THANK YOU BEV! 4walls spoke to Bev Saunders from Edge Bespoke Picture Framing about her beginnings in the industry, the opportunities Edge has given her and how she spotted the potential during lockdown to give thanks to our key worker heroes. Bev’s ambition had always been to pursue a creative career, and this influenced her to qualify as a printed textile designer. Through working with fabric printers, interior designers, and with Berger Decorative Paints as a colour consultant, Bev has had an incredibly diverse interior design-based working life that has developed her knowledge and background, ultimately assisting her in her framing career. During the early 90s, she worked on a part-time basis with a picture framer in Bristol who she had originally visited to have her own work framed. She tells us: “It was meant to be a stop gap for both of us. Aza Adlam of Decent Exposure had just lost her business partner to a new venture, so needed an extra pair of hands to help her over the ‘hump’ - and I needed an income top-up. Aza was a talented intuitive framer with many years’ experience and, luckily for me, was happy to pass on her accumulated knowledge. This was my introduction to picture framing and the more I did the more I loved it, which is probably why I stayed so long.” After her husband’s work moved them to Kent, Bev thought she had left her creative career for good, and was left unsatisfied in her new job until a friend opened the framing world back up to her:
“He had just bought a whole studio of second-hand picture framing kit and offered to let me use it when I told him I used to frame. He wasn’t interested in creating a business or a partnership and it wasn’t practical for me to run up and down the M20 to work on odd projects, but his offer rekindled my creative interest.” This inspired Bev to convert her garage, which she describes as having become an unused dumping ground, into a studio with a lantern roof, and build a large porch as a reception. An investment in a couple of benches and a second-hand framing kit then followed. Bev then set up her website, started networking and was up and running. She hasn’t looked back since!
Bev has faced a couple of hurdles along the way, but tells us that working from home with no high street presence has probably been the biggest challenge she has faced due to the lack of footfall. She states: “I obviously knew and understood this from the beginning, so was prepared for the business to take a little longer to become established. However, it took far longer than I had imagined.
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On the other hand, I’m well placed and surrounded by a discerning clientele so all enquiries I receive are serious, I love the work and understand feedback that comes through when I’m talking to clients.” Bev has an incredibly upbeat attitude towards her work and tells us “there are pros and cons for all business models, but as long as you concentrate on the positives, I think you can overcome most issues.”
