New from Tabby Ivy!

You know, I used to be a really good photographer.  Apparently it is a skill I am losing in my old age.  But rather than wait for some good photos, because patience is not one of my strong suits, here are a couple terrible pictures of the new pieces we have from local artist Tabby Ivy.  The first is a beautiful little 4x6 panel floated on a silk mat and framed with one of my new favorite mouldings.  It is called "Central Park Promenade" and is priced at $225.  What a wickedly good deal!

The next piece is so fresh some of the paint is still wet!  So far it is unframed but we will rectify that situation next week.  The panel is 10x8 and is titled "Almost to Valier."  (That would be Valier, Montana, population 498, located 71 miles northwest of Great Falls.)  Anyway, here it is:

Tabby was one of five artists who participated in a quick-finish event last night at the Bigfork Museum's annual fundraising auction.  She also has a piece in the Hockaday Museum's 10th annual Benefit Auction of Miniatures; the "seal the bid" party is tonight!

Three Quickies in the Gallery

About a week ago I promised you a picture of the new paintings we received from Sarah Rogers.  Finally, here they are.  Ruby and Rufous.  They are 8x8 watercolor panels and $600 each.

Pretty sweet, eh?  We wanted to hang these in the window but suddenly the days have gotten sunny, and although our front window is double paned and Low-E, the paintings are watercolors so ixnay on the window idea.  We also got a very sweet little painting from Tabby Ivy this week; Derek just built the frame for it today and we can't wait to put it out in the gallery.

For the first time in over 13 years we have grouped a bunch of small paintings together on the wall.  Normally we have "blocks" of pieces by the same artist, but we wanted to showcase these little jewels together.  As the sign says, "Good things come in small packages."

Last but not least for today, we got some wickedly cool photo frames from our friends at Bella Moulding in Chicago!  The front and back are made of clear acrylic and they are held together with four small magnets.    They hold a 4x6 photo and are so hip they will fit in any decor.

We have a lot going on in the framing department this week as well, including seven or eight prints for the designer down the street, Indonesian stick puppets, a print from Ethiopia, a map of Jamaica and the largest Rothko print I have ever seen.  There is a fairy, some tipis, two mirrors and a chalk pastel portrait.  We hope to post pictures of some of the more interesting framing projects soon.

Bling on a String!

Lola's Bolas are the latest addition to the collection of cool things here at Frame of Reference - the photo above is a shot of our newly filled display case. The traditional "bolo tie" is considered de rigeur Western Formal Wear (along with a good pair of jeans and your best boots) for many events here in Montana; our friend Tara has brought a modern and fashionable twist to the table, with styles for both men and women. Many of the women's bolas have matching earrings and bracelets, and several of the men's styles can be paired with a matching women's necklace for a coordinated look, whether you're out on the town or just lounging around the campfire. The bolas are suprisingly affordable, with prices ranging from $45 to $75; bracelets and earrings range from $15 to $35. Stop in and try on a little Bling on a String for your very own!

Our Swanky New Look!

That old template was a little boring, wasn't it? With the busy summer months right around the corner, Christine and I have been consumed by our usual desire to improve ourselves and our business. We have the technology. We can be better...faster...stronger... (Ach, if only we had six million dollars!)

Seriously, though - lots of changes for Frame of Reference in 2011. We've just taken on a new artist about whom we're very excited, and we'll post a little about her as soon as new paintings arrive. We've added a new jewelry line, created by a good friend right here in Bigfork. More on her later, too! We are also working on offering a couple of product lines here that are very artistic, but aren't "art" in the traditional gallery sense - they're not paintings, or sculpture. Can't say more about that until the deals are done, so to speak, but, once again, watch this space for more information. Suffice it to say, Frame of Reference continues to grow and mature, and this year, we'll be better than ever!

About the new look for this blog: we'd appreciate your feedback. Is the new font easy enough to read? Do the links work? Do the colors make you ill? At the behest of a client who couldn't find our phone number, we've added contact information just below our profile - thanks for the suggestion, Frank! Finally, I'm working on a background picture that's a little less generic, and a little more "us" but honestly, the templates are not as user friendly as I'd like and I ran out of patience today. Thanks for your patience. Cheers!

Spring? Really?

Have you noticed that almost ONE THIRD of this year is gone already? What the heck happened? Time really does go by faster when you get older. Not that I'm getting old or anything, I'm just repeating what I've heard....

Spring has sprung here in the Flathead Valley. No, really, it has. It did snow a little yesterday, and it is a bit chilly and rainy today, but Easter Sunday was a beautiful day. Mother Nature has been messing with us this year and we can't quite figure out what's coming. Except possibly a lot of flooding. That should be fun.

Time to rehang the gallery again tomorrow, because this week is Last Friday. I think we are going with an Easter-ish food theme that may include marinated asparagus and lamb meatballs. We have until tomorrow evening to decide on a menu, so why rush.

We got two fantastic new paintings from Sarah Rogers today, just in time for a new window display. We will post a picture soon. And we have some other interesting things coming in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for updates - we promise to be better about posting.

In the meantime, this is where Christine has been for the past week, while Derek and Roxie toiled away in a nice spring blizzard:

Goofy says hi.

Stuff Happens

Avulsion - ah-vul'-shun - noun: The forcible tearing away of a body part, either by trauma or surgery. Why is that defined here? Stay tuned...


There are many joys to owning a small business - among them are no time clock to punch, no lousy coworkers to tolerate, the freedom to take a nap on the work table when the mood strikes you, and many other things. (See below.) There are also many pitfalls, particularly in our new and downsized economy. There are no regular paychecks unless you have enough sales to meet payroll, and there's nobody else with whom to share the unpleasant tasks like cleaning the bathroom, shovelling snow or calling past due accounts. And, when things go wrong or stuff breaks, there's nobody else to deal with it. You gotta do it yourself.



The compressor died on Wednesday morning; after five years of faithful service, it sheared its piston and went from being simply loud to sounding as if it were going to explode. Since it powers most of the tools in the workshop, production came to a grinding halt. On the bright side, we bought a lovely new compressor a few years back, but it was never installed because it's much larger than the space we had allotted, and it's REALLY FREAKIN' HEAVY! Heavy enough so as to be difficult for two people to carry up the stairs, so it has been sitting in the storage unit, waiting to be appreciated. We bit the bullet and installed it Thursday morning, and work continues. On an exceptionally positive note, the new model is what's known as a "silent compressor" - designed for use in dentists' offices where a device that's louder than a snowblower will scare the patients away. This baby is about as loud as a refrigerator running. Fantastic!

Last bit of the "stuff happens" post - when you work with tools every day, eventually you have an accident. Christine and I are used to minor cuts and dings, since we work with glass and razor blades all of the time. However, occasionally something happens every once in a great while that sends you to the Emergency Department - it's the Law of Averages, I suppose. Yesterday my left thumb had an altercation with the table saw - a freak injury that was a result not of my own carelessness or stupidity, but because of a large flaw in the wood that I was cutting, forcing it to kick away from its intended path through the saw. My left hand was supporting the wood on the outflow side of the blade, and the kickback drew my hand back into the saw. I was incredibly lucky for two reasons: first, the blade was only about 5/16" deep because I was just enlarging a rabbet in some moulding, and second, because I was on the far side of the blade, its motion kicked my hand away from the saw, rather than into it. So I was dealt a glancing blow, rather than one that could have potentially amputated the digit. A visit to the ER and the eminently skilled Dr. Kyle Weber got me cleaned up and bandaged - the wound is an avulsion, as described at the beginning of this post. Nothing to sew. Scary, and it will leave a nasty scar, but I'll retain full function with my thumb and it will heal completely so long as I keep it clean. On the bright side, I should be good now for another ten years, since that's about how long it's been since I visited the ER with an injury. Yeah, I know it doesn't really work that way, but I can delude myself...

Out of respect for those with weak stomachs, I'm including a picture of the sexy new compressor, rather than one of my thumb.

Paint on Purpose

Okay, so in the last post I mentioned that Christine has been painting in earnest, and that I recently sold four of her landscapes in the gallery. Christine is kicking around three distinct styles currently - the aforementioned trees and words (as shown in the previous post) and abstractions like the one above. We discovered that paintings like this one are somewhat difficult to frame; too much going on around them diminishes the strength of the central figure, but putting them in a little nothing frame makes them seem...confined, I suppose. As a result of this, Christine has been experimenting with mounting her paper paintings on prepared gallery-wrapped canvases - it's a great technique that allows a painting to be displayed without a frame. Watch for more pictures as she completes a few more pieces.

The painting sales have given Christine a healthy boost of self-confidence, and she's making plans to begin entering art festivals, her first likely being the Festival of the Arts here in Bigfork. This event always falls on the first full weekend of August, and brings roughly 10,000 people to Bigfork to walk the streets and shop the festival. Start painting now, Christine - you need a lot of stuff to fill that booth!


Final thought for the day: Christine has started her own blog to catalog her paintings and the process - find it at http://www.paintonpurpose.blogspot.com/.