We just framed these three landscape oils by the gregarious and much loved southern California painter Sam Hyde Harris (1889-1977). On all three I played with outset corners, although on “Enclave,” the third one below, the outset corners are on the narrower mitered inner molding that’s set inside a plain mortise-and-tenon flat. All are quartersawn white oak. All three are available through California Historical Design in Alameda.

I hope Mr. Harris would approve. From the bio on the website of our friends at Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, he sounds like a great guy!

Below: Lakeside Birch Trees, n.d. Oil on board, 15-1/2″ x 19-1/2″. Profile is 3-1/4″ wide.

Below: “Hidden Valley,” n.d. Oil on board, 15-1/2″ x 19-1/2″. The frame’s a 3-1/2″ wide carved slope with outset corners, in stained quartersawn white oak.

Below: “Enclave” n.d. Oil on board, 17-1/4″ x 23-1/4″. The compound Aurora—No. 1000 with a sight edge mitered frame in a cushion profile with outset corners. The profile is 3-1/2″ wide.

Other Views and Details—

In a post yesterday, I showed a print by Hasui Kawase (1883-1957), “Moon at Mogame,” in a mortise-and-tenon frame similar to our Yoshida frame. This frame too is similar to the Yoshida but instead of mortise-and-tenon joints has bridle joints (see detail). The print I’m posting here, called “Evening Asao” (1936), is also by Hasui, and is also Oban size, (15-1/4″ x 10-1/4″).

I look forward to exploring bridle joints. The more I frame pictures, the more interested I am in the joinery—maybe because the more responsibility I take on for protecting works of art, the more truly I understand the meaning of the word art, which is derived from the Latin ars, “to join.”

Joinery done with integrity and pleasure is beautiful in itself. The simple but beautiful structures depicted in Hasui’s work seem built according to the same idea—which creates another kind of joinery, that between the frame and the picture. In these two cases, they are pictures of works of humanity joined beautifully to nature’s creation. Some would call it “harmony.” But that’s a word also rooted in the Latin ars, and is thus simply another word for joining.

We love to frame Shin Hanga prints—the twentieth century revival of Japan’s great printmaking tradition. The term “Shin Hanga” means “new prints,” and was coined by the printing house Watanabe—now in its second century—to apply to the contemporary work rooted in the esteemed older ukiyo-e tradition. Some of the more famous names in Shin Hanga are artists like Hiroshi Yoshida, Ohara Koson, and the creator of the print featured here, “Moon at Magome,” (1930) by Kawase Hasui (1883-1957). The print is Oban size (about 14-1/4″ x 9-1/2″).

This frame, which is walnut stained black, is a simple adaptation of our Yoshida frame (named for Hiroshi Yoshida). On vertical prints, we typically orient the Yoshida’s mortise-and-tenon joints with the top and bottom members, which are usually 1″ wide, let into the sides, usually 3/4″ wide. But with the powerful element of the picture’s tree in mind, I chose to adapt the vertical members to echo the tree trunk. So I switched the joint orientation, having the sides let into the top and bottom, so that the sides would be wider; and then rounded and carved those members.

Throughout the Shin Hanga tradition we see the inspired vision of a harmony between the works of nature and the works of humanity, and this print is no exception. My hope in this frame design is to honor and amplify that theme.

Kendall Brown book on Hasui

The authoritative text on Hasui is Kendall Brown’s Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui’s Masterpieces…

Our friends at Annex Galleries have a nice inventory of work by Hasui, here…

Annex Galleries also has a good short biography of the artist, here…

Thought you might be looking for something serene. Wellington Reynolds (1865-1949) grew up on a farm in Illinois. He moved to Chicago to study painting, later honed his skills in Munich and Paris, before joining the faculty at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1913. In his career, he was best known as a portrait painter. But this painting, “In the Dunes, Laren, Holland,” (ca. 1910), suggests Reynolds retained his feel for the farm scenery of his childhood—and judging from the composition, wanted to draw us into its charms as well. It was an honor to frame this 19″ x 29″ oil recently for California Historical Design.

Wellington Reynolds (1865-1949), “In the Dunes, Laren, Holland,” n.d. (ca. 1910), 19″ x 29″

Chamfering the frame.

The scene called for a frame that was simple but that also sustained the peaceful spirit of the painting. The frame is quartersawn oak with Medieval Oak stain. To emphasize the horizontal flatness of the Dutch field, I used altered miters (not 45 degrees) making the sides (at 4″) wider than the top and bottom (3-3/8″). I love chamfers, in part for their rich vernacular tradition, which clearly suits this piece as well. Had a great time designing and shaping this sight edge pattern. I accented the fluid lines with round centers and corners repeating the rounded backs of the sheep, as well as the trees in the background. The edge pattern cuts in to accentuate the lines of the chamfer, revealing a little more of the carved pale gold leaf liner. Hadn’t done that before, and like the results. (Details below.)

Purchase from California Historical Design…

Learn more about Wellington Reynolds…

More Views—

“It is indeed in…the belief in the beneficent progress of civilisation, that I…entreat you…
to enter into the real meaning of the arts, which are surely the expression of reverence for nature,
and the crown of nature, the life of man upon the earth… [I]n all I have been saying,
what I have been really urging on you is this—Reverence for the life of Man upon the Earth.”
—William Morris, “The Prospects of Architecture in Civilization”

Because the over-riding theme of the Gallery is landscape painting, every work we have here is an expression of William Morris’s plea. Every landscape painting is a prospect on the one thing that matters most, that most deserves our reverence: the Earth. And perhaps nothing on Earth stirs our reverence like mountains—especially when they’re bathed in the sun of dawn. So of all the paintings in the Gallery, the one that strikes me as most suitable for this special day, Earth Day, is Richard Lindenberg’s magnificent “High Sierra Sunrise.”

Richard Lindenberg, “High Sierra Sunrise,” 2017. Oil on canvas, 18″ x 36″.

This Earth Day comes at an extraordinary and opportune moment. All around the world, daily routine has come to a standstill, with no clear view of when or if the normal life we’ve known will return. In this suspended state, those who aren’t paralyzed or consumed by escapism are trying to make sense of a strange, radically altered landscape, and our place and our prospects in it.

Paul Kratter, Wake Up Call

The moment feels nothing short of transformational; an old order has proven untenable, and a new one—if we seize the day—awaits our making. From our solitude, looking out our windows, the planet’s atmosphere, blessedly if only momentarily free of pollution, might seem to afford us rare and clear prospect. If amidst crisis, uncertainty and confusion we see no clear answers, we may at least sight the one clear question raised by every crisis—and every new day: Where do we begin? What are those first things, the foundational things to which we must first attend? What, before all else, matters?

We begin where we must begin, the place of all beginnings, from which all life springs, and where we’ve been all along—though we’d stopped noticing our Great Place. Until the powers of nature humbled us, knocked us to the ground, brought us back to Earth.

Ernesto Nemesio, Ediza Sunrise

In this strange, still moment before dawn, perhaps it’s dawning on us that the Earth matters or nothing matters. Her health is our own common “underlying condition.” The Earth is not only the basis of our life, but the whole of Life—that whole of which we are merely a part. If we believe with Morris in “the beneficent progress of civilization,” the life of this planet must become a matter not only of first concern but the first object of our reverence.

And then, as Morris taught, with renewed reverence for our life upon the Earth our arts will regain their true meaning as nothing more nor less than our “help in the work of creation.”

And that day will be a good day for the Earth.

Go to Richard Lindenberg’s page…

Read William Morris’s “The Prospects of Architecture In Civilization” (from Hopes and Fears for Art)…

Body and spirit are inseparable. And so are their well-being. A doctor on the front lines of the coronavirus emergency was asked on NPR the other day about the value of simple, home-made face masks. You might have expected him to minimize their importance, since clearly they aren’t as effective as N95 masks in guarding against viral aerosol transmission. Instead, he spoke of their usefulness worn over N95’s, and, just as significantly, the value of their cheerful and varied colors and patterns to the spirits of those working in grim conditions of medical crisis.

Yesterday, the PBS Newshour ran a story, about the people behind the masks—not the doctors and nurses but the mask makers. The story asks “what is motivating the small army of citizens making masks in their own communities[?]” One seamstress, Anya Caldwell (shown at left), said something that sticks with me:

A personal message to the people out there that are obviously stressed having to do this right now that we care for them, we love them. Neighbors donated the fabric that 37 years ago were the curtains in their baby’s nursery. So they had sentimental value.

Body and spirit are stitched together with one word: care. Hearty spirit and skill combine in the efforts of medical professionals meeting this terrifying moment. Even the relentlessly “practical” doctor notoriously lacking “bedside manner,” doing his duty without a thought of what we call “sentimentality,” does his work with professional pride and thus, as we say, carefully. No less important to the sick is the spiritual care—the concern and empathy—provided by family and friends with perhaps no scientific or medical training, but who extend, if necessarily from a distance, abundant love and hope. But one wonders if it is, after all, even possible to practice the arts of medicine and health care (and they are, absolutely, arts) without both technical expertise and deep-down kindness—an indispensable combination shared by all the arts, including that of these home mask-makers.

Nor can we fail to see in this story the lesson of the service of two seemingly unconnected arts—sewing and medicine—to each other. It’s a reminder that all the arts have always and in myriad ways been interconnected and mutually helpful.

The work of these mask-makers is the stuff of the social fabric. And that fabric is not mere metaphor. It is real—even sometimes literal—and we realize it every day in what we make and how we serve. And human beings have always understood the true nature of that fabric—or when we’ve forgotten it, have been reminded by such perennial crises of the social fabric as we’re experiencing now.

Linsey-Woolsey

In a post last year, Doug Stowe wrote of another time of struggle and hardship, and the humble but essential fabric it produced:

In the Ozarks there was a kind of material woven by early settlers, called linsey-woolsey. The warp was linen, giving strength, and the woof was wool, giving warmth, and to be woven into the fabric of community requires time, and effort to find one’s place among the threads.

In this time of social distancing (some have wisely suggested we switch to the term “physical distancing”), it is fascinating to see the human spirit made more acutely aware of its inherent and most primal needs and nature. We are seeing heart-warming expressions of an instinctive longing to overcome isolation, “to find one’s place among the threads,” and to seek ways to help stitch and weave back together, in linsey-woolsey fashion, a world under great stress and tension.

We are reminded of our nature, both as extraordinarily social animals and extraordinarily creative creatures—the two aspects of our nature, like body and spirit, inseparable and interwoven. Our powers to make are indispensable to the mutual provision and reciprocity that bind society together, and underlie, bolster and feed those feelings of common humanity—love and care—necessary to the human spirit.

The Fabric of the World

The most important workers in the world right now are the doctors and nurses and support staff treating coronavirus victims. But helping protect the lives of those crucial people are the loving hands of countless stitchers at home at their sewing machines. For all their heroism and kindness, and despite the news stories, the people behind the masks will remain largely anonymous.

That’s a truth that takes us back once again to ancient, eternal wisdom about the nature of humanity and care—charitas. It’s a truth expressed, for example, in Ecclesiasticus, which teaches us that human life and civilization depend ultimately on the ordinary, practical but nonetheless careful work of largely anonymous workers who are foundational and necessary to every community, on “every artificer and workmaster,” the metalsmith, the potter and the like—and no less so the doctor, nurse, and seamstress—who “put their trust in their hands; and each becometh wise in his own work. Without them shall no city be inhabited…” These folks may not gain much fame or notoriety: “they shall not be sought for in the council of the people, and in the assembly they shall not mount on high,” nor otherwise achieve reputation or office as political or religious leaders, scholars or teachers. But, says the scripture, “they shall maintain the fabric of the world; and in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.”

Spirit and body are by nature one and interdependent. The goodwill of the spirit and the work of the hands remain securely and eternally joined to each other in our arts. And in turn, our arts join themselves together to weave and maintain the fabric of society and of true civilization.

The arts are care made real. The arts are how we join—and how we will re-join—the world.

More…

Doug Stowe has shared this video on how to make masks…

Check out Doug Stowe’s Wisdom of Hands blog…

Watch the Newshour story…

I hope this finds you and yours in good health and finding safety and solace in these frightening times. Please be careful and stay well.

The Holton Studio family is all healthy, thank goodness. But in compliance with orders from the city, county, and state, the shop’s doors are closed until the virus calms down. Though the Studio has been reduced to minimum operations, we’re still working and here for you; more on that below.

Letting In the Light

Sadly, the orders to close the physical gallery came just a week into the one month run of one of the most exciting shows we’ve ever had, “Treasures from the Bay Area.” This juried exhibition of paintings by the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the California Art Club, is still online to enjoy, however, and indeed paintings are selling.

Robert Steele, “Old Marin County Barn,” oil, 16″ x 20″

Especially meaningful to me at this time is the painting shown above. Robert Steele’s, “Old Marin County Barn” (oil, 16″ x 20″) is part of the show and is hanging in the showroom behind the design table. The otherwise dark interior of an old barn lit bright by the morning sun coming through its door and old gappy siding doubly illustrates the idea that a framed painting is a window letting in the light, and letting us to see through and beyond our walls.

So that we can help you let in the light, the lights here are lit—if mostly electronically. We’re using the website, email and answering the phone—which is still ringing, thankfully! The site is current and being updated. If you’re at home feeling closed in these days, and could use help bringing enough light into your life, please have a look at the current show online, as well as the work of our regular roster of artists. Do not hesitate to call to purchase paintings and ready-made frames and mirrors. And with UPS service going strong, we are able to ship.

We also, as always, offer gift certificates. I emphasize these especially for anyone looking to help us navigate immediate economic challenges. (There’s nothing wrong with buying one as a gift to yourself!) It would be very helpful to us and much appreciated.

As for our main stock in trade, custom framing, this is in fact an excellent time for those of you both local and afar to contact us to work together to design your framing for your pictures—even though we’ll have to wait things out before filling those orders. We’re thankful to have put in long hours over the years, building up the website as a design tool and resource for you, and developing our skills in handling custom framing by mail order. (I’ve gotten pretty good at Photoshop!) These skills will allow us to serve local customers as well for the time being. Please call or email us with your inquiries. But if you’d rather wait a bit on your custom jobs, again, keep in mind those gift certificates!

The Lights Are On

So we’re alive and well and the light keeps burning here at Holton Studio—but only secondarily because of the services we can provide and the things we can produce and deliver. The light still burns here first of all because of people. In this challenging moment, my gratitude for the enduring, faithful, and dedicated work of our little company—Trevor, Eric, Jessie, Sam, and my dear wife Stephanie—is immeasurable. In all truth, we are not just a company but a family bound together in common cause and affection—that special and especially strong affection that cooperative and inherently rewarding shared work creates.

And our family here also includes the artists of the gallery. We remain deeply thankful for their friendship and loyalty, and for the privilege of framing their beautiful work, as well as representing them—though our efforts in the latter regard will necessarily have to become more creative. (But then, isn’t creativity the point of all that we, as artists and artisans, do?)

In addition, there are perhaps a dozen key people—you know who you are—who in various selfless ways have contributed significant aid and support to the business. Their belief in us has more than made a difference, it has been indispensable, and we can’t thank them enough.

But not a jot less thankful are we for you, our customers and fans—many of whom have become like family too—who inspire us every day with your appreciation, not only for the framing we provide you, but for the ideals that drive us. As a frame complements—that is, completes—a picture, neither the painter’s work nor the framer’s is completed until you place it in those greater frames that are your homes, becoming at last what they are made to be: windows of imagination and memory letting in and helping sustain in daily life, even through dark times, the human spirit and the light of the world.

Because of you, the light at Holton Studio still burns.

Our reception this past Saturday evening for our new show “Treasures From the Bay Area: New Paintings by the California Art Club” drew a big and enthusiastic crowd. We feel very honored and privileged to be hosting this show, and everyone, from the organizers to the judges to the hanging crew worked hard to make it happen. I want to thank the historic California Art Club, and especially CAC SF Bay Area chapter co-chairs Ellen Howard and Paul Kratter, as well as CAC Exhibitions Manager Addy Stupin (who drove up from Pasadena for the event), and of course our own Jessie Dunn-Gilbert, with indispensable help from Sam Edie.

But most of all, we celebrate these tremendous painters. I don’t know how the judges decided, but well-earned awards went to Nancy Crookston, Michael Reardon, Randall Sexton, and Linda Sutton. View the show’s page here… Better yet, come see it in person! It’s up through April 4.

From left to right, California Art Club exhibitions manager Addy Stupin with award winners Linda Sutton, Nancy Seamons Crookston, and Randall Sexton. (Not shown, Michael Reardon.)

Pictures from the opening—

We’re putting the final touches on our exhibition opening today at the gallery. We have the honor and privilege of hosting “Treasures from the Bay Area: New Paintings From the California Art Club.” This juried exhibition features 56 painters from to the Club’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter. The show’s page is here. The reception is from 5 to 7 this evening. We hope you’ll join us!

Sam Edie touching up the walls ahead of his evening’s opening of “Treasures from the Bay Area”

The august California Art Club was founded in 1909. Their first annual exhibition, similar in size to ours, was held in the Club’s permanent space in the basement of the Hotel Ivins, at the corner of Figueroa and Tenth Streets in Los Angeles. Represented were names such as Jean Mannheim, William Wendt, Carl Oscar Borg, Hanson Puthuff, Jack Smith, and Franz A. Bischoff who would achieve fame and leave their mark on the State’s artistic legacy.

This show’s a little different for us. There are plenty of landscapes, but also still lifes, figurative works, portraits, and cityscapes. Several artists from our own roster are represented, but the vast majority are folks we’ve never shown before! We framed a number of the paintings, but most are in the artists’ frames. So this will be our first exhibition not framed entirely by Holton Studio Frame-Makers.