We are super excited.

This year Red Wing Framing & Fine Art Printing will be a 'Red Carpet Sponsor' of the 2nd annual Flyway Film Festival in Pepin, Wisconsin from October 22 to 25, 2009. The primary venue will be the Lake Pepin Art & Design Center. Besides providing support in part for the entire event, we will be the presenting sponsor for the opening night events on Friday night, October 23rd at 7 pm.

This is a significant investment for our modest operation, but it makes sense for several reasons;

1) We like what this group is trying to accomplish and their ambitious way of going about it.
2) We love films, which should be apparent by past entries regarding the Chief Theater in Red Wing.
3) We feel it is very important to contribute to the community and we like art venues that try to be all-inclusive.

More about this as the calendar gets closer to the the film festival.

Tomorrow (August 12) the 1st annual Downtown Red Wing Mac and Cheese Smackdown takes place. We are delighted to host and look for forward to a most delicious event. Every small business in Downtown Red Wing is invited to participate.

You might be asking yourself, "What does a mac and cheese smackdown have to do with small businesses?"

Nothing and everything is the answer.

Nothing, because it has nothing to do with business, per se. And everything, because every small business feels the economic challenge these days and providing a small amount of escapism has real value.

There is always room and time to have fun. And nothing says fun like a mac and cheese smackdown.

A Certified Picture Framer (CPF) is a designation administerd by the Professional Picture Framing Association (PPFA). The PPFA adminsters the five hour CPF exam twice a year and tests in the areas of: (1) art and framing preservation, (2) framing knowledge, (3) the mechanics of framing, (4) the mathematics of framing and (5) art and image mounting.

To insure that any framer who has a CPF stays current in the professional framing field, a CPF must retake the exam and re-certifiy as a CPF every five years.

This is a very arduous and rigorous process, which is why very few framers bother becoming CPF's. Red Wing Framing Gallery is one of only five CPF's actively working in Minnesota.

We are very proud of the professionalism in which we address our business and we take our industry very seriously.

This should be important to any client if their art is important to them.

Pulp cover art has a unique place in art history. It has terrific nostalgia appeal for anybody who enjoyed The Hardy Boys, comic books or even a peek at The Old Man's collection of True Detective or Stag magazines. It had the specific purposes to grab your attention on the newstand in a crowded field of competitor's and to evoke an emotion, usually with a provocative image of impending peril or suggestive sensuality. Common elements usually include a couple of 'toughs', a large breasted woman and a 'citizen' or a 'hero'. The above example (original on the left, Rudolph Zirn, 1939) has all three.

We are excited and delighted to announce a gallery exhibit of original pulp cover art. The show will open in October (date tbd) and will include both the original art and the subsequent ephemera the originals were used to produce. The colors are extremely vivid and the techniques used by the artists to project a response is fascinating.

This is the third year in a row that we have had the pleasure of working with Grapefruit Moon Gallery in presenting their collection of illustration art. In 2007 we presented original pin-up art (here and here) and in 2008 we presented original Cream of Wheat advertising art. Pulp magazine art is yet another sub-genre of illustration art that we are proud to present.

The 'pulps' were fiction magazines that were very popular from about 1930 to 1960. The term 'pulp' comes from the cheap paper typically used in production (cheap paper has a lot of wood pulp). The magazines became noteworthy for their provocative covers. The covers became so important that in many cases the covers were designed first and the text was designed around the covers. Pulp magazines were also a major employer of short story authors and the subsequent demise of the pulp industry created a vacuum for these authors that has never been filled.

Oil or gouche paintings are used to create the original cover art. The colors are intentionally vivid to compensate for the primitive printing technology at the time. Several pulp cover artists (i.e., Frank Paul and Margaret Brundage) became accomplished artists in this genre and attracted a following. Pulp art has recently experienced a renaissance in popularity and is widely sought by collectors.

More details as they evolve but I thought this teaser would have value.

Red Wing is a company town and the name of that company is the Red Wing Shoe Company.

Red Wing Shoe (or 'The Shoe' to the locals) has been manufacturing shoes and boots in Red Wing for over 100 years. The company manufactures and sells purpose-built footwear. Some of their target markets include oil and gas, construction, iron workers, agriculture, hunting and hiking. Their largest manufacturing plant is in Red Wing, Minnesota. Almost all other footwear today is manufactured and imported from low cost countries, so a work boot made in the USA is unique.

The Shoe is paternal about the City of Red Wing. When The Shoe announced last year that they were going to purchase a blighted downtown building and create a flagship shoe store and museum, it was a major announcement, especially locally.

This past week The Shoe moved their World's Largest Boot (20x a normal boot) from a warehouse to the new store. It was an exciting event that garnered a lot of attention. As exciting as that was, the energy level is even higher inside the store as employees scramble to meet an aggressive deadline in opening the new store.

Red Wing Shoe understands the value of visuals and is an image-oriented company. We are proud to have provided the graphics and framing for this exciting new venue. The store opens August 3rd and the museum later this month.