Blog

Well my wife said to me, “how come I get the feeling this painting will never be done?” Enough said. I worked on the big 40x60” painting one more night and signed it and even dated this one. The Angelique painting has been sitting on the main easel for about 4 months now. I would work on it an hour or two at a time, no more. All along I would do other work by pulling a smaller easel in front of it where the lighting is good. It was a little weird looking at the empty easel after moving the painting into the gallery room. While I want to build a custom frame for this one, I think it is time to start getting ready for the upcoming season. Besides I want a few pieces of equipment before making a frame of this size. Maybe it will be a late fall project unless it sells. Then, of course, I will make a frame, but I get the feeling this one might go to the grave with me.

Newcomb-Macklin frame corner

In other news, there was a fire this weekend at the Thanhardt-Burger Corporation in Indiana. Now you may not know who they are, but they are the company that purchased Necomb-Macklin Frames and own all their profiles and designs. They are a big player in there own right. However, for those of you who do not know Newcomb-Macklin is, just about every artist around the 1950s used their product in some way or another.  If you saw the Hibbard show in Rockport, about half of the major paintings were framed with Newcomb-Macklins. I suspect more than half were framed with the like prior to being reframed at some point. I know a number of framers who have a good collection of antique frames just by reframing artwork and the owners giving away the prior frame. Now, Newcomb-Macklins are not the most valuable antique frames, as they are prevelant, but they were an important player and have influence in the frame industry and design to the present day. Anyway, it is my understanding that a large number of molds and designs were damaged. Hopefully not all is lost and news reports say the company will rebuild. Good luck and God’s speed to them.