MOORE — Interested in art and framing the piece in a way to enhance the art, has always been a passion of Sharon Thompson.
For more than 20 years she has custom framed in her home for friends and family. Her husband, Steve, told her the time was right to open her own shop.
Sharon opened Masters House Custom Framing at 223 S. Broadway Ave. She specializes in custom framing, shadow boxes and other unique pieces and is a designated Thomas Kinkade distributor.
Masters also features and sells works of art by local artists. Wes Newton is the current featured artist. Also at the store are works by Ladd Adams of Norman, Jennie Eddy of Moore and Bob Goad, three-time national champion wood carver.
The store is full of birds carved and painted by Goad.
“He does such life like pieces,” Sharon said.
Also, displayed in the store are a couple of pieces by 3 year old Abigail, the Thompson’s granddaughter.
“Children are artists until they’re told they’re not and told to stay in the lines,” Sharon said.
Steve’s parents were in Germany the day President Ronald Reagan said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” They brought a couple pieces of the wall home covered with graffiti.
“There was lots of graffiti on the west side,” Steve said.
A shadow box with a photo of the late president, pieces of graffiti and the decor words recently won first place at a professional picture framers convention in Dallas. They also received a chapter honorable mention for another piece. The chapter includes Oklahoma and Texas.
Decor words or any saying can be added in vinyl lettering on glass.
There also is an art to shadow boxes.
“Every thing has to be framed in a way so it can be unframed without damaging the pieces,” Steve said.
The technique of framing has changed. The Thompsons build mats on a computer visualization system.
“You can see it before it is framed,” Steve said.
Of course the computer they use has been customed framed. They sell kits to frame computer monitors and television screens and can be fitted to any size.
Masters House also offers nine different glass glazings, 2,100 moldings and 1,200 different mat colors. They do fabrications and stretching and can do framings almost any size.
The Thompsons did a story mat to celebrate the 80th birthday of Sharon’s father, Evan Garwood.
“Now he’s gone and it is truly a family heirloom,” Steve said. “Story mats tell the story. The mats are your words, your photographs.”
The Thompsons have lived in Moore since 1980 and opened the store in Moore because they want to be a part of their community and they try to price their work so they are “affordable gifts,” Steve said.
Masters House is open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
