Yes, you read that correctly. Carter Avenue Frame Shop will have no more framing sales. Are we crazy? Perhaps, but before you crumple up your newsletter in disgust, hear us out. Many of you commented about my newsletter column ‘When is a Sale Not a Sale’ a few years ago. I talked about a prevalent practice in the retail framing industry of jacking up ‘regular’ prices in order to advertise huge discounts (see below). We have refused to play that game. Now we are making a natural step in our evolution: no more framing sales. We will continue our standard 10% discount for pre-payment, but from now on you get our best price every day. No more waiting for sales.

“When a Sale is NOT a Sale” Revisited

As we have discussed before, many of our competitors’ framing ’sales’ are nothing more than discounting sleight of hand. Their ‘regular’ prices start so stratospherically high that even when they give you a 50% off ’sale’ price they can still be more expensive than our non-sale prices. You have probably seen several shops that advertise a ‘50% off the frame’ sale. Since the frame itself is only a component of an entire framing job, the ‘50%’ discount quickly dissolves into much a smaller percentage once the other materials or hidden labor charges are added in. In our opinion, that’s not playing fair.

Honestly, our sales weren’t that big of a deal to begin with. Because we keep our regular prices reasonable, and offer our 10% discount for pre-payment, the extra five percent discount during our most popular sale wasn’t that significant.

Who has Time to Wait for a Sale?

Many customers have told me that our sales provide them with incentive to dig out their art from under the bed and finally get it framed. We’re trying to make it easy for you by throwing out the deadline. You already have enough things going on in your busy life. You don’t need another deadline or another coupon to clutter up the refrigerator. Are you really going to miss calling us up and asking for an extension of the sale because you were out of town? For those nostalgic folks who must see a coupon to get their retail juices flowing we have printed a ‘’coupon'’ on the back of this newsletter. Bring it or forget it, you still get our best price every day.

Continuing Value at Carter Avenue Frame Shop

We enjoy what we do here at Carter Avenue Frame Shop and it is our pleasure to serve your framing needs. We promise to always keep our prices reasonable for the high level of quality and workmanship that we offer. Carter Avenue Frame Shop will continue to offer expert design and remain a proud fixture of St. Anthony Park. We appreciate the loyalty that you have shown us through the past twenty-six years and all of the referrals that you have given us. We respect you, our customers, and realize that you continue to know true value when you see it. We value your patronage.

Tim Smith and the Carter Avenue Frame Shop staff

Carter Ave. Frame Shop has grown and prospered over the past thirty years, touching the lives of owners, employees, customers, and neighbors alike. It has striven to be a place of beauty, quality, and service to customers and to the community. The following brief history shows how far the shop has come.

In 1975, Mark Frederickson saw Milton Square while riding his motorcycle to a softball game. He had been dreaming of owning his own business and had been working in picture framing since he was a teenager. Mark immediately knew that the St. Anthony Park area was where he wanted to open a frame shop. He found a space in the basement off the parking lot behind Milton Square and began preparing the space. On September 29, 1975, Carter Ave. Frame Shop opened for business. Mark started small and grew little by little over the next ten years. Eventually, Mark sold the shop to concentrate on his other business, Commercial Framing Service. Mark eventually sold that business to concentrate on another business he started, Superior Moulding, which has become one of Carter Ave. Frame Shop’s main suppliers.

Meanwhile, Tim Smith, a student at Luther Seminary, was working part-time as a framer at FrameWorks in Roseville. He discovered how much he liked art and working with his hands. Tim’s boss, Tom Lind, invited him to buy Carter Ave. Frame Shop with him, with Tim running the shop. On November 1, 1985, Tim and Tom took over the shop. At first it was a one-person operation open Tuesday through Saturday. In December 1986, Tim became the fourth framer in Minnesota to become a Certified Picture Framer. Tim continued his senior year at seminary, going part-time until he graduated in May 1987, making him one of very few framers with a Master of Divinity degree. A small selection of art was added to the custom framing business. As business grew, Tim added Brian Lind, Tom’s son, as a part-timer while he was in college.

The “old, old store”, as the first location in Milton Square is called, had many unique features. Its 350 square feet held a sales area, an office, a bathroom, and a workshop. In the winter, because of the placement of the old radiators, it might be 80 degrees in the workshop, 50 degrees in the office, and there would be ice formed on the water in the toilet. In the spring, if it rained hard before the ground had thawed, there would be a waterfall down the wall by the windows. Because of the steps down to the shop, as well as the low ceiling and sharp turn into the shop, some oversized pictures had to be framed off-site. Plus the shop could only be seen from the lower level of the parking lot of Milton Square.

In 1989, Tim bought out his partner and moved the shop from Milton Square to a much larger and more visible location at 2278 Como Ave., next to the Bibelot, in the space currently occupied by Gustafson Jewelers. At the same time, more art was added to fill up the new gallery space. Brian became a full-time employee. More staff was added over the years — Glen, Jenny, Ruth, and Faye. The shop began to be open Monday through Saturday.

In 1993, it became clear that the lease would not be renewed, so Tim started looking for a new location in St. Anthony Park. Nothing appropriate was available. Tim approached the owner of the flat-roofed rundown duplex with a billboard on the roof at 2186 Como Ave., about selling. It took a year to get the rezoning to allow for a frame shop. Five months of gutting, putting on a new roof structure, and completely remodeling the building resulted in the store you see today. In August 1994, the whole shop was moved from the “old store” to the “new store” between 4:00 p.m. Saturday and 10:00 a.m. Monday. Of course, the shop could not move AND change its name for fear of losing customers. Hence, Carter Ave. Frame Shop has been on Como Ave. for the past eleven years. Over the years, more good people served on the staff — Lisa, Anna, Paul, Rachel, and Linda.

In 2001, the twelve-foot retaining wall at the back of the property had to be replaced. Since the excavation completely destroyed the back yard of the store, it was decided that this was an opportunity to plant a new garden. Since then, the garden has been planted and maintained on all four sides of the building. The garden was on the St. Anthony Park Garden Tour in 2003. It is probably the best frame shop garden in the Twin Cities. Of course, there’s not much competition.

In the long tradition of attracting excellent people, Harriet Graham was hired as Creative Director in October 2001, followed by Pam Johnson as Production Manager in May 2002. Carter Ave. Frame Shop was awarded the honor of being a “Top 100 Art & Framing Retailer” in the country by Décor Magazine in both 2003 and 2004. Now in 2005, the shop has been named again, with the added distinction of being one of the top eight shops honored with a special awards ceremony in Atlanta in September at Décor Expo, a national trade show. The shop will also be profiled in the October issue of Décor.

Thank you for being part of the history of Carter Ave. Frame Shop. We hope to be able to serve you well for many years to come.

If you were fortunate enough to see the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ recent show of the calligraphy and illuminations of the Saint John’s Bible, you already know how stunning this work is. If you missed the show, here’s the scoop. The monks of Saint John’s Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota, have commissioned the first hand-written and illuminated Bible to be completed in the last five hundred years! It is a unique blend of ancient methods, materials, and tools with modern themes, images, technology, and text. And the art and calligraphy are gorgeous! This work must be seen to be appreciated.

We’re thrilled to have giclee prints of many of their best illuminations. Giclees are available by special order of any page or two-page spread of the whole Bible. We don’t usually carry books, but we have made an exception so we can carry this beautiful work. The book will be available in seven volumes, with the first one, GOSPELS AND ACTS, available now, with the rest to follow in the next couple of years. There is a companion book, Illuminating the Word, which tells the story of how this project started, with loads of information about the materials, techniques, and artists involved in this $4 million project. The BBC produced a fascinating documentary of the project, which we have available on DVD and VHS, as well.

To see these prints online, go to their website, www.saintjohnsbible.org (available on our links page). Let us know what you want. We can order them for you.

Most framing projects are completed in one week. Some special order materials slow us down a bit, but we can often get it done even quicker if you are in a rush.

Of course! That’s what we do. You can’t possibly know what mats and frames are available. We have 2000 mouldings and 600 mats available to choose from, as well as fillets, spacers, and a lot of tricks up our sleeves to help make your art look its best. Just bring your art in. We’ll look at it with you, help you evaluate where you will be using it, and help you find an appropriate and beautiful framing treatment that will go well with your decor and fit your budget.

You may not have even thought about it this way, but you have an art collection. It may not be a large or a valuable collection, but if you have framed art hanging on your walls, you have an art collection. Obviously, art collections can vary from a few inexpensive art posters or reproductions to an extensive, sophisticated, and valuable collection of fine art originals by world-class artists. Most of our customers land somewhere in between these two extremes. The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about your collection, what it means to you, and how you might want to develop it over time to gain maximum enjoyment of both the process and the result of collecting art.

Read the rest of this article »