Over the Mantle: "The Secret Garden"


 Over the Mantle

The Secret Garden

Several years ago we bought an oak frame for use over our cottage mantle at an antique mall in North East.  While our intent was to use the frame for my art, to be painted to fit the frame dimensions.  The print in the frame was pleasant enough that I decided to not discard it, have it both ways.  Display my paintings sometimes, and the original print sometimes.  To do this I fabricated wood turnbuttons that would allow me to mount a painting on hardboard (Masonite is the common brand) in front of the glass covering the print thus avoid disturbing the print:


Here's the framed print over the mantle:


Often the print is displayed over the winter, and one year it was visible in our Christmas card:


One picture I painted for this frame is Osprey:

A second painting is Girl of the Susquehanna, depicting a young Indian woman canoeing with a baby, along with graphics based on petroglyphs found along the lower Susquehanna and upper Chesapeake Bay:


 Earlier this year we gave Osprey to a neighbor who admired it, so I decided to paint a new picture to cycle through display in the oak frame.  Rather than cutting a new piece of Masonite, I used the reverse rough side of Girl of the Susquehanna.  Here is The Secret Garden, where Mary and great-granddaughter Alaina enter this imaginary floral world:




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