What do you do when you score the exclusive rights to a major museum's photography collection? You get a bigger store, that's what.
It's the enviable position Kory Mitchell and Jennifer Moore, owners of
Fells Point Frame and Design found themselves in this spring when they won the sole commercial right to fulfillment, distribution and publication of the
Baltimore Museum of Industry's BG&E photographic collection, which spans the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. The gig requies considerable more room for printing processes, so the duo increased their space by roughly 40% last month by moving from the 1700 block of Thames Street to 1622 Thames, a building previously occupied by the running store 5K.
The BG&E collection is a Baltimorephile's dream. Among the more than 2,500 pictures are electric images of the city on fire in 1904, a 1944 skyline with Goodyear blimp above it, and the
Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower when it was still crowned by a giant bottle. It also contains charming regional shots of the Chesapeake Bay, crabbers, Pimlico during the running of the Preakness, and old industrial shots. Mitchell and Moore are able to reproduce any photo in the collection in various sizes and on various media, including canvas.
Fells Point Frame and Design continues to carry hundreds of posters (running the gamut of themes, from music to movies to fine art prints to celebrities), as well as an impressive collection of old world maps and vintage photography. It will enlarge customer's personal photographs, and it sells Moore's "Board Baltimore" line of wood-and-glass signs bearing clever sayings. It has also expanded its inventory to include the Space Craft clothing line and is running a diploma-framing special to beat any in town, Mitchell says.
"We pride ourselves on being Baltimore's most affordable custom framer," Mitchell says. "We make it easy to get stuff frame if you can't afford higher end materials. We fill that niche."
Mitchell, who opened his shop nearly ten year's ago in Canton's
Broom Factory, is a Delaware native who made Baltimore home after attending
Towson University. He says he's excited about the renaissance in the city.
"I'm a big believer," he says. "I'm seeing things get better. And we're excited to do the new things we're doing because we think they're going to be our engines of growth."
Writer: Lucy Ament
Source: Kory Mitchell, Fells Point Frame and Design