Picture Perfect

Chances are you’ve seen Carol Nash and her three dogs walking down Main Street.

Each morning on the way to work and each evening on the way home, Nash and the dogs make the trek from her framing gallery, Artfully Yours at 123 E. Main St., to her home on North Church Street. The foursome has become a familiar sight since Nash bought the gallery in 2003.

“It’s not a good day if we don’t stop to say hello to at least five people,” Nash says.

The dogs, Snow, Cloud and Payson, spend the day greeting customers at the shop. Artfully Yours has been in Moorestown for more than 25 years, but Nash bought it from its previous owner in 2003. In February, she moved from 111 E. Main St. to 123 to save money on utilities and rent.

An art school graduate, she admits she didn’t know how to create much more than the “art school frame” when she bought the business.

“In art school, they teach you how to make a basic frame to go around your artwork,” she explains, “but I learned real framing on the job.”

Nash credits an employee of the former owner for teaching her everything she knows. Although he originally planned to leave with the sale, he stayed on for three years to teach Nash the business.

“We found out we could work well together and we’re still good friends,” Nash adds.

Today, it’s just Nash and the three dogs, although she hopes that business will pick up enough to allow her to hire an employee soon.

“Truthfully, this business is hard to run without another employee,” Nash says. To accommodate her one-man show, Artfully Yours is open to walk-in business Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. That gives Nash the time she needs for errands, like picking up more mat board or other supplies.

An additional employee would also allow Nash time to return to creating art as well as framing. Trained in fine arts at the Parsons School of Design and then in chemistry at NYU, Nash originally thought she would pursue art restoration.

“But that field turned out to be really competitive,” she remembers.

Today she finds time to do some painting. Last year she set herself up in the window of the old store and began a portrait of the three dogs. Many passersby stopped to watch and today that portrait sits in the new location waiting to be finished. She also paints ceramic bowls for fund-raisers or to be used as dog bowls.

Nash also carries some work by local artists including Neal Hughes, a nationally known artist who lives in Moorestown, and local artist Erin McGee Ferrell.

But most customers who come into the store are looking for a frame. Whether its something simple for a child’s artwork or something elaborate for an antique oil painting, Nash believes she offers more service and better prices than her big chain competitors.

“I recently had a couple come in and pick out a really expensive frame. I was nervous to tell them that what they wanted was going to cost $850,” she recounts. “They looked at each other and smiled and I wasn’t sure what was going on. Turns out they had just come from (a big chain competitor) who quoted them $1,200.”

Thanks to her background, Nash can also provide restoration work on older pieces of art. Although she acknowledges, most paintings simply need a coat of varnish.

“Paintings are like skin. They need moisture to be maintained,” she explains.