Custom Gold Frames
Since the onset of a picture frame history, as we know it, frames have always been gilded. The Egyptians started gold gilding thousands of years ago as a celebration of their pharaohs, symbolizing gods.
Over many years, art enthusiast Kevin O'Connor, amassed a large collection of stunning examples of Authur Lloy's work and had custom gold gilded frames built for each painting. Kevin spent years speaking to friends and family of Aurthur, to form The Lloy Project, the most comprehensive collection of information anecdotes and paintings that's ever been assembled.
The making of the gilded frames for Arthur Lloy's paintings is a process that takes approximately 12 days and involves nearly 20 different steps. Starting with milled basswood, the frames are cut and joined using both screws and glue.  The screw holes and any imperfections in the wood are then filled, and if hand carving is required it is formed at this time.  The frames then undergo a complete sanding to make sure the frames are perfect for the next stage. Using a brush, the raw wood is lightly coated with rabbit skin glue and sprayed with 2 coats of gesso and sanded again. This process is repeated, and the frame is sprayed with 4 additional coats of gesso.  The frame is then sprayed with a thin coat of red clay and then sanded once more. Two additional coats of red clay are applied and a final sanding with a 1000 grit sponge completes the preparation process.
After all the preparatory work the frames are now ready for gilding. The first step in the gilding process is the frame is treated with a solution (sizing) of rabbit's glue, distilled water, and alcohol. While the sizing is still tacky the gold leaf is meticulously applied sheet by sheet.  The final step, after a specific period of time, the gold is then carefully burnished with an agate stone to attain the finish desired.
All the paintings in Kevin's collection were professionally cleaned and newly varnished to best protect and display the paintings. Each gold gilded frame in The Lloy Project, was custom made and specifically chosen by Kevin to compliment the beautiful work of Arthur Lloy.
Biography:
Arthur Lloy - Born in the small community of Melville Cove which is now part of Halifax, Lloy painted seriously for more than 30 years until his untimely death in a car accident while on route to a solo-exhibition in 1986. He enrolled in the Nova Scotia College of Art in the late fifties, where he studied drawing and painting under Marion Bond, Ellen Lindsay, and Donald C. Mackay. He also received additional instruction from the noted artist Julius Zarand.
Primarily a painter of his native environment, Lloy was almost obsessed by his love for the land —it's volatile moods, its power, its majesty— in all of its seasons. The great majority of Lloy's work was produced in the natural environment. He would travel by snow shoes or skis, cross-country and place his easel in the snow, where the splendor of a scene would banish any thought of the chill and cold. He has a genuine understanding of the Canadian woods. He depicts the woodlands with depth and understanding, sensitive to its changing moods and seasons, its drama and excitement– qualities which can only come from long association with the forest and time spent there in solitude. One European artist said that he found in Lloy's painting the essence of the Canadian scene.
As might be imagined, Arthur Lloy's paintings are as powerful, colorful, moody and uncompromising as nature itself. Using oil as his medium he achieves dramatic, if sometimes stark, effects with the use of bold brush strokes, strident colors lavishly applied and with minimum attention to detail.
Essentially an expressionist, with a boldness that mirrors that of the famous landscape artists– Group of Seven, Van Gogh and the French Impressionists, his paintings show a distinctive interpretation of the elemental forces of earth, water, and sky from which he derives his greatest inspiration and the portrayal of which, to him, constitutes the essence of enduring art.
Since 1959 he has exhibited in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph, Calgary, and Montreal. His work is in permanent collections of the province of Nova Scotia, the Art Bank of Nova Scotia and Acadia and Dalhousie Universities, as well as numerous private collections throughout Canada, the United States, England, Australia, and Spain.
Source: arthurlloy.com
