Who’s Behind the Counter: Mary Begleiter and Zach Morehouse at Catonsville Custom Framing and Fine Art

Catonsville Patch:  How long have you been in business in Catonsville?

Mary Begleiter:  Catonsville Custom Framing and Fine Art opened here in September 1995.  At that time there was another framer down the street and another opened within a month right across the street from them, but now we’re the only one left, and it’s been that way for a while, which is a good thing because there wouldn’t be enough work with this economy for more than one framing business.

Patch:  What do you like about being in Catonsville?

Begleiter:  We love the people; this is a friendly, warm community.  We like our location; we get walk-in business, and we are easy to find for people who discover us on the web.

Patch:  How has your business changed over time?

Begleiter: We have grown, and we do more commercial work now than we did when we started out.  We are a vendor for the Federal government; we do work for Charlestown and for many of their residents, but basically the work we do is the same.

Zach Morehouse:  We frame the old fashioned way, cutting the mat by hand.  We have a table top mat cutter, but I still have to do the math, measure, hold my hand steady, stuff like that.  We also don’t do any machine joining; we join the frames with vices and nails.

Begleiter:  That’s by far the most sturdy way to do it.

Patch:  What services do you do?

Begleiter:  People tend to think narrowly about framing, and we do frame a lot of diplomas and photographs, but there are so many other services we provide:  calligraphy, custom cut mirrors, shadow boxes for things like communion dresses.  Right now, Zach is working on mounting a lacrosse jersey.

Morehouse:  Yeah, I have to stitch this on here so that it will look like it’s floating, not hanging.

Patch:  What are some other unusual things you’ve framed?

Morehouse:  I’ve been here nine years and there have been a lot of strange things. 

Begleiter:  The strangest was the dead cat skin from Africa.

Morehouse:  Yeah, that was not fun.  But there were some other unusual ones:  the shadow boxes for props from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the custom giant display case we made for a collection of Shelley Fabares memorabilia.  Oh yeah, and there was the full-size American flag we did for Southwest Airlines, that was over eight-by-ten feet and we had to use the back room at the optician next door to put it together because we didn’t have enough room in here!

Patch:  Do you have a signature service or specialty thing you do?

Begleiter:  Each of us who works here has our specializations.  Stephen Stoltzfus, who has worked here even longer than Zach, is a master at canvas repair and antique frame and art restoration.  The main thing with us is that we are all perfectionists, like with the old techniques we talked about before.  We also use only acid-free conservation mounting.  If one of the guys brings me a frame and says “look, there’s a nick in this” I’m all over sending it back.  Nothing goes out of here that’s not done perfectly.  I want 100% and my staff does too.

Patch:  What are you proud of?

Begleiter:  We are known for our excellent customer service, which is why we have maintained our business for as long as we’ve been here and we plan to continue.

Patch:  You were featured on the television show Extreme Make-Over:  Home Edition.  How did that happen?

Begleiter:  It was in October 2005, we were approached with a phone call from the executive offices of the show, saying that they were doing a house in PG County and would we like to do the framing.  We jumped at it.  They came and dropped off the artwork and told us what their colors were and left it up to us to design the frames with the artwork. 

Then I was invited to the set as a VIP and I got to see the mechanics of how the show was pieced together.  It was wonderful publicity and a lot of fun to do something different.

Patch:  Do you have any special offers?

Begleiter:  Our prices are the best prices around, guaranteed, because we are a small shop and have lower overhead than the craft stores.  We also give volume discounts:  30 percent off 1-3 pieces, 40 percent off 4 or more.

Patch:  What's the best piece of advice that someone has given you when it comes to running a business? 

Begleiter:  I used to write programs for customer service, so I knew what was required to make people happy:  deliver beyond people’s expectations.  And if something’s not right, which rarely happens, we take care of it within 24 hours.

Patch:  What’s your favorite thing about your work?

Begleiter:  This is a happy business.  People bring something to be framed because they love it; it is a treasure and they want to keep it forever.  I get to see them love it even more when we take it out and show it to them framed.