Speaker 1 (10:22):

Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s coming up. We’re gonna go in the back. We’re gonna harass all of the employees, see what they’re, what they’re doing back there. Cause I mean this whole, um, business it’s collaborative, you’ve got a, like you said, a wonderful staff. Um, some people that have worked there for quite some time dedicated to their, their craft, they, they all play

Speaker 2 (10:44):

A role. There’s 10 of us or 12 of us somewhere around there at this point. So yeah, it’s definitely, we make 400 frames a year, somewhere around there, you know, and if you think of how many days businesses are and how they’re all hand carved and all that, that’s a lot . But again, fortunately like being an artisan now, and I hope that this trend continues is people seem to be really having a lot more like reaction and need for the trades, like bringing people, uh, you know, like actual, real artisans into their home and stuff. Cuz everybody’s sitting at home staring at empty walls or walls that need to be faint painted or broken fences or whatever the hell it is, you know? So

Speaker 1 (11:27):

Are people realize they’re tired of their art or don’t like the frames that they have or

Speaker 2 (11:33):

Yeah. Or I think that they’ve actually been getting mad and just breaking. Cause we’ve getting a lot of room theres,

Speaker 1 (11:40):

Well that that’s possible.

Speaker 2 (11:41):

Everybody’s been sitting at home too long, drinking too much and smashing things. So like, yeah, I’ve just noticed that recently. I think it’s the upcoming cold snap. Everybody’s worried, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:51):

Just time to get some new things. And, and so yeah, like I said, all the time, uh, I, I bring a lot of work into gold leaf to have framed and they do everything from so when we’re talking about inexpensive frames, that means prefabricated, meaning that they’re ordering it from pre chopped.

Speaker 2 (12:11):

Yeah. Like molding, um, a lot of people in the frame world. And I always found that funny when I started working in sales and stuff from this angle, people would call our, the frames that we make finished corner to frames and I would always contest. They, no, those are frames. everything else. Those are like chopped frames. So I always do approach everything from that angle here. We’ll show you. But yeah, like you were saying, just because it’s not, it’s not a handmade Giled frame doesn’t mean that, uh, it can’t be a good frame. There we go. Okay. There look, aha. See, so we’ve got, we’ve got colors, we’ve got glitter. We’ve got, you know, there you go. Your basic black photo frames and all this stuff is still some of the best quality stuff that you can buy, but it’s all, you know, length molding that has the, uh, the mire and stuff in there. So affordable, affordable frames in the world of frames.

Speaker 1 (13:06):

I hope someday I can come in and say, I would like a frame from the 17th century and Italy.

Speaker 2 (13:16):

Okay. Well now I’m in France, but you know,

Speaker 1 (13:18):

Or France. I mean, I just

Speaker 2 (13:20):

That up, he nice Louis 13 continuous continuous car with little flowers all over it because

Speaker 1 (13:27):

Cause part of, kind of, part of, one of the things you’re interested in at gold frame shop is, is pairing a piece of artwork with the a right frame. So if a, if a piece of artwork is from a certain era that maybe a frame should match that.

Speaker 2 (13:42):

Well actually yes, it makes it like a lot easier to frame and design frames. If you look at the art that way, like here, here’s a piece, right? And this is, um, this is a piece by our frame, Bruce, but it’s like, it’s very Dutch in style and therefore we put it into a Dutch frame here actually. And I’ll flip this camera around here and do that again. Cause like I went, there we go. There’s the better camera though, too. So this is in the style of like a Dutch painting. Um, although he is not a Dutch man, he’s from New Jersey, but you’ve you take that style in a historically you pair it with a Dutch frame here. This one has Tor to shell inlays key corners. Um, and you can see how wonderful that little apple looks now. And I get that a lot too, cuz like I’ll, I’ll show people different.

Speaker 2 (14:31):

I’ll show people gold frames on their artwork. And they’ve said, I didn’t think I would like a gold frame, but traditionally the gold was actually used to help bounce light off of, you know, different ambient sources onto the artwork. So the gold like actually illuminates a painting when the, you know, when you put a frame on it that is, you know, covered in gold. So it’ll actually really brighten up the artwork and, and, and it pulls your attention towards the artwork, you know, cuz you can do here. Here’s a, uh, is really cool, weird painting in, in an old, you know, frame that’s falling apart and it, it just has no life in it. You know, the frame is just as part as just that, that, excuse me, is just part of the, uh, existed part of the drapes in there and it should really have a gold frame on it. Not one of these gold frames. I don’t actually know what to do with this painting here. So,

Speaker 1 (15:21):

So, so did that client bring that piece in to have it refitted in a new frame that you guys will carve? Uh,

Speaker 2 (15:28):

Yeah. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll be doing something for it. Cuz the, this thing is just, uh, is this frame is falling apart and not really, not really worth the time it would take to kind of fix it. Here’s another piece too. And again, I should talk to you about using these shots with the artwork in it. When I think about it further, sure this is a frame that’s actually in for repair. It’s been taring and uh, you know, we need to, we need to fix it up. Somebody got too excited about cleaning their own, uh, their own picture frame and, and wiped off the lacker and then the white gold tarnished. So thanks.

Speaker 1 (16:06):

Well sh shall we go in the back? See, see what’s happening?

Speaker 2 (16:10):

Yes, let’s do that. Let’s see what’s happening in the back list.

Speaker 1 (16:13):

There’s a lot of interesting things happening behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (16:16):

Yep. There’s a lot of just stuff in this building though, too. So yes. Office area office. This is the office area. There’s Marty’s art. It’s actually Marty over there on the, on the mantle piece there, this is his Michael Jackson casket that we and a friend sat, uh, had had made for us. And we, we Giled that in 23 carry gold. Well it

Speaker 1 (16:43):

Had to be Giled

Speaker 2 (16:45):

It? I mean it had to be Giled what was fun was that we actually like ran out of the good gold. So we did it once and you wanna double Guild stuff like that. So we, we went to Gil it again and he was actually in the U. So we actually gilded him, which I know he would’ve appreciated. I think so. All right, here we go. Wood shop. Everybody’s working. He’s rolling again.

Speaker 1 (17:11):

Hey rolling. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (17:14):

I am starving this well, Spanish is a Spanish Italian frame. Yep. This is what probably, I don’t know. 17th century say 16th century says our crack Geno on it here. So this frame would just

Speaker 1 (17:38):

The same client. Did they provide the original frame

Speaker 2 (17:43):

And then, oh no, this is one of our corner samples. So this is uh, okay, gotcha. This is off of our wall and you know, frame shops around the country have this in there and they will sell this one. We sold though too a while ago and getting molding this year has been taking a really long time. So I dunno. When did you start carving this frame? Uh, this morning. Oh, this is this morning cheese rolling. Wow.

Speaker 1 (18:06):

So what kind of wood is that?

Speaker 2 (18:11):

This is uh basswood so we prefer to use basswood when we can, it’s got a really consistent grain pattern and is like relatively soft compared to, uh, most hardwoods it’s actually classified as a hardwood. Soone how long have you been at the shop now? I’ve been here selectively about six, I believe, 18, 16 years. Carbon frames.

Speaker 1 (18:50):

So, so it’s basically all hand tools that you’re using. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:56):

Yeah, we use, uh, we’ve got some, we’ve got a shaper table and a able saw and stuff, but when it comes down to actual carving everything by here, cause you can see, this is just a square piece of wood. Yeah. That’s nice.

Speaker 1 (19:15):

That’s amazing.

Speaker 2 (19:30):

So when Roland started working here, we only did simple things compared to what we’re capable of doing now.

Speaker 1 (19:40):

I mean, this is, this is, I mean, a lot of people don’t consider framing art, but this clearly is, I mean, this is, I mean like you mentioned the story of the woman who just came in and bought a frame just to hang on her wall without art, even in, I mean that makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 2 (19:59):

Yeah. Yeah. That was the frame. Yep.

Speaker 1 (20:04):

I mean, I would probably end up putting a piece of arc in it. maybe not. I don’t know, but I mean, I,

Speaker 2 (20:11):

You better have a nice wall behind it,

Speaker 1 (20:14):

Right. At least repaint the wall or something like that.

Speaker 2 (20:18):

Right? Yep. That’s see to know you’re getting the little, he’s getting the little veins in there. Gotta make sure I’m like looking through the camera that I’m not too close and then I get stabbed over here. I’ll be careful. so part of me was that you like, you know, well you do anything for 16 years and you might be good at it, but I mean is one of the most talented, uh, artists I’ve ever watched work, even if it’s brand new stuff, like you’ve just been started doing, um, what do you call that? Leather? Leather tooling. Yeah. Yeah. And even just like Roland’s first like, uh, oh, check it out. I was playing with this piece of leather yesterday. Holy dude. Yeah, I got it out front. So this is how an Italian frame is born

Speaker 3 (21:17):

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (21:20):

So, so how much long, or how long do you anticipate carving this particular frame? You said you just started it today?

Speaker 3 (21:30):

Um, probably, and then it will go into, um, preparation for Jesso.

Speaker 1 (21:39):

So kinda like when you stretch a canvas, you would Jesso that canvas so that the paint doesn’t see through the canvas and it’s kind of a SIM, is it kind of a similar thing? Withing

Speaker 3 (21:50):

The frame basically discuss is the wood mm-hmm so when it gets skilled, it looks like it’s solid gold or uh, you know, pieces material it’s out for me of the wood into gold.

Speaker 2 (22:05):

Here’s another frame that’s getting prepped for Jesso. This is, this is another frame here. So here we go. But grace also started on this one this morning. So grace has been working with us for three years and as painting in every spare moment of her time. all right. So you ask, you asked tools and stuff though, too. You see this guy over here, cutting Miers on our dedicated frame square. Do you mind if I film you Dylan? Okay. If you say no. Yeah, we’ll cut you out. If he cut your finger off. Cause that would be too wouldn’t make it. So yeah. so this is one of these specific tools of the trade. The frame square frame saw that only cuts at that magic angle.

Speaker 1 (23:12):

So we’re minoring the corners.

Speaker 2 (23:14):

Yeah. So more so than minoring this corner, this was a

Speaker 3 (23:21):

Let’s see here.

Speaker 2 (23:24):

So this is a maple frame and we don’t just have molding for this. We go to Alpine lumber down the road and we pick out each board of maple for each frame. And then it’s milled into milled into the molding that we, we make into the frame here. So

Speaker 1 (23:38):

We’re lucky to have Alpine here in Santa Fe, they have so many amazing, just different types of wood and right.

Speaker 2 (23:45):

They have really, really good, fine quality lumber. We were just looking at that earlier. Here’s some cherry wood that we bought. So these frames here they’re hanging backwards, but uh, these will all have their sides masked off and then we’ll be able to build the face of them so that you’ll have just like the, the white gold or a yellow gold face. Oh, something’s sprayed. Wait, let’s see. What’s happening in here. Wow. Claire’s gonna spray Jesso. You done. Are you done but loud as in here anyway. So so this frame here was this spray in Jesso. One of the only differences that we have between uh, oh, Hey, thanks. That’s Claire. She’s been here for a year or more. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:47):

It’s uh, Grace’s sister. Grace made me hire her before we even met. Cuz she both, they both came outta the Kansas city art Institute, which is a fine establishment. Claire’s a sculptor and a ceramicist that’s that has a, a word that you say, right? Yeah. that was a very artisan, a very happy edition here. So this frame has just been sprayed. Yeah. We’re covering up the wood grain here. Uh, rolling carve this last week. I don’t know, Thursday, Friday, really simple impressionist carve that will soon be gold. So this frame’s actually gonna get Giled tomorrow. It’s kind of on the fast track we were behind waiting for some molding. Here is another contemporary frame here. And what you can see on the table is all the, the, the months on the table and on the wall here is about, uh, 14 or 15 years of over spray, cleaning out the guns at this, uh, this little cooking station back here. So it’s like a cave or something you get sprayed and um, in Jesso then it gets sanded. And uh, here’s a frame in process. Cause what’s really nice about this Jesso here. Here we go.

Speaker 2 (26:04):

So this is a calcium carbonate is like super soft. And I mentioned earlier, we just use calcium, carbon and water and uh, some hide blues and that’s, that’s it, that’s all that’s in it. So it’s not like if anybody’s sanded stuff, like if you’ve ever sanded, um, store bought Jesso, it gets really gummy and gross. Um, this won’t do that cuz there’s no, there’s nothing synthetic about it. It’s all just, um, natural ingredients here. Let’s see. Then we come into this room and this frame was just Giled. Today is a redid Whistler frame. So late 19th century and it’s actually like still wet right now. You can see the way that the gold is spanned across these little gaps in the molding. So this frame is one of, uh, is one of three over here that uh, now, now zoom camera zoom. Okay. So we’ve got actually three of these things, hang up. All of these frames over here are waiting to be Giled.

Speaker 1 (27:18):

How long does it take those to dry

Speaker 2 (27:20):

Overnight? Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:22):

So that one, that, that frame that’s on the table tomorrow they’ll come in and make some final adjustments and then it’ll be ready to send over to SL

Speaker 2 (27:35):

Uh, yeah, more or less, these ones are actually getting shipped to where, where do these ones go? I don’t see a ticket anywhere. These ones are getting shipped at like this frame here is getting shipped at, uh . Um, and it will all seem to go, here’s a corner sample over here. There’s still like a bit more process. Like first we need to burnish portions of the frame. We using these AGT stones and then we gotta patina it so that it, you know, we give it at, give it its age, depending on say trip and fall over there, depending on the period, you know, this is, let’s see, ah, here we go. So here’s the actual corner sample for this Whistler frame here. So you can see by the time we’re done with it, it makes here of burnishing the high points and leaving the low points mat and then like braiding it and putting washes and stuff on it.

Speaker 2 (28:25):

You can actually kind OFS. You can see what’s happening here as opposed to over here, which is still raw. You know, cuz the gold itself is actually like so shiny in most cases. Um, because we’re not just like illuminating paintings off of like candlelight. We try to, uh, we try to knock ’em back a little bit again to replicate that period. Like this frame of up here is a beautiful, a beautiful friend frame. It has a, this is real patina. So this thing’s hundreds of years old here and you can see the way that it looks over time. So we leave these things up to look at them and to try to match them and, and be inspired like this one back here too, all the you and frame, beautiful carves and SWOS and replication corner samples. We’ve got just stuff laying everywhere. This is our shipping department, drum kits and crates and all sorts of stuff over here.

Speaker 1 (29:24):

So yeah, a lot of these carving and then just shipping the frame itself and then it’s getting fit where our, yeah, that’s

Speaker 2 (29:31):

Going about a third of our art. Unfortunately we don’t know where it’s going. Um, but a lot of stuff here, here, slate hiding behind a coiled rope

Speaker 1 (29:42):

Speaker 2 (29:44):

So this is local artist, Carlos Carlo. And uh, this is one of our cherry sides with the 22 K face high burnished, uh, gold frame on it. Enla is tasked with handling the,

Speaker 1 (30:02):

That is a big piece.

Speaker 2 (30:05):

Yeah. And he’s got these clamps set up, so this is a floating fit. So this is a tricky operation here cuz he is actually screwing through the panel in the back of the frame, into the canvas. This is what it looks like under blades table. Yeah. How long have you been screwing in canvases for us LA three years. Three years.

Speaker 1 (30:31):

But the nice thing about this piece is there isn’t any glass or acrylic that you’re having to, to battle with to keep all of the dust out. Right? Right.

Speaker 2 (30:40):

Exactly. These are easy. We’ve got our wait look at this called an ionizing gun for our plexiglass. It makes 7,000 volts and it actually somehow, uh, what does it do? It shoots it shoots ions at the plexiglass. So it distributes the, the static electrical charge. So it blows the way the lint simultaneously and try to have the,

Speaker 1 (31:05):

No, you you’ve got a lot of amazing tools and an amazing crew back there. A lot of the people that work at gold leaf frame shop are artists that create artwork outside of the, the frames. Is that, yeah,

Speaker 2 (31:17):

That’s true. I think like everybody here from, you know, painting sculpture, ceramics, uh, just carving Cassidy, you didn’t get to meet today. Uh, well you’ve met beforehand, but she’s a, but she’s a comic book artist. Uh, everybody is just really talented here. It’s really fantastic. And with like we were playing around, making prints the other night doing transfers and this sort of thing. There’s like somebody usually on staff that knows what they’re doing. Mm-hmm so it makes it, uh, like you can just like kinda like ask around here for a few minutes and you’ll find somebody with the knowledge to help you out with the project that you’re trying to accomplish. It’s really wonderful that we all get to work together. And one of the biggest parks that we have for the people that work at the shop is that like, you know, the, this is all studio space, so everybody’s got keys.

Speaker 2 (32:09):

Everybody can come in and, and make their own art afterwards and stuff. So we try to like make, we try to make the workshop that we make frames in. Like as much as we all love making, you know, love frames or we’re framed nerds and stuff like that too. Like we try to make this whole place a place to share ideas and to, and learn from each other and to actually have a, have a space to use and work and use the tools or use the information that we learn from each other. So a fantastic place to be

Speaker 1 (32:36):

Great. It’s a great community.

Speaker 2 (32:38):

Yeah. And there’s been a lot of people that have stuck around making frames for a lot longer than maybe they should have because they didn’t , they didn’t wanna leave everybody else here. And then there’s a lot of people that like, it gets really tough too, when you find somebody that really wants to, um, that really wants to make frames or really wants to do this kind of work. But then you, you put them in a room with like, you know, four other people

Speaker 1 (33:00):

For 40 hours a week and they don’t get along. Like, it doesn’t really, that doesn’t really work out very well. People are like, oh, well, you know, it shouldn’t be about personality and stuff, but if anybody’s ever worked in a studio with people, like it’s definitely that aspect to it too. Like, so it’s tough, but Santa Fe’s a really great play to, and you were doing a gallery in the, in the front for a while, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:26):

Yeah. We had a, we had Goldie gallery up and running. Yeah. And I know you

Speaker 1 (33:30):

Had a, you had a show of Roland’s work and lot.

Speaker 2 (33:34):

Yeah. We did a Roland, a and Leah Anderson who were both employed here. They had a group show and that was a year ago. I think, cuz it was, that was like fall Equinox.

Speaker 1 (33:45):

Is that a year

Speaker 2 (33:45):

Ago? 2019. Yeah mm-hmm so that was cool. That was a nice thing to offer them as offer them an actual show for people to come to here we’ve we haven’t been doing the gallery thing, um, as much as well. Now it’s a virus and stuff too, but we had stopped. We had like closed it down last winter. It was like too much to keep up with in the midst of everything else, you know, with the just running production and stuff like that. So as you know, it takes a lot of time to run a gallery. So yes. You know, it’s like we tell artists to a lot of artists try to make the, our own frames and you know, to like stop, stop doing that, go like go make art your time as much better spent making your art than making frames, leave the frame, making up to the FrameMaker and um, see that too.

Speaker 2 (34:36):

Like our, our name Goldie frame makers is like, you know, again, it’s a picture frame shot, but we’re not just picture framers. Like we actually, you know, are making this like some, a lot of times you go to a frame shop and they can’t even like make you a frame deeper if you want it deeper. Not, not to mention like, you know, oh, you like the three inch frame. We’ll just make it at five inches. Well, let’s cool. We’ll just like, you know, shape it by hand and carve it that way. That’s no big deal. Um, money permitting. Of course there’s a there’s anything can be accomplished again, if you’re willing to, uh, invest in the, in the artists and services that we offer. so

Speaker 1 (35:13):

Right. I think a lot of times people think of like, okay, I bought the art and then, and then the frame is, is kind of almost goes into the shipping category where it’s a thing. People don’t wanna spend the money on necessarily, but I think it’s just understanding what all is involved and

Speaker 2 (35:29):

Right, right. And a lot of like a lot of galleries and stuff that we work with will do they’ll, you know, if they’re dealing in old paintings and stuff from 150 years ago, 200 years ago, whatever the good galleries, what they do is they actually have everything restored or conserved by a painting conservator say, and then, uh, and then have it reframed so that it looks its best. And that it’s showing as much of the painting as can be seen and that it all is fit in the frame properly. Or if it it’s paper that it’s all archival and stuff. And then those galleries will sell the art that way. And like those galleries are the ones that make more money than any of the other galleries, uh, because like the, the actual consumer they’re already paying for it. And I, and I deal with both people.

Speaker 2 (36:11):

I have galleries and I have people that, that buy from the galleries that also buy from me for other X and stuff too. And they are completely understanding of the fact that like, they don’t have to do anything when they get the, you know, they, they buy a, they buy a piece and it’s framed and it’s archival and it’s, and it’s like ready to go. It’s been conserved. And there’s no question about whether or not they’re gonna have a problem with the surface down the line and stuff, cuz you know, high end artists really, really, um, expensive again. That’s where, that’s where we come in. I always say that we, we at least live in the, uh, in the basement of the king anyway, the, the FrameMaker who’s called to court to uh, you know,

Speaker 1 (36:56):

So, so working at gold, if you get to see a lot of art, do you have a particular, like a favorite type of art or a favorite artist you’ve also built up kind of a, you’ve built up an art collection. Do you have a favorite piece that you own as part of your collection?

Speaker 2 (37:14):

Well, geez. I have so many, I have so much art that I own. No, I guess I see a lot of art. So I, I have a lot of things that I can just, I have the ability to like touch and poke around and do all this stuff and say like, oh, I like this one thing. And I don’t like something else. I’m also like kind of an opinionated person. So it makes it easier for me to say that, but you know, a lot of it. See you rolling. Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (37:35):

Thanks. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (37:38):

You’re welcome. where was I? Oh yeah, a lot of, um, the difficulty I had with the gallery was like selling art because art sales can be so arbitrary. Like why is something valued a certain way when something else isn’t or I mentioned that earlier with somebody who has a sentimental piece of their families, like mm-hmm, why is valued less than, you know, a Picasso or whatever, which of course like some of that’s ridiculous. Some artists are just amazing and I’ve done stuff that nobody else has ever done. Like I was just looking at Achu and it was an artist that I was just turned onto and I had never seen his stuff. And maybe I just don’t know. I’ve just never, I haven’t heard of this guy he’s, you know, mid thirties or whatever. Really cool, cool painter. And um, I mean, obviously this guy is not like some nobody guy, but you know, I, I find artists like that all the time that I’m just like fascinated with what comes in here and so much of the time that somebody that nobody’s ever heard of.

Speaker 2 (38:39):

So I just kinda, I go with, I like it if I like it. And when it comes to like obtaining art, I do when I can. And when it comes to inheriting art, I have a whole frame shot with since 1988, people have been leaving miscellaneous, uh, uh, paper pieces, or I have a giant, uh, painting of Buffalo grazing in a field that hangs in my dining room in my house because somebody like tried to pay their bill with it back in 1991. So I’ve got no, I’ve got no shortage of too much stuff to look at around here. So

Speaker 1 (39:13):

Is, are there, there, um, any artists who you hope to one day obtain a piece by maybe somebody that just really speaks to you, but hasn’t happened yet?

Speaker 2 (39:28):

I mean like, okay. Let me think about like something that’s in, it could

Speaker 1 (39:31):

Be anybody cause we’re just like, it could be

Speaker 2 (39:34):

The realm of like, I love my, but I think that that’s like probably like a bit far out there. No, I mean, one of the, one of the more recent, uh, things with that though too, was, was the artist that you represent, uh, over at photo I, which is Ruben woo, who I really liked his, his photographs, he needed frames and I was framing him, him for you. And then I traded him frames to frame, to put in the gallery. So at least being a FrameMaker, it’s like, uh, I’ve got something to barter for the most part. And usually when it comes to like local people and stuff like that, there’s, there’s usually a way to find, to find something and work it out. They like the old school, uh, hand carving and gilding picture or frames like the barter. System’s really nice for

Speaker 1 (40:19):

That. Why is there, is there a, a current soundtrack at the gold leaf frame shop? Like what’s everybody listening to there now? Is that like a collaborative thing or are people listening to their own music?

Speaker 2 (40:31):

Um, it depends. It depends what I did on that front though, which is pretty exciting here. I’ll take another one. I can show you this is that, uh, I just decided recently to start a parallel record collection for the shop. Cool. And I have a pile of boxes in front of it at the moment because dealing with stashing a bunch of art, but they’re new, new shop, new shop vinyl. Um, and yeah, we’ve been, uh, yeah, just going around, collecting it SL uh, has, has a record buying Abbot that he’s, I think he’s pretty much addicted to buying some, to addicted, to buying vinyl at this point. So he’s constantly going over there and then he’ll, he’ll slip stuff into, into my crate here. Oh yeah. So he’s Frank Zappa though too. Also, if you go over to, um, geez, what’s the name of Georgia’s shop Las Padre’s records over in Solana center, you’ll see some framed, uh, band posters and stuff in there that were all done, uh, out of this place.

Speaker 2 (41:35):

And, uh, again, like I was talking about the barter system earlier, you know, that’s where I got my, my Beyonce album, um, which is one of the few that has actually come. One is the, which is one of the few albums, I guess. And maybe that’s a good one. That’s been on my head a lot lately that has come from my house and ended up at the shop in the shop bucket. Cuz mostly I’m just trying to, trying to, there you go. Herp Albert’s Tijuana brass trying to do that. Oh yeah. See like this is, this one goes back though, too, having a shared stereo, growing up with a bunch of old, uh, punk rockers and stuff. When I was a teenager, like turned me onto a lot of bands, like Fugazi, like not the Beatles. I guess I had already heard the Beatles, uh, was a Bobby D uh, nobody wants to listen to the Jay Isles band, but you know,

Speaker 1 (42:25):

, I’m so glad I asked.

Speaker 2 (42:28):

Yes. See, I had a whole show. I had a whole show and tell there. No, actually, um, sharing music though has been like a bit, a big part of this place, especially it used to be now we’ve got four, four stereos. I wanna say now that this is, uh, we’re in, in um, 7,500 square feet. Oh look, if I stand right here, then I have a halo over my, there we go. and in a weird little chair of things, see now and Hank and some bullets. Okay. There we go. See know like no matter where you look in this building though, you’ll always find fun stuff. See? Oh wait, no, no, no. I’ve got, oh wait, which way do I go? Oh, there we go. The AK 47 halo. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:07):

So you got a lot. There’s a lot of Marty, a lot of Marty art.

Speaker 2 (43:10):

There’s a lot of Marty. This is one of my favorites. That’s the shroud off a nuclear warhead right there, the gold plated thing in the background next to the, uh, Shriners cap and the, uh, and the hand grenades. Um, but yeah, there’s a whole bunch of just, you know, like I was saying before, like when I need a new piece of art, I don’t need to look very far, you know, cuz there’s just paintings everywhere.

Speaker 1 (43:34):

You are surrounded by it and, and how surrounded by everything, anybody. Yeah. Or I don’t know if you love art and you’re surrounded by, right?

Speaker 2 (43:43):

No, this is the, uh, you know, the best, the best place to work if you love art. Nice. So we should have some examples here. See like this, this frame is actually, you can see how that is raised off the surface. I think that’s coming through. Yeah. Um, that’s uh, this is an Italian technique called Siglia and what we do is we mix the Jesso with honey and paint it onto the wood before we apply the Jesso and the honey actually, for whatever reason makes the, uh, suggests JSO extra hard. And it, then it stands up through the, the JSO being applied on top of it. And you can see the design that you painted on underneath it. So that’s like really cool old Cresty old techniques, some more Castiglia. If you get a focus, there we go. And you can see, and then actually in this area, in between, we’ve gone through with a little punch and a hammer and hammered in that texture to make it so yeah. Yeah, no. So these, these, these are really fun. The older and gross, it was like, so you can imagine this frame here is hung next to a fireplace for, you know, a couple hundred years and you’ve got the crack lore and the surface and you’ve got the CRE. So sitting in all the lows and everything. So, you know, you have to have fun and you have to tell yourself the, tell yourself the stories and go through the journey with the frame, you know, cause again, it’s art.

Speaker 1 (45:17):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (45:19):

And the only, the next step would be to actually go like Rob old European barns of their wood. And then you can carve it into the old Barnwood mm-hmm and then you can really, you can really start to sell some expensive frames. Then we had an art smuggler and forger in here one day. Who’s trying to tell me how to, uh, fake carbon tests by baking pigments. Wow. he could say, well, that’s really cool to know. He was really complimentary of our crack Jesso, but I was like, but we make, you know, reproduction frames, like we’re, you know, you look at the back of one of our frames and it says what year it was carved. Um so yeah, we’re not trying to not trying to fool anybody all

Speaker 1 (45:59):

You’re able to replicate, but you’re not trying to rip anybody

Speaker 2 (46:03):

Off. We’re not trying to say that. Yeah. Yeah. This is a real, this is a real Italian frame.

Speaker 1 (46:09):

You, you, you never know who’s gonna walk in some days,

Speaker 2 (46:12):

Right. To speak with the Italian accent.

Speaker 1 (46:16):

Yeah. And, and your dad, Marty. He did he start listen, New York or in Santa Fe? Originally

Speaker 2 (46:24):

It was in New York. He had started, uh, the company was called Rothman and Horowitz and it was with his old mentor who taught him how to make the high end frames back in the seventies. So he had done that for a while. Then he ran a bunch of large operations in New York city. Then he, uh, then he did other stuff for for a little bit. Then he, he started working at, uh, with his old mentor, uh, right around the time I was. And, and, and you know, for a few years, I, it was five years or something like that in New York. So he had gotten sick though. He had pneumonia. So like the old tuberculosis days, he was sent out by the doctors to New Mexico so that he could like dry out his lungs and breathe again. And then that’s how my family was here and yeah, my dad, it was 88. So I was three, my brother was six or seven and my sister was gonna be born like a year later. They just were like, Nope, go to Santa Fe. So,

Speaker 1 (47:29):

Well, I think historically a lot of people moved to Santa Fe for that reason. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:35):

Oh yeah. Yeah, no, there was definitely between the altitude and like this summer, the really dry climate mm-hmm , not, there’s like no mold here and stuff too. He was like a mold smelling, truffle pig or something like you could . It was great. When I was buying a house and stuff too, he was like walks into a place like, oh, it’s clean. ,

Speaker 1 (47:58):

It’s saved.

Speaker 2 (48:00):

It is one sport. Yeah. He would’ve been sick. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:03):

Well, well he started an amazing thing and is, and, and, and you’ve kept up this tradition and it’s been so great working with both of you over the years. And where, where did you go to art school? I don’t think I know that story.

Speaker 2 (48:19):

I went to the university of New Mexico and I have a degree in scenic design for TV and film and theater, the theater. I, and I didn’t realize that at the time I was kind of an undeclared major that mm-hmm, found a wood shop on the UNM campus and found a family with those weird theater folks. Mm-hmm um, that I didn’t really, yeah. I, I hadn’t realized it until later that probably the part of the attraction to working at theater was because of growing up, working at gold leaf mm-hmm like so many hands making one. I mean, not to mention just like the prce of a stage and the, the picture frame around a picture, but like so many hands working together. Cause you saw how many people are back there, even on like that’s like half the staff, you know? Yeah. Um, sometimes five or six people will touch one frame to make one single piece in putting on a production, like whether it was, you know, opera or film or whatever was all the same sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (49:22):

Many people just working together for the same concept, which I find, you know, I find really cool, you know, somebody’s gotta design it, somebody at a steer, their ship, somebody’s gotta do the research, but then it makes way more sense to have every step of the way, whether it’s being carved or sanded or Giled to have the expert in that nature, just do it, you know? And that way you can actually, you can do a lot of big stuff really quicker than anybody would think was possible or a lot more things. One would think you could do. Um, because everybody’s really good at what they do while, you know, like here we try to cross train everybody so they can do everything. Um, but definitely people find their niche, you know, find the part that they’re really good at. So yeah, no

Speaker 1 (50:08):

Collaboration is, is amazing. Cuz even if somebody is cross trained and people are just gonna be better at certain aspects of it. Right.

Speaker 2 (50:17):

And like I said, working with people are now in like my job as I, like, I direct people, you know, I tell ’em what to do, right. So if somebody new starts working here and it’s not, you know, me alone or whatever, it’s in conversation. But I mean like after all these years though, too, it’s like, what does cause a lot of times see people start working and they think they wanna do one thing and then they they’re better suited to do something else. And it’s weird when somebody you give somebody, oh, here’s how you make a frame. This is the whole thing. And so I showed you, you write, you know, how to make a frame. Now think that one thing seems appealing. And then when you get into it, you realize that it’s really not. Or some people they really wanna carve a frame, but you know, they’re not, that’s not where their, their, their talent lies.

Speaker 2 (51:00):

And it’s funny too, because like the frames, I guess find their people or we, you know, people find their own part of whatever it is. They do the best they do it. And I dunno, some of it’s like, okay, well we don’t have a Guilder somebody needs to, you know, step up and be the Guilder or whatever. But a lot of it just kind of happens and has to happen over over years and sometimes, you know, decades and you know, people start working here and we, we just immediately write off the, for the, for six months. It’s like, okay, well, try to figure out how to sand Jesso. see if you can actually get a surface to accept gold appropriately. And in the meantime, we’ll try to, we’ll try to see what, what skills you’ve got and what you’re good at, and we’ll throw stuff at you and we’ll see where you end up and what we need and what you’re, you know, what you’re willing to try to do.

Speaker 2 (51:51):

So it’s really kind of cool the way that yeah. It’s like the master apprentice sort of thing, but it, it just has to happen. And a lot of people though, too, will get a lot of people, right. Outta school and stuff. And they think it’s like signing up for picture frame class like, oh, Jesso semester is done now. Now is it time to take carving? It’s like, right. It’s like, no, no, this is a, this is a business that we need to, you know, actually pay everybody. So that’s, that’s the reality of it at the end of the day is like, you know, to do something like this and to make it a business, you have to be able to draw that line. And it’s, yeah, it’s tough sometimes, but that’s what makes it what it is.

Speaker 1 (52:35):

Yeah. It’s being in an artistic medium and running a business. And, and speaking of, um, episode three of art in the raw, who is with my buddy, Greg Robertson, who’s a stone sculptor. And, um, he has a background in theater as well. So I think you might enjoy that one and this one, and then this one hasn’t aired yet. But my, my friend, Nicole IY, Coney she’s in Dallas right now. She’s working in the theater right now as a lighting designer and, and technician, where’s she at? Yeah. She’s at the Dallas theater center they’re working on right now, an adaptation of, of a Christmas Carol. So we filmed an episode about that the other day and that’s gonna be out in a few weeks. Um, but, but the crazy thing about that is, is so she’s been in the theater business for over 20 years, but this is the first ever production where they’re actually creating it with the purpose of streaming it. Huh. Interesting. Because of we’re all adapting and you know, we’ve got that drive in movie theater that, um, have you, have you checked out any of those

Speaker 2 (53:49):

Yet? No, I have a really nice couch.

Speaker 1 (53:52):

yeah. I, I went to one it’s kinda fun.

Speaker 2 (53:59):

I don’t know. And I’ll see now, like now that I’m looking outside and it’s snowing, it’s really like the thought of staying at home to me. Nice. Like in the winter I love the snow. And I said, we’ve been fortunate because we’ve had to brave our gold leaf bubble to be with people. So at least I get to see people on a regular basis cuz we can’t be doing what we’re doing back there remotely, cuz we’re all working together on one frame. So we try it when we were shut down, we had people working remotely and we were moving, we were transporting and, and a pickup truck and we were bringing stuff in, bringing stuff out and like, um, that kind of, it worked for shutting down for the virus. But now that we’re busy, again, it just is not, you know, it’s not conducive because there, we had like a shut down plan. Now we’re trying to be busy because for a lot of reasons we need to stay and in business. So yeah. Keep

Speaker 1 (54:48):

Everybody they have,

Speaker 2 (54:51):

They have medical grade, uh, masks and stuff available again. Great. Which I felt bad cuz I didn’t have any the right safety equipment for a while. I hope that we learn. I hope we learn something from all of this. I hope there’s still a strong demand for me and my artists and fellows. I don’t know. You know, obviously the theater is really tricky, anything like that. I have a feeling that they’ll be able to figure out as far as film goes, a way to make that, that, that sort of stuff viable. Yeah. Cause part of the beauty of the theater is going to the theater. Right. But yeah. I don’t know, long, scary winter. I’m glad that you’re entertainment for people to watch

Speaker 1 (55:30):

Well basically I just wanna keep everybody inspired is, is kind of my, my

Speaker 2 (55:36):

Yeah, no. And um, I don’t know if I can do my part and keep us here and at least keep us, we’ll keep us safe, but keep us like making frames and, and staying in business and stuff like that too. You knows we all weather the weather, the storm. So

Speaker 1 (55:51):

Yeah. We’ve gotta stay inspired, connected and all of that before I let you go, cuz you’ve still gotta drive home and it’s it’s snowing, which I do. I’m all I’m all about, um, you it’s, so we we’re talking about entertainment and how much you enjoy hanging out on the couch at home. Do you, do you have a favorite movie, a current favorite movie all time. Favorite movie?

Speaker 2 (56:21):

Uh, well, one of my favorites that I just revisited, which was a fantastic experience was iHeart Huckaby. So I do love, I do love that movie. It’s very, very funny. I haven’t seen it. You haven’t seen iHeart Huckaby. Okay. See it. There we go. See, this is why you’re asking. You’re just asking this well, no, I’m, I’m gonna take a break before the editing big. You can. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (56:43):

No, I’m gonna create actually a suggested movie list from, from all the guests of art in the raw I don’t know why not

Speaker 2 (56:51):

okay. Yeah. So definitely I heard HKI be, um, I, my all time favorite movie is, uh, it’s it’s Jurassic park, I think. Cuz I pro because I watched Jura at least twice a year. So it’s gotta, I mean, huh?

Speaker 1 (57:09):

Part one. No. Oh yeah. The first one. There’s so many. Which Jurassic park

Speaker 2 (57:13):

You want that movie for fun? No, it’s

Speaker 1 (57:15):

well, I assume, but there’s like seven jurasic parks at this point.

Speaker 2 (57:22):

Only the first one only the first one pounds ski old classic Spielberg back when an hour and a half movie was an hour and a half. I mean back back when, back when a movie was an hour and a half and you didn’t have to, I have like, like I said, I have a really nice couch. I have a problem, uh, falling asleep on my couch. mm-hmm mm-hmm so I gotta be able to make it through, make it through ’em but yep. Character development, conflict, man. Action. Uh, beautiful, uh, spectacles.

Speaker 1 (57:54):

Well, thank you so much, David, for joining me tonight and, and for your whole crew that was available to show us what they’re doing and everything. And for everybody watching, keep the conversation going, please like comment, subscribe, tell your friends and um, stay tuned, suggested movie list from creative people. Cause right on that, wasn’t something I intended to make. Um, I’m gonna write it down and I’m gonna it because you know, a lot of ice you’re you’re at home hanging out on the couch and it’s hard to decide what, what you’re gonna watch. Well, um, careful driving home in the snow. Yeah. David,

Speaker 2 (58:36):

It looks pretty clear out there. I think we’ll be all right.

Speaker 1 (58:39):

Just the snow for a few days now. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and cheers. I’ll see you soon. Cheer

Speaker 2 (58:48):

yes.

Speaker 1 (58:50):

Others. Is that Slade behind you?

Speaker 2 (58:52):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:54):

Cheer SL all right. Well have a good night and, and thanks for all. And we’ll talk soon. All right. Talk

Speaker 2 (59:01):

Soon. Okay. Bye.

Speaker 1 (59:03):

Bye. Bye. So we’re gilding a drink.

Speaker 2 (59:18):

Yep. For cocktail hour is 23 karat gold made in the USA or at least beaten into little squares in the USA. So this gold here is one, 250000th of an inch thin. There we go. Yeah.