JohnMacKah.com

October 6th  through October 31st    

Hinterlands & Backwaters

16 Patton Gallery  Downtown Asheville                           

Study for  Cold Mountain, October  9 x 12, oil on panel. 

Completed, fully size work will be 30 x 40 inches

Recently asked by Paul Clark at Asheville Citizen-Times. The article

Framing is an Art by  Paul Clark, pclark@citizen-times.com, published July 29, 2007 .

Below is what I sent to him. He did not use all of it in the article which included quotes from other artists and referalls to several frame shops.

Mark Schifferstein,  at the Chop Shop, at the Frugal Framer here in Asheville,  is the framer I prefer to work with and he is also a fine artist and has a intuitive understanding what frames work well with my work and  they have a solid selection of stock. Ken Pitts who owns both  operations  has a deep understanding of frame construction, art history and styles. Judy, who works up front has a great eye for how to integrate framing with the art.

 Framing is artisianal and there’s a long tradition of artists’s designing and making their own frames, so the choice of framing is part of the statement, not just furniture, but part of the whole of the work. I spend a lot of time on a piece, so choice of frame is not casual or a matter of trends in interior design.  It’s also functional, in the case of paper which needs an archival presentation

Frame history is fascinating and should be of interest to serious art collectors who understand that the work and the frame are aesthetically integrated. It’s frustrating to have buyers ask to remove or change frames to suit their interior decor; it disrespects the artists’ idea of how the two work together to create a whole. People should buy a new couch instead. Since  I often use foundations  that I prepare myself — wood panel, stretched canvas, sized paper-the frame is really custom made and not standard and that’s important part of the work.

I also work with Mark Henry at Natural Views (mahlascp@msn.com) a long time friend  and artist who worked many years as a fmuseum frame conseravator. He and I have collaborated on large frames that require features that make them easier to handle; they can be knocked down to be moved. Framing is part of the ’signature’ of the work.

 John Mac Kah

For more on framers who carry my prints in the Asheville area, they are listed on “Fine Arts Prints” page.

 In April and May, here in the mountains of western North Carolina it was clear, and very dry. It was so dry I ended up waiting to plant my garden, then never really did get it started. The so called ‘Easter Freeze’ blasted everything in April, and so by the time I thought it warmed up, it had begun to rain sporadically, then torrents. Everything looked battered for weeks. I finally planted a few things in late  in June -then the rabbits had their way with it. We may just  get some late beans and chard if they get bored or we get the energy to cover the beds. With the abundance of great growers at tail-gate markets around WNC and my cranky bank, it’s hard to get motivated these days, however much I enjoy walking up the hill for fresh produce. What with early clear, dry warm days but cold nights and then torrents of rain, it was an unusual spring.

Since John is working toward two fall shows (check the “Exhibitons” page for the schedule),  we decided to take advantage of clear, cool air to find some old growth areas. With maps and directions supplied by Josh, the tree guy, from SAFC, we took off for areas around Douglas Falls; Pilot Cove off Mills Creek; areas around Robbinsville, Lake Toxaway courtesy of friend Mandy, and the trails around Joyce Kilmer National Forest.  The one pictured here is not one of the fabled Tulip Poplars at Kilmer, but a white oak. Later in the summer, it would not stand out quite as much as the saplings and undergrowth would have made this shot impossible.

 I actually took three images and stitched them together. You can barely see the crown. Alot of lateral branches were snapped off, either by snow weight or wind.  At the base there were trilliums, dogtooth violets and a mass of yet unopen crested iris. Behind and to the right, a fallen elder of about the same size, but considerably decayed. There were others in the neighborhood, with similar burls and outgrowths. I once read that the Vikings treasured these protuberances and had a small cottage industry in Vinland, cutting the trees to make wassail bowls.  I am not sure that it was true written by a late 19th century historian-archilogist. But it it’s easy to believe that the Vikings had  denuded Scandanavia to make ships so  the big Trees of Vinland would seem like a rich store of wood to use for masts, tools (looms), ships, small boats, furniture. This old dear had been struck somewhen by lightening, from the looks of the hollowed out core at the base that served some decent size bears a safe haven.

We began  by looking for Big Trees, but learned to look for Old Growth: areas in the forest that had not been logged, or had been logged over 100 hundred years ago. Virgin Forest, that is untouched by human contact (what a concept!!!??) is a misnomer, and is rather mythic than real. There were after all, lots of humans in these woods long before Europeans descended with their specialty of culture change that made indiginous dwellers extinct. We did find some bigun’s, but typically, old growth is not always about big. Sometimes it means fallen, snags, and snarled and contorted growth, trees whose roots embrace rocks and each other, or twisted to catch light in a forest now wasted by lumberman who cut out those that created a conopy.  Sometimes it means trees too difficult to reach, so abandoned by loggers. Occasionally it means a tree  with too much character, so many  twists and turns  it makes little  useful lumber and so ignored.  We found  trees that were felled en masse, then abandoned because of an unexpected blizzard  or hurricane weather driving the lumberman off the ridge. They sometimes did not bother to return, and left the ‘harvest’ scattered and wasted.  Of course the forest made good use of it over time, but still it seems a shame to lose those elder trees because folks got too busy or the weather turned sour.   One ridge lay littered with moderately large American chestnut trees, big white ghosts of trees sleeping in the duff, cut to capture the ‘harvest’ before they died of blight. Or perhaps, the blight had made the wood useless, and so they were ’culled’ so other trees could grow, but cut they were, not broken by wind.  We looked for their stumps, hoping to see what remained when I first moved here in the 1970’s: big gray tables of wood, big enough to picnic  or even dance on, grayed and worn. But weather has been wetter and time has pretty much eroded those remnants, though I understand that some may  remain in higher drier places or in deep woods on the western slopes. We did not see any we could clearly identify, though we saw evidence enough along old narrow guage rail beds off Big Creek. Sometimes it’s hard to know if a stump might be a big oak, hemlock or chestnut. I imagine they take in a lot of direct rain, which pouring straight down, freezing, thawing leaves lots of room for decay.

This shot was taken from behind the base of the oak, at ground level, about 5 feet way. What has this to do with painting?  Not much except that we will go back to visit these elders and perhaps their character will find a way onto canvas. Or perhaps it’s just enough to know they are there and show respect from time to time and give them room, lots of room, and a great deal of respect for hanging on.

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