Whether it`s an oil painting, a diploma, a piece of needlework or a tintype of Great-Aunt Emma, Norm VanKoughnett, owner of The Framemakers in Hinsdale, has the means, materials and artistic ability to show off your treasure to advantage.
After 21 years in a shop at the top of a steep flight of exterior stairs, his business recently came down to earth, resettling at ground level in space twice the size of the original location, with parking adjacent.
”We needed more space because art is getting larger,” said VanKoughnett, a former high school art teacher. ”The new design tables at our five work stations are much bigger than the old ones. And we needed a place with big doors. In our old quarters framing large objects was getting to be like building a boat in the basement.”
While teaching art full-time at Lyons Township High School in 1969 Van Koughnett opened his shop, where he framed artists` works and displayed them, operating in art gallery fashion.
”I was working ten days a week, running from one place to the other,”
he said. ”There was a lot of student unrest in the turbulent `60s, a lot of disinterest in learning, a lot of rebellion. Teaching wasn`t fun for me anymore, and I felt I`d gone as far as I could.”
He solved his ten-day-week problem by quitting teaching to devote full time to the business, which evolved from art gallery to The Framemakers.
”A good frame marries a picture or any other object to its surroundings,” VanKoughnett said, noting that framing a Japanese kimono and a carved altar from Oberammergau have been among his assignments. He offers customers a choice of more than 7,000 frame styles, 320 mat colors and 300 fabrics.
VanKoughnett holds a master`s degree in design from the Illinois Institute of Technology. A member of the Hinsdale Center for the Arts Board of Directors and the Professional Picture Framers Association, he also is a certified picture framer. He didn`t have to take the three-hour, 150-question, multiple-choice test to earn that title; he was one of six people in the United States who wrote the exam under the auspices of the Educational Testing Service.
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The Framemakers, 24 W. Chicago Ave., Hinsdale, is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily except Wednesday and Sunday. 325-6585.
