Welcome to the Village Frame Shoppe & Gallery
The Village Frame Shoppe & Gallery is located on Main Street in St. Albans, Vermont. We are a full service custom frame shop, art gallery and graphic design studio. The gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday 10-5. Stop by and check out the artwork on our walls!
(Read our history below the map)
Village Frame Shoppe & Gallery
The Village Frame Shoppe & Gallery has had a long and deep rooted history in St. Albans, Vermont. I'm often asked, "How long have you been here? Is this shop new?" It has been difficult for me to answer that question as the path to where we are today has taken many twists and turns along the way. Because of this, I thought it would be appropriate to write a brief history of who the Village Frame Shoppe is and where we came from. This story will, of course, be an ongoing project that will be edited as we continue to be in business, but one thing will stay the same. We are here on Main Street in St. Albans, Vermont to provide you with the quality products, services and knowledge that you have come to know and to trust. As always we appreciate and thank you for your business.
Norm Choiniere, owner and publisher at Champlain Collection, purchased the original frame shop in the 1970's from Skeeter Camera. At that time Norm owned Books and Things - a local book shop located on Main Street in St. Albans not too far from where we are today. Norm would continue to offer books, custom framing and fine art at that location for many more years.
In 1995 I began working for Norm. I had gone into his shop to purchase a readymade frame for a painting that I had completed. I can also remember stopping by Norm's shop to see the artwork he had on display, including Fred Swan's. I admired Fred's work because of the quality and amount of detail that he put into his paintings. On one of my return visits to check on the status of the order, Norm asked if I was looking for part time work. I told him I was and started my training shortly after that.
When I started working for Norm, his frame shop was in the back of his store and a bit smaller than the size of what we have today. But it was a great workspace full of interesting tools, supplies, mats and frames. I felt excited about this opportunity! I loved being around artwork, and knew I had found where I was supposed to be. Thinking back now, I can still feel the excitement I felt then when we would have a special antique project come in, or we would be doing some framing for the John LeClair Foundation or Ducks Unlimited!
As far as my training goes, I learned a lot of my skills from Norm's step son Jamie Murtaugh. He showed me how to cut and build frames, cut the glass and clean it, and then "fit" the artwork into the frame and seal it up in the back with the dust-cover, trimming the edge of the paper with a nice clean, straight edge.
Alison Earl, owner of Milk Room Framery in Jeffersonville, Vermont worked part time for Norm on Wednesdays cutting mats, backing and mounting for the paintings, prints and posters. I started looking forward to Wednesdays when Alison would come in and always enjoyed the time spent with her. She would turn the radio to Kool 105, and to this day when I hear those songs it takes me back to that shop and the time spent with her.
I learned how to cut mats from Alison using a table mounted mat cutter. She also taught me how to mount the paintings, prints and posters using archival and reversible methods. I learned alot about art because of her too, and I would often visit her gallery where I was first introduced to the plein air style of painting by Fred Hines and other great Vermont artists of his kind. When I would leave her gallery after a visit, I would be inspired to paint! Art just does something to me!
In the late '90's Norm moved Books and Things out to the Highgate Commons shopping center, next to Pizza Hut. The space was quite a bit larger, so Norm was able to expand his book selection, readymade frame selection - and I had a much larger workspace to work in! Probably almost twice the size of where we are now! (we've outgrown our current shop space and are looking into some ideas for possibly expanding.) Business started to boom. I was now working full time for Norm and would soon be cutting more mats. Alison was still coming in, but her business was picking up also, and she had been talking about needing to spend more time there.
As the next few years went by, Norm quit selling books and turned the shop into more of a local home decor, framing and gift shop. He also changed the name from Books and Things to Champlain Collection. Business would stay busy especially with the Fred Swan art. We started framing Fred Swan's prints for several other gift shops and wholesale accounts throughout Vermont. It was at this time Norm would start to lease a computerized mat cutter. He also upgraded the saw to a double miter saw and the joining tools to a vnailer, all of which would speed up the production time allowing us to do more work.
I continued to work for Norm until the spring of 2006 when my wife and I decided we needed a change and we moved to Boothbay, Maine for the summer. We had purchased a small frame shop down there, and were looking forward to running it for a few years. I'll be honest, we didn't do our research like we should have, and failed to realize that once the summer and fall seasons were gone, there would be no business there in the winter. With three young children at that time, we decided we would not stay through the fall and closed up the shop and moved everything back to storage in Vermont. Just before moving back to Vermont, I had started talking with Nancy Patch, who was looking into the possibility of opening up a cooperative gallery on Main Street in Enosburgh.
The following spring after we came back from Maine, we would open a small frame shop out of that Enosburgh location. Due to space limitations, I was unable to do the work there, so I would do the framing work in the evening from my home, and would sell framing during the day from that location. We started getting busier and by 2009 we needed more space. It was then that an artist and business friend, Paule Gingras, introduced me to Kristin Anderson at RSVP. Kristin was doing business on Kingman Street, but was looking into the possibility of moving up onto Main Street. This would work out great for us both! We would split the rent, and I would do my framing in the back of her store and would continue selling out of Enosburgh as well.
In June of 2010, Norm Choiniere approached me about the possibility of purchasing his business. He had decided that he would retire from running his retail framing and gallery, but would continue to publish Fred Swan's artwork. We agreed on a price and signed the papers in July. I then moved the Champlain Collection (now Village Frame Shoppe) gallery and framing onto Main Street - a block from the old Books and Things location. The Village Frame Shoppe had now come full circle! In early 2011, we rented the whole space where we are still located, and expanded into a fine art gallery, custom frame shop, digital print shop and graphic design studio.
And that is where we are at today. We are looking at some more possibilities and hope that you will stay tuned to what we are doing and are planning to do in the near future. As always we appreciate your business and look forward to serving you for many more years to come.