Maker Profile: Artist Charlie Frye

Watch the time lapse of Charlie painting Mike and the black dogs during a pop-up event at our Roanoke store

Meet the Maker

Black Dog Salvage is home to a select group of makers, each creating unique works of art from hand.

Charlie Frye, Folk Keeper Gallery & Antiques

Who are you and where are you from?

My wife, Susan, and I live in Lenoir, North Carolina, and we co-own Folk Keeper Gallery & Antiques. We have three kids, Grace, Gwyneth, and Walker.

What do you make?

Susan and I are both self-taught artists, and we specialize in making art out of cast-off items. My primary focus is creating great Folk Art, and Susan balances her time between creating art, curating the antiques, and running our gallery.

What is Folk Keeper Gallery & Antiques?

It’s our shop in Historic Downtown Lenoir, and it features many fine regional Folk Artists with a wide range of styles. I am in residence there year-round and Susan is also in residence.

What inspired your live painting session here at our Roanoke shop?

Koiner and the Black Dog Team were open to a pop-up art show on the porch [at Black Dog]. They made our experience fun and easy and treated us like we were just part of the crew.

Mike commissioned me to do a painting of the original “black dog”, Molly, and him from an old photograph. It turned into a past, present, and future concept painting involving all 3 black dogs, Molly, Sally, and Molly May. The time-lapse video with Tay was fun and spontaneous.

Can we expect anything more like this in the future?

The dogs and I are collaborating on a shelf with 3 owls and architectural elements. Hopefully, this is the start of many projects to come.

Charlie’s work can be found here at our Roanoke Showroom.  You can follow Charlie and Susan online at folkkeepergallery.com

In addition to our resident Makers, we want to hear from Makers around the world!  Learn more about our Maker of the Month series HERE.