nature, including many, many beautiful and thri... continue reading.
Framing Christmas
This post is just a little Christmas greeting, featuring this lovely painting, “A Christmas Carol,” by the great Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The piece just this month surfaced from a private collection. I learned about it from the wonderfu... continue reading.
Framing—and Seeing—Birge Harrison
Birge Harrison (1854-1929) was born in Pennsylvania and was active in the northeast at the turn of the last century. Years ago I stumbled on his 1909 book, Landscape Painting, so was excited to get an inquiry a couple of years ago from the Figge Art Museum about re-fram... continue reading.
Just Launched!!!
Three and a half years ago I started tinkering with WordPress to see if I could build myself an online catalog. A year or so later, Matt Jalbert, to whom I’ll forever be grateful for dragging Holton Studio into the digital age with the website we launched in 2010,... continue reading.