A Lake I Like

One of my very favorite places in Springfield is just about four blocks from where I'm now living. J. H. Miller Picture Framing was established in 1890 and has been getting my business for almost 30 years. Just about everything hanging on my walls that's not a hubcap was either bought at J. H. Miller or framed there.

J. H. Miller does more than framing. They sell framed and unframed art, as well as a few collectibles. Tonight was a reception for a fundraiser they're doing for WGBY, the local PBS station. There's almost nothing I like better than being able to walk over to some cool little gathering in my neighborhood, so I went over.

There was wine, of course, and cheese, and the featured prints, and a number of people I knew. One of the prints was by an artist I like very much, Mallory Lake. She's a Vermont artist who works exclusively in pastels. Almost all her pastels are landscapes of Italy, Tuscany and Venice predominantly. Pastel is the ideal medium, I think, for rendering the luminosity of her subjects.

For $10, I can get a Mallory Lake print, unframed. For $120, I can get one in a rather generic frame. For a bit more than that, I can get a print in a nicer frame. But what I'd really like is a Mallory Lake original. Of a canal in Venice. I've got the one I like already picked out. All that stands between my dream and the reality of an original on my wall is a fair-sized wad of $$$.