The Artery: Several Important Ties to the Ladue School District

The Artery has been in Olivette as a framing shop in the Olivette Shopping Center since November 1993. The shop at 9636 Olive St. has many ties to Ladue Horton Watkins High School and Patch dropped by to find out just how.

Patch: If which ways are you connected to Ladue High School

Kim Good, owner: In many ways. I am a 1984 graduate of Ladue High and my husband, Rob teaches social studies at the high school. We have a lot of connections there and many of their parents do their framing here. We support the school. We donate to all the fundraisers they have going on up there. We always advertise in the yearbook and the school newspaper.

Patch: After 19 years in the same location, you must know a lot of your customers well.

Good: We have very good relationships with a lot of our customers. We have a second generation of framers now. Kids that we were framing pictures of when they were in grade school are now coming by to frame their own projects. They have their college degrees and their first apartments and they are bring us things to frame.

Patch: What changes have you seen come to the art industry.

Good: When I opened, we really didn’t have the internet. So I had five bins of posters and prints and the internet has kind of wiped that part out. We still keep our catalogues up to date. The framing end of it hasn’t changed too much. There are many different options and styles in moldings today. Molding companies try and change with the different changes in furniture design and decor.

Patch: Where do the woods come for these frames.

Good: The moldings, we probably deal with 10 different companies. We have an excellent hard wood company in Boulder, CO and there are many hand mills and high quality hard wood frames places to buy from.

Patch: How did you decide to locate in Olivette.

Good: My brother in law had a great idea. He’s in commercial real estate and he plotted every frame shop in town on a map. There was a huge dead zone all the way down Olive. There was one on Craig Road and one on McKnight/Woodson Road and nothing in this strip of shops. We knew growing up in this area this was a strong community and I had ties to Ladue and that helped. With Monsanto in the area and a lot of commercial operations, that all helps to draw from.

At the time there were three vacancies and I looked at all three spots. Pier 1 was on the corner and Petco moved in shortly after we started. That kept it a strong shopping center for a long time.

Patch: What is your art background.

Good. I have a degree in interior design. I didn’t feel like I would make a living as an artist and went into interior design and I ended up framing for extra money in college and really enjoyed it and didn’t get that dream job in an architects office and ended up going back to framing and decided if others could make money doing this, I could too.

Patch: What is the most important part of a frame.

Good: A frame is used to enhance any piece of art. Everyone has a different opinion. Some want the frame to stand out, and others don’t want it to be noticed at all. Some artists use a white frame or a black frame just to keep it simple.

The Artery in Olivette

9636 Olive Blvd.

Hours: 9:30-5:30 Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday. Closed most holiday weekends.

Phone: 314-991-8006

Artery Website.