In the mid 1980's Josephine brought a little 8 X 10 image of antique farm tools she had done to the San Francisco Gift Show. The little print was meant to be a "prop" for the little metal easels we made at the time. Years ago we used to make all sorts of home decor items: lamps, hooks, cabinets, candelabras and the like.
Almost every buyer who came into our booth wanted to order the print. It didn't take long for it to dawn on us that Josephine was on to something with that little print.
The next show we came with a little wall of prints, to compliment the rest of our product line. Again, all of our clients wanted the art.
That was the start of the unframed canvas craze. Josephine had seen the technique in Europe for years. Being an art student, she has always had an eye for a great look. She introduced our wholesale buyers to the unframed, atelier style of art on canvas in San Francisco that year.
Since then, our unframed art has been the favorite of decorators, designers, retailers and catalogs from California to Florida. House in the Country art has been featured in many high profile projects, television series, and motion pictures. We've been a best-seller at Neiman Marcus, Gumps, Puff (in Japan), and in catalogs like Ballard Designs, The Nature Conservancy, and Horchow Direct.
Josephine still paints almost every day in her studio in Manchester California, just a half hour south of the famous village of Mendocino and ten minutes north of our galleries, and home base of House in the Country in Point Arena.
All of our art is still printed in-house and is overseen by Josephine and Gary to ensure the images maintain the integrity of the originals. The pieces are printed on the finest archival canvas available, with "Ultra-Chrome" inks -- laboratory tested to last up to 100 years given proper care and placement. The canvas' are stretched (gallery wrapped) on thick, solid wood stretcher bars and carefully packaged and shipped right to your door from ours, ready to hang.
For years we attended the wholesale trade shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Seattle. The market has changed considerably over the years, and it's no longer cost effective for many of our customers, or us, to attend the gift shows for weeks at a time. But, with the progression of broadband internet, we are now able to show our art as it should be shown on the web -- big and in full color.
We hope you enjoy our new website and look forward to another 25 years of serving you.
