We would like to say a huge thank all our customers for choosing us to make their framing during 2016. It has been quite some year! We have had an extremely busy December and we have a busy order book to come back to in January. In the meantime we are now off on our Christmas and New Year break and we will be back at work at 9am on Tuesday 3rd January.
We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.
October and November 2016
We are very excited that we have now booked our trip to Las Vegas to visit the West Coast Art and Framing convention that is held there every year. It is four days of classes, workshops and seminars on framing as well as a trade show where we can see all the items on offer to the US market. We expect to come back with our heads buzzing with new ideas.
We’ve been working hard since our return from holiday in September. We’ve completed framing for a number of artist exhibitions and solo shows and on 23rd October we travelled to the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea to view some of Alec’s handpainted frames on sale there, featuring work from 2 Devon artists.
With November fast approaching we will be supporting the Royal British Legion via their Dawlish Branch with a Poppy box on the counter. Please do give generously to support this very worthwhile cause. We will also be obvserving the 2 minute silence at 11 o’clock on Friday 11th November.
Alec and Jo are committed members of the trade body for the art and framing industry The Fine Art Trade Guild. It is because we value what we do that we took our Guild Commended Framer exams a few years ago. This qualification has now been retired by the Guild and a new qualification is fully up and running. We have now upgraded to the new Guild Certified Framer (Accredited Professional Framer) qualification and our new certificates are proudly on display in the gallery and we have a new sticker on our door.
If you have a look at our certificates you will notice that they now have an expiry date. Just like other professional bodies we now have to prove that we have accrued Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits (in our case it is over a 2 year period). If we haven’t then we lose our qualifications and can no longer call ourselves qualified framers. Our CPD takes many forms – such as reading articles, attending classes, workshops and events – and all of them help to improve our knowledge and abilities as framers. It is as part of our CPD development that we are visiting Las Vegas in January 2017 to attend the largest framing convention in the world – the West Coast Art and Framing Convention.
We are proud to have taken this next step on our professional journey and look forward to seeing what we learn along the way. (And just in case you were wondering – no, it won’t mean we put our prices up!) In addition, in June 2016 Jo was elected to serve as Members’ Warden of the Fine Art Trade Guild. This means she is right at the heart of the industry and she is proud to have been asked to serve in this role.
We believe that maintaining membership of the Fine Art Trade Guild and offering customers the protection of knowing that we abide by the Guild’s Code of Conduct is an important part of that commitment to CPD. Both Jo and Alec are also now studying to take their Advanced qualifications – Jo in Textiles Framing and Alec in Conservation Framing.
Matthew has been enjoying getting involved in learning the trade and is closely supervised in the work that he undertakes. He has taken over keeping up stocks of ready made frames for the gallery to hone his frame making skills, just as Alec did many years ago in his parents framing business. Matthew is shadowing Jo and Alec as they serve customers to get more knowledge on the design process and customer feedback has been very positive which has been great. He will continue to gain more skills over time before he prepares to leave us for his future military career.
In May we extended (yet again) the chevron boards for moulding samples, increasing the range we offer. In addition to the new boards in the customer area, we also have a new board in the workshop where Alec can display more examples of his hand finished frames. Up until now these have been kept hidden away in his painting room so it is great to have them out on display at long last. Alec is always pleased to discuss new finishes so if there is something you have in mind and you can’t see it on display then please do have a chat with him to see what he can create, especially for you. True bespoke framing at its best.
As always we would like to thank our customers for choosing to shop locally with us, your custom and support of us and our business is always very much appreciated. We are looking forward to new challenges and seeing what the rest of 2016 brings.