History repeats with art super sale
Ayear ago, Art & Frame owner Karyn Clayton was facing a predicament. Her gallery on Riccarton Rd was overflowing with beautiful prints, sculptures and giftware, and more was on the way from boutique suppliers in England and elsewhere. Stocktake was looming.
So, for the first time in Art & Frame’s more than 40-year history, she held a storewide sale.
A week was allocated with the expectation there would be a little extra attention on the retail side of the store to balance the gallery’s thriving custom framing work. By the week’s end, Karyn was exhausted, hundreds of items were in new homes and the sale had proved an unprecedented success.
A year later, stocktake is again looming, the gallery is once more filled with beautiful prints, hangings and hard-tofind gift ideas, and pretty soon another shipment will arrive. It is time, Karyn decided, for another sale.
Starting this week, Art & Frame has almost its entire retail range discounted by 50 per cent.
Shoppers have until March 16 to snag a deal on high-quality artworks of varying forms. Framed prints – limited edition and otherwise – Frith sculptures, readymade frames, cups, plates, glass hearts, cushions and a large collection of greeting cards are all included in the bumper clearance sale.
‘‘A lot of what we have isn’t available anywhere else. It’s all really cool stuff too, like the Frith sculptures, which are exclusive to us and sell really well,’’ Karyn says.
‘‘The sale was was so popular last year we thought we had to do it again.’’
Art & Frame is primarily a framing gallery. Hundreds of mouldings, fillets and museumgrade framing materials fill half the store. These are used to create custom frames for new art as well as works being modernised to suit new homes and changing trends. Custom frames are also created for memorabilia, which with the right conservation materials can be removed from the shadows and given a rightful place on the wall.
But in addition to the gallery’s high-tech workshop is a large retail space, and it is this area, a magnet for lovers of fine things, that Karyn has currently opened up to such generous discounts.
The selection features readyto-hang limited editions by leading artists like Tony Ogle and Mary Taylor, farm-themed cushions from Wrendale Designs in the United Kingdom, and a multitude of ornaments to liven up homes old or new.
‘‘The best thing is to come in for a browse. We made the sale two weeks this time so people could have a bit more time,’’ Karyn says.
Art & Frame is located opposite Westfield Riccarton and has its own parking at the rear of the gallery, accessible from Kauri or Rimu streets. Free, onthe-spot quotes are available for framing.