fArt at Your Fingertips--on line version from Indianapolis Star Sunday Magazine, March 21, 2010
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3 Stars

There are the merest suggestions of background landscape in the paintings of Indy-based Gayla Hodson, who says that flowers “have a deeper meaning, a life and soul of their own.” But there is more going on in her work than just portrayals of flowers. In the acrylic painting “Japanese Gardens” small white flowers take up just a fraction of the canvas, in the foreground. The waves of color on the rest of the canvas—dark blues, greens, and reds—dominate. You could imagine a passing storm over a lakeside garden, where sheets of rainwater obscure the horizon but the painting seems to be all about color and mood. In “Spring Fling” the mood is one of wild exuberance, with dominantly-vertical drips of lime-green paint leading up towards the top of the canvas where multicolored flowers are portrayed in bloom.

Through January 23; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com
.-Dan Grossman
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TONIC GALLERY: VARIOUS ARTISTS
AV Framing Gallery
3 stars

If some or all of the artwork at this show strikes you as being particularly beautiful, don't say I didn't warn you. Brittany Eaton's oil on canvas painting, "Polluting Paradox," with its multicolored plumes of smoke rising from different-sized smokestacks, reveals that destructive human activity sometimes has a peculiar beauty. John Spitznogle's "Prayer Bench," made from reclaimed oak, radiates a certain unadorned beauty of form following function while Mab Graves' acrylic and guache portrait "Marie Antoinette"--a painting composed in pinks, whites and flesh tones--glows with a more ornate and tragic kind of beauty. Then there's Greg (the Mayor) Andrews' "Looking West from the Square," showing a slice of the Indy skyline. Andrews' sensitively composed digital photo print radiates an appreciation of this city's beauty equivalent to that of his other frequent photographic subject--young women. The Tonic Gallery auction of these donated works by Indy artist, on Friday, Nov. 20 from 5-9pm will benefit Second Helpings and their mission of eliminating huger in Indy. 317-35-3776: www.avframinggallery.com
--Dan Grossman
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Paintings by Adam Hayward: Serenity

NUVO rates it 4/5 stars
by Dan Grossman

AV Framing Gallery
The oil paintings of Cincinnati-based Adam Hayward depict the natural world in a way that's sometimes surreal, sometimes phantasmagorical. In "The Rapture of Gibraltar" you see a treetop depicted against a swirling red sky that you'd more likely see in a dream than in nature. The depiction isn't so different from what you might find in a Chinese painting but the eerie light--the artist's conception of it--is entirely Western. In Hayward's canyon landscape "The Brook" you can see what he calls a "dynamic symmetry" where the bark of the tree rising out of an outcrop of rock seems like an extension of the rock itself. His landscapes, Hayward acknowledges, betray the influence of Maxfield Parrish who was, in turn, influenced by Japanese landscape painting. But the particular melding of East and West that you see on Hayward's canvases is original and well worth a visit. Through Oct. 31; 317-356-3776.
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by Dan Grossman

NUVO Rates it 3 stars

As often happens to couples with a newborn, the Crowes (who now run Crowe’s Eye Photography out of the AV Gallery) found they couldn’t travel like they used to. For John, this meant he couldn’t photograph like before. So instead of photographing mountains out West, he focused his digital camera on everyday objects in his backyard. In "Old Ways," you see old rusted tools such as circular saw blades and a mallet on a rusted square of steel. It’s a sort of still life digital photo -- evocative of another era -- that would be extremely difficult to replicate in film. The resolution is so true to life that you might think that the depicted saw blade is resting on the top of the photo. Joslyn’s addition to this show is a photo diary of their little girl, now 11 months old. T
hrough Aug. 22; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com.
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Mike Altman: There's a Room In My Head
AV Framing Gallery
4 stars

Colfax, Ind.-based Mike Altman makes no attempt to hide his comic book influences in his acrylic on canvas paintings. In "Robot #3's Middle School Picture" you see a red robot squirming in the glare of a photographer's flash while gritting his metallic teeth. This painting will remind you of Calvin & Hobbes if you're at all familiar. Another robot-themed painting, "Galactic Coffee-Break," shows three robots, looking like rejects from a Jetsons casting call, posed behind a floating cup of zero gravity coffee. Then there's his series on music icons, including portraits of Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash in a single-canvas diptych picturing him both as a young and an old man. There's humor in these portraits -- Tammy Wynette is pictured with an exaggeratedly thin neck, for example -- but also a sad whiff of nostalgia. Perhaps this is because, as pop-culture-obsessed Americans, we're obsessed with icons that are just as mortal as the rest of us. Through June 20, 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com
--Dan Grossman
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Check out the article and video of my favorite local artist, Brian Duff! Glad others are seeing his talent and potential too!

Here's the link. It's too long an article to re-type here.

Congratulations, Brian (and Indianapolis)! It's not often when an artist lands on the front page--here's to some GOOD news!

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Read the on-line version here,or the full-text version below.

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Dan Grossman

NUVO Rates it
5

In her (mostly) new paintings, Overman uses spare, sepia-tinted backgrounds to evoke the golden age of cinema. None of her constantly expanding cast of characters has ever appeared in any Hollywood production, but no matter. One of her newest characters is completely transparent. But he makes star appearances anyway in “Reverie” and in “Invisible Dan and his Castles of Sand.” In the former, Invisible Dan — wearing a top hat and white gloves — is juggling pine cones for a dreamy looking girl. In the latter, he’s building sandcastles. Overman’s series “Widow” shows a black widow after losing a mate. In Widow No. 1, she’s brooding over Polaroids of her lost love. In No. 2, she’s arranging these photos amid a bunch of red roses. In No. 3, she’s drinking wine with the new spider in her life. The hourglass in the background, however, is running out of sand — both literally and figuratively. In dating, as in life, you have limited time to make an impression. Through April 25; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com.

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Read the on line version here at ArtInfo.
Or read text excerpt below:

ARMORY SHOW 2009
Diving for Pearls at Fountain and Pool
By Chris Bors
Published: March 9, 2009

A few blocks away at the Wyndham Garden Hotel on 24th Street, the sixth edition of Pool catered to artists who do not have gallery representation, billing itself as a modern-day Salon des Refusés. The quality was uneven at best, and the concept of requiring artists to pay to exhibit their own work in a cramped hotel room felt distasteful, even if the experience itself was at times pleasingly intimate. A highlight was the work of Casey Roberts, whose elegant installation of framed paintings on paper wouldn’t have been out of place at one of the more established fairs. Roberts creates his work using the photomechanical cyanotype process, painting with a light sensitive medium and then exposing the result to sunlight to create a vibrant blue image, which he then embellishes with elements rendered in gouache. He reported selling four of his smaller works for $450 apiece. The larger works had not sold as of this writing, though they too were reasonably priced, at $3,500 to $4,400.
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BRIAN DUFF: HOME, SPOT, FIGURES
AV FRAMING GALLERY
4 Stars

Brian Duff is not afraid to embrace a wide variety of genres and subjects in his recent oil paintings -- from still life to nudes to landscapes. While his personal life is temporarily unsettled -- he's living in an urban shelter -- he takes particular comfort in painting the rural Indiana landscape. In "Indiana Moon Garden," the most striking of these landscape paintings, you see a garden with blue, green and yellow plants in front of a rickety fence and a house with a roof that has subsided substantially in the center, like a worn saddle. Overhead you see a full moon casting its weird radiance in an icy-blue sky. Duff's figure paintings such as "Blue Ridiculous" (which showcases a pensive woman in a swimsuit) are as impressionistic as his landscapes. He takes a surreal turn in "Soul Hermaphroditica," where an upright nude sprouts a tree between her legs. If you turn this painting on its side an entire landscape -- and a new way of seeing the world -- emerges. Through March 27; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com. --DAN GROSSMAN
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Casey Roberts gets it
by David Hoppe
dhoppe@nuvo.net

Casey Roberts: A Bigger, Brighter Place
AV Framing Gallery
Through Jan. 24

It's often called the "voice" or "vision"--whatever it is that sets an artist's work apart, that makes it distinctive. It's what enables you, without the aid of an eager-to-please label, to know who wrote that paragraph, sang that song or made that picture. In a variation on the theme that many are called but few are chosen, there are artists who spend their careers trying to find it, and others who seem to get it from the start.

Casey Roberts gets it.

Roberts, who has a new show at AV Framing Gallery in Fountain Square has found not just a method to set his work apart (more on that in a moment), but a visual iconography that provides his paintings with a primal sense of story that feels, at once, timeless and immediate. Imagine what might happen if some Eskimos from the upper reaches of Hudson's Bay got hooked on David Lynch and you can begin to get Roberts' effect.

Roberts says his paintings are created through use of cyanotype, a photochemical process dating back to the Civil War era that, when exposed to sunlight and developed, provides a vibrant blue image on paper or canvas. Roberts then uses agents like baking soda, bleach and peroxide to achieve a range of colors and textures through a many-layered process that may then be enhanced through the addition of watercolor painting or collage elements.

The collection now on view was inspired, according to Roberts, by a trip last summer to Los Angeles. It was his second time there; the first had been a disappointment. But Roberts found himself liking L.A. the second time around, responding gladly to its open, coastal vibe. Hence the name for this show: A Bigger, Brighter Place.

This discovery manifests itself in peek-a-boo bursts of vivid color that Roberts adds to his characteristically dreamy blue landscapes. As in the past, there are still the vignettes of forest, including barely silent tree stumps and standing trunks that echo the lumberman's mantra to "kill kill kill." But there are also flights of moth in brilliant hues and, here and there, rainbow spouts accompanied by glimpses of white whales gallivanting in a distance that is simultaneously far out and close at hand.

Roberts' reliance on elemental lines and forms borrows from the naive without seeming derivative or like mere appropriation. Something else is going on here: the artist's conviction, perhaps, that the sky can cry, that trees feel pain, that what he knows about the world can make a whale wink. The world, in other words, has feelings, too. Roberts seems to know this down deep. And so his work is not just an exercise in style, but the excavation of an essential vocabulary about the earth and our place in it.

A Bigger, Brighter Place, new works by Casey Roberts, is at AV Framing Gallery, 1139 Shelby St., through Jan. 24. Call 317-356-3776 for hours and appointments.

--David Hoppe
dhoppe@nuvo.net
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Read the online version on NUVO's website, click here. Full text version below:

(four stars)
Betty Scarpino: On and Off the Wall
AV Framing Gallery

In her woodcut prints and wood sculpture, Betty Scarpino explores personal subject matter in a style that echoes the Native American woodworking culture of the Pacific Northwest. Her pedestal and wall-hanging pieces, many of which are both turned and hand-worked, have a curvilinear shapeliness. Sometimes that shapeliness mimics the human form, albeit in an abstract way. In the pedestal piece "Transition Together," two elegant plates of curved, unvarnished maple rise from a singe base. A number of other pieces, such as "Elements of Temptation," hint at a theme of fertility by incorporating painted wooden eggs. In Scarpino's woodcut prints, the imprints of natural wood grain patterns complement abstract designs that have both playfulness and accessibility. Take, for example, "Familiar Strangers," where you might think the title to the relationship between woodcutting and woodcut prints and/or to a more personal theme. Scarpino's artistic language, in this and in her other works, is rooted in her skillful rendering of organic media. Through Nov 29; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com. -- Dan Grossman
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Colorful kids
Jul 29, 2008

"Every Child Is an Artist" is the premise for a new show of artwork by Young Audiences of Indiana/Summer Arts for Youth participants at AV Framing Gallery, 1139 Shelby St. in Fountain Square. For 20 years, SAY has provided summer arts programming for kids in Indianapolis. The work in this show was produced at arts day camps held at community centers throughout the city. The show opens Aug. 1 from 10 a.m.-9 p.m., with a special reception that starts at 5 p.m., and is also open Aug. 2 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call the gallery at 317-356-3776 or Young Audiences at 317-925-4043, ext. 11.
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Candice Hartsough McDonald: Big Hearts, Bright Futures
by Dan Grossman Jun 11, 2008

Four stars
AV Framing Gallery

A bear mowing his yard in front of a red townhouse. A raccoon sipping a can of pop in a tree. These images incongruously leap out of the new work of Candice Hartsough McDonald, who showcased in the AV Framing Gallery June 6. Her “Unruly Tricycle Gang” grabs your attention with the slyly subversive treatment of its subject: a pack of trike-riding bears. One of these bears is throwing a pop can — the trajectory seems bound to hit a fellow bear’s head. This painting, like much of her work, involves mixed media, in this case graphite, watercolor and colored pencil. This exhibit and sale benefit the scholarship fund of the nonprofit Day Nursery Association. Expect a bright future for this gallery and for this prolific local artist. Through June 28; 317-356-3776 or www.avframinggallery.com.
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"For the Love of Flowers and Mom" Indianapolis Star article, March 20, 2008
by Julie Young
Star Correspondent

Bonnie Fortner thought life was "picture perfect" when she opened her in-home photography studio Restored Treasures and Memories in 2001. Now, with the opening of "Elegance on Exhibit," Fortner's first professional show, the Far Eastside resident says everything is coming up roses, irises and lilies.

Her exhibit opened March 4 at the AV Framing Gallery, 1139 Shelby St. in Fountain Square in Indianapolis, and will run through April 26.

An artist's reception is scheduled from 5 to 9 p.m. April 4.

"The exhibit is in Macro photography with shots of various flowers using some backdrops as well as capturing the plants in their natural setting," Fortner said. "Some of the floral shots have unique Photoshop effect to make them look like a work of art and capture the beauty of each flower."

The 35 photographs were inspired by Fortner's mother who died in 2005.

Fortner, 63, said her mother loved bearded irises as well as a variety of roses and she feels her mother's presence with her whe she is shooting.

"The richness and depth are what struck me first about Bonnie's work," said Sarah Adams, owner of the AV Framing Gallery and a resident of the Little Flower neighborhood on the Eastside. "It (the exhibit) feeds the soul especially this time of year when we all yearn for the bright sunny days of spring and return of color and beauty to our landscape."

Fortner has an extensive background in photography, a hobby that has taken her to Europe and all over the United States. She said it's the natural beauty of a flower that inspires her to capture the image when a light hits it a certain way.

"I have taken pictures all of my adult life, but it wasn't until early 2005 that I started taking photography classes through IUPUI," she said. "I have taken over 100 credit hours in Photoshop and photography working toward a photography certification from the school. The challenge in capturing the object, light and other elements is extremely rewarding."

When she isn't photographing some of the top gardens in the area, Fortner shoots family groups, architecture, scenic images and events. She is a member of the Monument Star Chapter of the American Business Women's Association and after working as an accountant for more than 40 years, she said having a second career has been a challenge.

But she feels fortunate to do something she truly enjoys.

Her work has been featured on WISH-TV's (Channel 8) Sunday Snapshot and won a blue ribbon in last year's Marion County Fair.

"I like eing my own boss, an dit has really been a lot of fun. Being able to secure a gallery showing is very exciting," Fortner said. "It makes me feel good to accomplish something like this at my age, and it goes to show that no matter how old you are, you don't have to quit trying to reach a dream"
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AV Framing Gallery
1139 Shelby Street
Indianapolis, IN 46203
(327)356-3776

Just one block south of the fountain is the AV Framing Gallery. The frame shop and gallery grew out of the need for framing services in the community, and the vast art scene developing in Fountain Square. AV offers outstanding framing for existing pieces as well as a diverse mix of contemporary and traditional art for purchase.

The gallery serves artists that are under-represented in the city. "There is an outsider art scene and there are high end galleries," owner, Sarah Adams says. "I wanted to fill a niche in-between, where an artist can have a first gallery show. I wanted to make art accessible and tangible for everyone."

The AV Framing Gallery is a clean open space that provides a calming ambiance for visitors and clients.
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"BRIDGING DISTANCE by Julianna Thibodeaux

Caroline Mecklin: Crazy for the Figure...AV Framing Gallery through February

Throughout history, women have been portrayed as demure, seductive, pious, enigmatic, submissive and , on occasion, as goddesses--but rarely as mere humans comfortable in their own skin. Indianapolis artist Carolline Mecklin's solo show, 'Crazy for the Figure', on view at AV Framing Gallery in Fountain Square, is a celebration of Mecklin's painterly exuberance: offering a generous view of (mostly) women striking poses that are, almost without exception, confident ones. That women should be depicted t his way--confident in their nudity rather than self-conscious, almost unaware of the viewer--is testament to Mecklin's gift as an artist.

Mecklin is unique in this aspect: Combined with her avility as a painter and draftsperson who knows how to capture the essence of movement and form through stroke of brush or stick of charcoal, her perspective on women offers a departure that is long overdue in the realm of artmaking in general.

This isn't to say that Mecklin's women don't have goddess qualities--at times they do--but they are not idolized; rather, they are celebrated for their imperfect beauty. These are ample women whose curves--a generous hip, a robust posterior, a shock of dreadlocks piled high--give them vitality rather than weight.

Mecklin's paintings are not overworked. Rather, they're quick and fluid, bridging the distance between haste and confidence. The triptych 'The Three Graces' is deceptively straightforward: In quick strokes of purple, green and gold, the three women flow from one canvas to the next--the arm of the first carries over onto the canvas of the second--as if Mecklin moved these images from inside her head onto the canvases in a lightning flash of inspiration. Negative space is a positive, the women emerging from the white as if in stark relief. On the other hand, paintings such as 'The Red Curtain' and 'Dancer in Yellow' ground the figure in an abstracted backdrop of expressionistic color.

For years Mecklin has almost single-mindedly sustained her focus as an artist, moving on the trajectory that has brought her to this accomplished place. her figures have never been so confident, so fluid. Her use of color has also evolved, although she retains a palette that seems unique to her, red and green being predominant. But now she dances into other realms with her more expressionistic use of paint. Her figures, too, seem more fully realized, as if sh is in near-perfect step with her muse.

'Crazy for the Figure', selected paintings by Caroline Mecklin, is on view through Feb. 29 at AV Framing Gallery, 1139 Shelby St., Fountain Square. Call 317-356-3776 or visit www.avframinggallery.com for information.
---Julianna Thibodeaux
jthibodeaux@nuvo.net"
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From the PPFA For Members Only Publication, January 2008:

"Five framers have been chosen to receive the L. Thomas McKeon Scholarship, which will help defray costs associated with the Certified Picture Framer examination. Each winner will receive a complete set of PPFA-recommended CPF study materials and fees for sitting for the exam, a $425 value. Winners have until the end of 2008 to redeem their scholarship award.

This year's recipients are: Sarah Adams, AV Framing Gallery, Indianapolis, IN; Justin Alvarez, framestudio, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Carla Bates, The Frame Shop of Conshohocken LLC, Conshohocken, PA; Laura Martin, New Editions Gallery, Lexington, KY; and Elli Wollangk, Custom Design Workshop LLC, Oshkosh, WI.

Since first entering the framing field in 1990, Adams has continually strived to enrich her knowledge of the industry, taking classes in water gilding, encapsulation, photographing artwork, and business-related topics. Still, she never worked for a PPFA member business, so she wasn't exposed to the CPF program until 2004 when she opened her own shop and joined the association.

According to Adams, earning her CPF is a great way to further distinguish herself and her business from the competition. She believes her clients deserve to receive the best and most up-to-date techniques she can offer. 'Studying for the CPF exam will help me offer that extra level of service,' she says. She also realizes she may need to 'unlearn' some bad habits she may have picked up through the years.

'Life is a journey, charted by landmarks along the way,' she says. 'The CPF is one such landmark. None of us exists in a vacuum. People present opportunities at every turn. I hope this generous scholarship is an opportunity (for me) to learn, grow, and keep on moving.'..."
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3 Stars -- Kevin Smola translates personal emotion into art in "Emotion in Motion". Works entitled "Impulse," "Restless" and "Numb" work to capture the raw spirits that lie behind the feelings. In "Fear," the artist's strokes are thick, and the colors alarming--bold reds and yellows assault the canvas while piles of molten black paint suffocate the rich surface. The artist's strokes are just as apparent in "Impulse," where an invigorating yellow canvas pulses with life. Bright and burning, the yellow center radiates to and enraptures the viewer, as the red painted edges of the canvas cage in the yellow and add to the tension of the work. Finally, "Rhythm" is a more moving and muting piece. Soft greens undulate across the canvas; the artist's strokes are not so immediate in this work, but rather melt away. These emotions and more are on display through November; 317-356-3776. -- Allie Matters
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3 Stars -- In the wake of destruction and ruin from Hurricane Katrina, moments of hope and resilience emanate from Rebecca Hutton’s photographs. This exhibit captures images from across the mangled coast, which are sometimes daunting, sometimes hopeful, but always painfully honest. “Halved Tree” captures an old spindly tree torn in half as it greets the horizon; dead and gnarled branches reach toward the sky. “Gas Station” features a desolate and deserted Shell Station on what used to be prime beachfront property. The roof of the station is in shreds and the pumps have long been washed away — a semi trailer gently rests upside down in a heap along the roadside. “Pier” features the remaining stilts of what once was an ocean-jutting landing dock. Most of the wood is gone and the skeletal remains are all that hold on. Yet, amidst these daunting images, abiding strength inspires hope for the future. “Memorial Wall” is what remains of the foundation of an old building. Messages of inspiration and triumph are strewn across the wall in a rainbow of spray paint colors. Through Aug. 31; 317-356-3776. -- Allie Matters
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You can click the link to read this on Nuvo's site, or there is a full text version below.

Rebecca Hutton’s hurricane
by Editors Aug 1, 2007

After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Rebecca Hutton began traveling there and taking photographs to document the region’s damage, deterioration, development and the ways in which people began to regain a normal life. Hutton, who is president of Theatre of Inclusion, spent two years traveling in Katrina’s wake. Along the Coast is the visual record of her journey.

The show opens Aug. 3 at AV Framing Gallery in Fountain Square, 1139 Shelby St., with an artist’s reception from 5-9 p.m. For more information, go to www.avframinggallery.com or call Sarah Adams at 317-356-3776.
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Mayor, community to mark opening of state’s largest free public hot zone with “cord cutting” ceremony
Indianapolis – Please join Mayor Bart Peterson and business and community leaders as they “cut the cord” to celebrate the official opening of the Fountain Square Cultural District Wi-Fi Zone, the largest free public wireless hot zone in the state of Indiana.
When: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:15 a.m.
Where: The Rooftop Garden Restaurant atop The Fountain Square Theatre Building 1105 Prospect St. (Please take the Public Elevator to ‘5’)

This event marks the first public-private partnership to create a public Wi-Fi Zone in the city of Indianapolis and was made possible through grants received by the Southeast Neighborhood Development Inc. and contributions of installation and management of the service from eWireless.

Created as an economic development tool for the Fountain Square Cultural District, this hot zone will eventually cover a majority of the district including the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

At the ceremony, Mayor Peterson will announce the location of the Indianapolis historic landmark that will become the city’s next free wireless internet zone this summer.
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Click the link to read it on the IBJ site: AV Framing Gallery ...or

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STARTUP

AV Framing Gallery
Shop combines framing, gallery space
Type of business: art gallery and custom picture-framing
Location: 1139 Shelby St. Phone: 356-3776 E-mail: avframing@gmail.com
Web site: www.avframinggallery.com Founded: June 2006 Owner: Sarah Adams
Owner's background: A 1987 Ball State University graduate, Adams began an apprenticeship at Frames Plus in Greenwood in 1990. She spent the next several years working at galleries and frame shops in Indianapolis; San Jose, Calif.; and Nashville, Tenn. In Octgrober 2004, she began framing from her Indianapolis home and incorporated her business last summer. As a theater-directing major in college, Adams, 42, preferred behind-the-scenes work to appearing onstage, and she said framing a painting or photograph caters to the same desire. "If you see the frame first and the art second, I've failed," she said.
Why started business: "In the back of my mind I wanted my own shop." She opened the Fountain Square shop in a 3,000-square-foot space on the first floor of the Halstead Architects' building in February 2007. The gallery up front features a different artist's work each month, and Adams makes frames for the gallery art and customers' paintings and photographs.
Competitive advantage: Adams looks for new artists or those who have been underrepresented in the past, she said. "Now the city is seeing things it hasn't seen before," she said. From $30 prints to $3,000 paintings, Adams said she strives to offer art that is affordable and accessible for everyone. She also leaves some artwork unframed so artists do not have to pay for frames.
Startup cost: $10,500 Funding source: loans and personoal capital Projected first-year revenue: $36,000
Potential problem and contingency plan: "Frame shops are closing at a higher rate than is comfortable for us," Adams said. The advertising technique of "box-store" framers is partially to blame, she said. Often those stores draw customers with coupons and sale offers that have an end price no lower than her regular prices, she said. The Professinal Picture Framers' Association, though which Adams is studying to become a certified picture framer, is in the early stages of creating a marketing push for independent framers, she said. Adams also mails monthly postcards featuring the artists and promotes her business in neighborhood newsletters.
First year goal: Adams would like to hire a framing technician, giving her more time to branch into corporate sales. She also plans to build relationships with interior designers.
Five year vision: She will likely remain at a single location, Adams said, but she hopes to have a well-rounded staff of framing technicians, designers and salespeople. "I want to be able to focus on quality," she said.
--Lisa Gerstner
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3 1/2 Stars -- The first time I met Josh Johnson he was selling his character-based illustrations outside the Harrison Center for the Arts during the Talbot Street Art Fair. My uncle bought Johnson's stylized, cartoon-like rabbit on paper. The rabbit is an older creature from Johnson's cast of animals, people and antique objects that has moved from drawings, paintings, prints and standing cutouts to the picture book The Spindletons (2006). Now Johnson has advanced to a new method of presentation, creating his watercolor washes and pencil-lined imagery on plywood canvases. The plywood adds a natural richness to his muted earth tones while enhancing the works' patterns and textures. Johnson's also added a new character to his repertoire, himself. "Muses, Friends, Juniper, Olivia & Sofa" is the first self-portrait he's exhibited. Interesting since many artists exhibit self-portraits early on. So what's the significance? Johnson drew himself centrally in the same style as his cast, which surrounds him and his subtly depicted letterpress. Coffee cup in hand, his white pupil-less eyes stare straight at the viewer. This is not about confrontation, but confidence (along with sly humor). I'm glad Johnson's acknowledged his role as master within his own work. Through June 30; 317-356-3776, www.avframinggallery.com. --- Susan Watt Grade
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"The Fountain Square Cultural District welcomed...
"Sarah Adams, owner of AV Framing said she saw about 200 people come through her conbination framing studio and art gallery located at 1139 Shelby Street, on the first floor of the Halstead Architects building.
" 'People hung around for quite a while, which was nice,' she said. 'It was just a wonderful party.'
"AV Framing will host a different artists' reception the first Friday of every month as part of the IDADA art gallery tour. The grand opening featured artist Brian Duff. Artists Jerome Neal and Amy Domogalik will be featured in the coming months.
"The event was catered by Creations by Carol Ann. AV Framing will now be open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m."
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