LINCOLN SQUARE — Lincoln Square will be a little less picture perfect when Alaina May closes her frame shop at the end of June.
Business is actually up at Granville Picture Framing and Gallery Arts, 4757 N. Lincoln Ave., May said, but she's ready to retire.
"It was a tough decision. It's sad to close down because it's a value to people and we take pride in what we do," May said.
The shop's sister store in Edgewater (the original Granville) is also shuttering at the end of September.
May's shop replaced a different Lincoln Square framing business seven years ago, and if someone else wants to carry on the legacy, make her an offer, she said.
"It's a beautiful business," May said. "You're surrounded by art."
Over the years, Granville has framed everything "from a child's scribble to [works by] famous artists worth hundreds of thousands of dollars," May said.
Matching frame to art is a talent, and May said she has an uncanny ability to scan the shop's 5,000 samples, which she likened to a "big box of crayons," and choose the right one.
Customers will often ask to see several options, and then unfailingly pick the first one she showed them, May said.
May has also framed all manner of objects — christening gowns, seed pods, arrowheads, military medals and boomerangs — and shepherded a number of restoration projects. The latter included a commission by DANK Haus to oversee the repair of a massive 130-year-old gilded gold leaf frame holding a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm I, a process that took five months.
Customers with far less labor-intensive needs have until June 10 to place a framing order, May said.
A date has yet to be set for a clearance sale of Granville's art inventory — everything from original paintings to Soviet era propaganda posters.
The framing shop will close at the end of June. [DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]
