Sterling Art Services was incorporated in this month in 1981–37 years ago! And 27 since Chris graduated from employee to owner. While there is a mild bittersweet quality in saying goodbye to our Norfolk Street Studio, 27 years is a good cycle in which to welcome a significant new chapter, and when we turn to Oakland we see promise, warmth, community. San Francisco is forever magical, but there is a reason why the original inhabitants of the bay preferred this side of the bay. There is a river of energy in Oakland and we feel fortunate to step in and see where it carries us, both as people and as a company. Things are lining up.

Our understanding is that 333 12th Street, the Ryan Associates building in which we’ve been tenants these last 21 years in SOMA, is slated to become student housing shared by Golden Gate University and California College of the Arts. As long term San Franciscans, we’re sensitive to upheaval and displacement (which is also reshaping Oakland at breathtaking pace). Still, student housing makes that upheaval, for us, much easier in terms of letting go than it would have been, say, for market rate condos. I can’t say enough about how fair Ryan Associates was with us at every turn in the road, including a very generous heads up about impending redevelopment. It has been a great run.

And since we have to vacate Norfolk Street before our 7th Street building is ready for us, we find an equally wonderful landlord in 11 West Partners, who are going to extraordinary lengths to ready beautiful industrial space for us in their Peralta Building.  Things are lining up, and we’re super grateful for them, and for all the people who are helping us navigate this transition.

So here are a couple of sneak peeks at the emerging temporary Sterling–it’s great to be setting up shop and we can’t wait to see you there!

Our client Aline Soules brought in this pair of recently conserved oil painting portraits of her grandparents, courtesy of Art Conservation de Rigeur, from circa turn of the last century. She was great to work with and immediately grasped that understatement could be a successful way of approaching the frame architecture.

While some may have followed an impulse toward greater opulence/embellishment with the frame design, she opted instead for using a clean walnut profile with a modicum of detailing to contextualize then with their era, while making them pleasurable to contemporary eyes. They came out beautifully. Also, these were the last frames made at Sterling by the talented Bobby McCole, aka @pyramidrecords .  Enjoy!

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