Lodestar

Private Commission

2014, Acrylic and India Inks on Stiffening Fabric, Tramp Art Frames (Provided by Client) and Chicken Wire, 40"w x 22"h x 1.5"d

The client who commissioned this work, David Rhodes, had inherited several old “Tramp Art” picture frames from his grandfather and wished to place art in them. Tramp Art, which is a form of itinerant folk wood craft, was mostly made between the 1870s and the 1940s, much of it from scrap crate wood and cigar box wood. Its most common characteristic is elaborately cut geometric layers.   It has become very collectible.  I almost turned down the commission for fear of having it appear that I was laying claim to the beautiful frames as my own “found object” material.  Then I arrived at a work of my own art that I felt I could honestly place in the frames and which honored the original, albeit anonymous, artisan.