With a theme of “Arbor Day is Every Day in Chase City” last week MacCallum More Museum & Gardens ushered in renewed community support for trees and for the town’s arbor canopy.  The ongoing festivities spawned an all-media art contest where artists submitted their work focused on the importance and beauty of trees.  There was a popular vote, plus a juried contest of artworks in three divisions.  North Carolina artist Frank Timberlake’s “Persimmon Tree Branch” took top honors in the adult division.  Timberlake hails from Stovall and Grassy Creek in northern Granville County.

“You have to realize, after struggling with not being able to paint pinpoint realism, I spent several years developing PhoArt^® and once I did, I asked myself, ‘What am I going to do with this?’  Just a few months later, MacCallum More Museum & Gardens offered me my own two-month, one man art exhibit to begin in January of 2017. There are no words to describe my appreciation and the jubilation I felt and still feel,” said Timberlake.  Given the opportunity, Timberlake scoured Mecklenburg County for the unique and created nine special prints just for the exhibit.  “There’s no question that “Persimmon Tree Branch” is the crown jewel of my Mecklenburg art prints.  To return here and to have this work so honored is extremely satisfying,” he added.

Though it might appear painted, Timberlake’s PhoArt^® starts with high resolution photographs that he digitally manipulates into colorful prints with proprietary software, a complex procedure with several steps, then finally putting each work on museum quality canvas on top of a gallery-wrapped frame.

Timberlake closed by adding, “This recognition comes at an excellent time as we have just launched a new website, shutterartgallery.com, that touts over 100 of my diversified works from a variety of locations and settings. Whether it is “Persimmon Tree Branch,” another landscape, a seascape or a cityscape, people love the fact that they can get a limited edition print, signed and numbered, the size they want, from 8 x11″ to 40 x 60″ and lots of sizes in between.”

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