A Few Recent Framings

 I spent most of April through early October working on our camp on the Miramichi.  Before I headed up, I was able to finish a framing for my pal John M.   He had hosted an artist for some salmon fishing, and the artist responded by sending John his most recent limited edition print.  John sent me the print and a fly he tied to frame up.  This is what I came up with for him (I can't believe I didn't think to take a photo of the finished product in its frame!).  Don't forget you can click on the pic for a larger version:

I also framed up two wonderful Thomas Aquinas Daly original pieces: an ink wash of a dead grouse that he did for me in a book purchase and a lovely salmon fishing watercolor for our camp.  The photos are not color corrected.

A framing that took more than the usual amount of work came as a commission from a fellow from NH that frequents the Classic Fly Rod forum, as do I.  He had flies tied by Ted Williams and Joe Sharkey, who, I gather, had been a boxer of note, as well as a fly tyer/angler.   He also provided some essentially unuseable photos, so I had to do a bit a research to find the same or different/better photos.  I started with this, as mailed to me:

and ended up with this:

I've been very pleased - and, frankly, proud - to be able to make several recognition plaques for the Miramichi Salmon Association, both the U.S. and Canada groups.  The first I did for MSA-US for their February, 2025 dinner where they recognized both the late John Swan (he passed just before the event) and the very much alive Luther Hall for their contributions, in the form of their art donations, to wild Atlantic salmon conservation.  Here's John's plaque; Luther's was identical.

Walnut splices in the cherry frame:

The MSA - Canada hosts the Icebreaker dinner in Boiestown, NB just before the salmon season starts and each year they honor a person, family or company that has/have been long supporters of the group.  I was particularly pleased to create an award for the Wilson family, the 2025 awardees.  And again, I can't believe I didn't take a photo of it in its cherry frame!

Several years ago I worked with an artist who used my salmon flies to create a couple of etchings.  I finally got around to framing the second of the two he created, along with copies of the flies he used to draw the piece.  Kind of a whimsical framing style for me.

I just put a single cherry splice into the pine frame.

A fun little framing for our camp centers on Ira Gruber's salmon fly creation, the Oriole.  A while back I was given a batch of flies tied by Gruber, who is credited with creating the Miramichi style salmon fly body, which is kind of a cigar shape.  Included in that group was an Oriole.  

When I sorted through much of my good friend, the late Bob Warren's fishing stuff with his wife Linda, we found a small box with some tagged flies in it.  Two of the flies were Orioles tied by the late Wallace Doak and his son, who now runs the W.W. Doak fly shop in Doaktown, NB, Jerry.   It was very generous of Linda to gift me the box of flies.

I also lurk around several online auction sites, always on the lookout for something fun to put in a frame.  I found a delightful postcard, postmarked 1919, that was perfect for the frame I wanted to make for our camp:

I spent some time last year drawing my own map of the Cains river.  That was quite a project!  I framed it up with three Cains River streamers I tied, and donated it to MSA-US for an auction.

One of my most recent framings was done at the request of my friend, Andy D.  The artist is John Rice.  It is a wonderful map/deptction of the Miramichi River watershed.  With Bridget's help, I think we picked the perfect mat colors for the map.  The frame started life as rough cut Vermont red oak and became a hand-rubbed tung oil frame in my shop.  This one is going to be hard to let go of!  Not color corrected; the top mat is more teal than it appears, and the map is way more beige.  I need to invest in some sort of color correction thingy.

Finally, just finished today for an upcoming MSA-US auction, is framing centered on a super-provenanced Undertaker, created and tied by New Brunswick salmon fishing's favorites sons, the late Warren Duncan, framed with a limited edition salmon print.  I feel like this is one of the "richest" looking framings I've done.  It originally was to have a top mat of a light color, but looking at the mats for awhile, the thing just demanded that deep, deep green top mat.  So there you have it.

That's about it from down in the shop for now.  Time to get back to some "honey-do's!

Cheers,

Gary