Behind the Scenes: The Making of the Jim Golden Art Print - Walnut

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A Black woman wearing a denim shirt is carrying a bicycle down a set of stairs in an urban environment. The bicycle has a green paint job and honey leather wrapped handlebars.

Original, unique designs to help with lifting and carrying your bicycle

Lifetime leather bar wraps in five styles for every type of handlebar and bicycle

A woman bicycling on a bright summer day over a green lawn wearing suede fringe cowgirl boots and with a 6-pack of Anchor Steam beer connected to the top tube of her bicycle with a honey leather 6-pack frame cinch

Best-selling "commuter essentials" for making the daily commute easier

A dark brown leather round, barrel-shaped saddle bag with cedar wood sides mounted to the back of a brown leather Brooks saddle on a cream-and-brown painted bicycle

Stunning handcrafted bicycle bags carry the essentials and turn heads!

Two people playing a game of travel cribbage on a wooden picnic table with a small leather and birch cribbage board

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Two sets of travel dice on a dark brown leather table surface. Both sets show six dice coming out of a square brass tube. The dice are 7mm, smaller than standard. One has white dice and the other has black dice.

Play dice anywhere you go in a handcrafted brass keychain or necklace.

Two people playing dominoes using small, domino-sized playing cards on a walnut wood table with snacks and drinks. The domino cards are double 12 with different colors for each number and hand-drawn.

Uniquely functional for travel: hand-drawn domino playing cards (2 sizes!)

Close-up of a folding leather travel backgammon board mid-play on a weathered wood surface. A hand is reaching in and moving four game pieces (which are brass nails) between triangles, which are laser-engraved in the honey dyed leather. Accessories are visible, dice and doubling cube and peg storage

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A variety of handcrafted leather and wood handles on a sample board as seen from above and an angle

Leather handles in 8 styles, 4 leather colors, and 3 metal finishes

A white chest of drawers in a white and lilac baby nursery with three colors of leather Morrison bin pull handles, in Honey, Dark Brown, and Black

Strong yet soft, durable and sustainable, no-bumps and no-bruises

A white kitchen drawer under a gray countertop that has a natural tan colored leather handle with nickel hardware and an engraved label that says 'Silverware'

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Two cabinet doors swinging open towards each other with matching leather Lovejoy loop handles. The leather touches so the cabinets don't crash into each other, a solution for problem corners in kitchen design planning

Flexible but sturdy, creative solutions to tricky problem corners

A roll of natural leather on a white background

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Valerie and Geoff from Walnut Studiolo are standing on a pile of driftwood between two boulders on the North Oregon Coast beach near Manzanita, with mountains and grey sky in the background

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A long dark brown leather blueprint tube is shown on a long countertop being hand stitched together by Geoff, whose stitching hands are in the background

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Valerie and Geoff Franklin of Walnut Studiolo standing behind their bicycles on a grassy green lawn. Geoff is doffing his hat to Valerie and she is smiling, as a gesture of service.

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by admin
August 24, 2021
2 min read

The year was 2013. We worked with Jim Golden Studio to make an art print capturing the growth of our handcrafted business over four years.

This was the process.

Behind the Scenes: a guide to the products, tools, and artifacts shown in the Art Poster
Learn more about Jim Golden Studio in this WIRED Magazine article
Process photos originally posted on Flickr in 2013
Support the art and buy a poster!

We packed up most of our tools, favorite things, and inventory from the house and brought them to Jim's studio. It was kind of weird to see everything we own spread out on one table.

The first step was to make sure the bike would fit in the photo - it did! It became the perfect anchor. I love the poetry of this, because Walnut Studiolo started with this bike: my dad's old Bianchi that I completely rebuilt. It seems fitting that it is in the middle of everything.

It took some creativity to mount the bike such that it laid perfectly on its side. The camera was mounted above, for a bird's eye view.

Then we had to figure out what would go in the frame next.

They started by anchoring our finished works around the bike.

Jim and Kristin left no detail overlooked. I was consistently impressed with how much effort they put into making everything just so. Here, we were trying to decide whether to leave the can cage on the bike, or place it next to it. They must have taken hundreds of pictures throughout the day to help make minute design decisions like this.

Kristin began grouping our products by the area of the bike they're on, like the cluster of mud flaps next to the mud flap on the left.

After a while, we realized a pattern of the products radiating off of the bike roughly where they should go on the bike, with non-bike products below the bike.

Placing all the items just-so took an incredibly long time!

After they'd placed all the products, they began to fill in with some of our favorite items and tools.

*Almost done!*

Once everything had its place, they fine-tuned each individual piece, making sure the spacing and orientation were just right.

The final layout!

Geoff walked to the back corner to get a new perspective.

Val liked to watch the action on-screen.

All the different pictures will get blended together into one beautiful perfect picture, soon to be our new poster.

All done! Jim and Kristin were terrific to work with, and we had a great time. Now we just had to pack everything up, bring it home, and unpack it again. That was a long 12+ hour day, but we're super excited about the artwork that was made here today, as well as the comforting satisfaction of seeing all our life's work in one place.

SUPPORT THE ART AND BUY A POSTER!

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