At Last, A Look Inside I've Been Framed

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This post is a looong time in coming; one pandemic wait plus one visit forgetting the camera.

I have never made any secret of my love for I've Been Framed, the Portland treasure of an art supply store that we visit on a semi-regular basis at 4950 SE Foster Road. We first went there in 2002, where I found a complete set of DaVinci gouache colors that I needed for an art course I was taking at PCC.

It's been a very satisfying relationship, which has become more than just a place we drop in on to get art supplies. We've taken to them and we fancy they've taken to us; they put up with our quirks as customers and we hit that place first when we're looking for something. They have been very good to us and we feel like they're more than a business we stop at but they're kind of our friends.

20 years a patron will do that for you, if you manage it right. 

The business was started by a fellow named Bob Brisack in 1955, powered by his love of wheeling and dealing art supplies. In about 2001 we went in there and I bought my first purchase, a proportional divider for drafting, which I still have. In 2003, the place was sold to his son, Mark. Mark was cool and a very welcoming person who was always very encouraging. Mark also saw the store through the tough beginning of the pandemic.

This last year, Mark retired in his turn, and the store was bought by Prairie Clark, who was running the store under Mark for a long time (at least as I understand it), and she's seeing the store through the pandemic (keeping it open and everyone employed and innovating a way to sell art supplies despite not being able to allow people in for browsing) and into its next era.

That era, having arrived, gives us a evolved IBF on Foster. In-store browsing is now fully enabled (to an occupancy level of 10 at a go) and there's been a retro-rebranding. It's all quite exciting.

In the below photo, which is taken from a spot roughly where the framing department was, the changes should be manifest.

There's more room to move about, better airflow, and rearranged departments. The counter that can be seen above describes an L-shape in the floorplan, behind which canvases and paper can be requested - you can't go back into the paper aisles any more but they'll get you whatever you want from them - and the collection of vintage art supplies, once limited to the glass cabinet marked as THE MUSEUM, has been greatly expanded.

Along the front windows there can be seen, from the right, the water color aisle, then the brushes, then the acrylic colors. Screenprinting inks are just out of frame on the left, and the oil colors have moved into the space once occupied by the childrens' art supplies.

Turning about, the store looks like this now:

There's modelling supplies immediately to our right; out of sight and to the right of the colored Canson paper rack there is the graphite drawing stock, which is actually more or less where it was before the floorplan revision. The generous space allowing for some social distancing is obvious here and the design of that is quite impressive.

The biggest change, outside of the new counter spanning the middle of the store, is the absence of the custom framing department. IBF still offers framing, by appointment, and the framing crew, I understand, has now fully relocated to the other IBF location, 2819 SE Ash St over in Laurelhurst.

This brings me to the real delightful detail of all this. I regard Prairie as a marketing genius for this, but she's done a bit of a throwback for branding this location.

I overheard Rosie, one of the retailers, answer the phone I've Been Framed, Art Supply Center. It clicked with me then. When Bob Brisack opened IBF its original name was simply that: Art Supply Center. IBF has two branches at present, and the functions have been sorted out between them so that now the Foster Road location has just art supplies. Why not reach back and reclaim some of that history? What a clever and delightful idea, in my blunt opinion.

So, welcome on I've Been Framed's Art Supply Center, which is an art store as Portland as it gets.

I have a few more pictures to share and will, in a subsequent post anon (but not too far anon). In the mean time, go get you some art supplies.

I just told you where to do it.