Having a booth at the event itself is part of every sponsor package for ArtWalk. One of the goals of The Frame Maker sponsorship was to reconnect with the Little Italy community, more than one of whom have told em they thought The Frame Maker went out of business went it left the space at India & Ivy back in 1999.

Actually, owner Steve Atlas moved the business up State Street north of Laurel, technically into Mission Hills. Buying up a converted warehouse building and converting it into another beautiful showroom has proven a pretty smart move since then for The Frame Maker despite the perceptual disconnect with its previous neighborhood.

Now that Little Italy has become one of the most dynamic neighborhoods for art in San Diego county year round, and especially ArtWalk weekend, it seemed only logical to try and bring The Frame Maker showroom “back” to Little Italy.

Since The Frame Maker is staffed by professional artists and people who care deeply about the art & design community in San Diego, the booth was also conceived to let those people and personalities percolate through to the surface. After all, ArtWalk is all about art & artists, and we feel that our staff of artists and their combined knowledge and experience is one of the business’ current core strengths.

Again it seemed only logical to time the next show of staff work with ArtWalk, so not only does the custom framing part of our booth feature the staff, the gallery part of the booth features their work.

Our booth has only become a reality with the assistance of two new friends and partners, both small businesses with deep roots in San Diego that we are ecstatic to support and be supported by as we work together to strengthen our local economy.

The Frame Maker was introduced to Moebius Color by photographer Maire Scharpegge, who has been featured at The Frame Maker (along with glass artist Lea de Wit) in the show “Echoes”. Moebius’ arsenal of innovative technologies for digital printing suggested a host of possibilities to The Frame Maker staff, and the first collaborative results will be on full display in both parts of The Frame Maker booth (details in next posts).

Robert Noble of Noble Environmental Technologies and his visionary staff brought a new product they have developed to our attention this spring, and much like with Moebius, lightning struck. After some discussion Robert and Manufacturing Director Tim Newburn agreed to lend us a batch of their new “green” construction panels to experiement with, both for art-making and booth-building.

Check out this incredible 100%-post-consumer-waste building product online at www.ecorglobal.com and check back here for more posts on The Frame Maker booth.