Frame Gallery Sponsors Award-Winning Local Highschool Radio Station

Frame Gallery Donates Tiger Sculpture to Sewanee Elementary School

Harriet Runkle, owner of the Frame Gallery, donated a tiger sculpture to Sewanee Elementary School. Stripes the Tiger is enjoying its new home on the school’s front lawn. Teachers, staff , and students love the new addition and are grateful to Ms. Runkle for her contribution to our school. Pictured are Principal Allison Dietz, 5th-grade students Bentley Rollins and Arabella Barry, and Harriet Runkle.

Tiger Sculpture by Artist Dale Brown

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Five Years in Art

Reflecting on her first five years as owner of the Frame Gallery in downtown Sewanee, local businesswoman Harriet Runkle is most proud of the fact that her business is thriving.

“I’m proud I’ve hung in there,” Runkle said. “It’s not easy to have your own small business in Sewanee.”

Barely two years after opening her custom framing business in the old Jackson’s Garage Esso station in January of 2018, Runkle found herself faced with the devastating loss of her beloved friend and fellow “Frame Gal” Rea Ching Mingeva, a master framer and artist, in February of 2020. This loss was almost immediately followed by a mandatory two-week shutdown in March at the start of the Covid pandemic.

When the shutdown ended, Runkle had to adapt to a new normal. “People would leave their art outside the door and text or talk on the phone,” Runkle said, adding that during the first pandemic year Sewanee alum Matt Costello worked with the Sewanee Business Alliance to set up a general relief fund to help downtown businesses keep their lights on during the toughest times.

“The support from the community was amazing,” she said.

As the pandemic slowly stretched into its second year, she went to appointment only. An unexpected benefit from people being at home during this time was that they were doing projects that required framing, so sales began inching up.

In August of 2021, a man made disaster hit — the downtown road construction project, which limited access to the shop just as Covid restraints were lessening.

“I had orange barrels around my shop for a year,” Runkle said. “They finally finished last fall, and I’ve had a really great year.”

Runkle, who has a degree in art history with a concentration in museum studies and gallery management from UT-Knoxville as well as a Master of Arts in teaching, said an art appreciation class in high school and her mother’s love of the arts inspired her passion for the field.

“My mother was in the arts,” she noted, “That was something we just did — go to art shows and museum openings. Art history was like a balm for my soul.”

She met her husband, John, at UT, where he was studying architecture and then came with him to Sewanee for the first time in 1996, when he got the calling to attend seminary. Like many young spouses who accompany seminarians to the mountain, Runkle did whatever she could to contribute to the family finances: she worked at The Sewanee Mountain Messenger, tutored at St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School, and even catered.

Through the years, she followed him to new each job posting: Roanoke, Va.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and eventually Arlington, Va., where he worked as a conservator at the Washington National Cathedral. She taught kindergarten, worked in a frame shop, did art consulting, and served as a director of art gallery.

When budget cuts hit the National Cathedral, her husband returned to Sewanee in 2013 as the director of St. Mary’s Sewanee Retreat Center. Runkle finished out her teaching contract in Virginia and then joined him here. Unable to find a teaching job, she went to work for Marjorie Burnett at Mountain Outfitters.

“I learned so much from her about running a woman-owned business,” Runkle said. “She and Tabitha Stines, who runs a Sewanee hair salon, were two who I looked to for advice and encouragement.”

When a local frame shop, Corners, became available five years ago, Runkle was ready to make her move. “I really hit the ground running,” she said. “I bought it on a Monday and opened the next day. I made $27.42 that first day.”

Runkle set three goals for herself: to provide a place for custom framing, a gallery space for local artists, and a place for children to create art.

“Custom framing is my bread and butter, but I wanted to provide a space for artists to show their work,” Runkle said. She strives to support local artists and tries to build an audience of collectors for them. “It’s so fulfilling to show and then sell artists’ works.”

She kicked off her fifth-anniversary year with a digital-arts show in January followed by a collage and metal sculpture show featuring whimsical and thought-provoking art in February.

Upcoming events include an April exhibit by the Nature Journaling Group from the Sewanee Herbarium and the annual summer show featuring the works of students from Martha Keeble’s Sewanee Art Works studio.

The Frame Gallery is located at 12569 Sollace M. Freeman Highway in Sewanee. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

A Year in Art

On Jan. 22, Harriet Runkle celebrated the one-year anniversary of opening the Frame Gallery. She bought the frame shop, formerly known as Corners, from Mindy Melton, and expanded the business beyond framing.

When opening the Frame Gallery, Runkle set out with three goals to accomplish: to provide a place for custom framing, a gallery space for local artists, and a place for children to create art.

In her first year, Runkle has accomplished the first two goals and seeks to expand hosting activities where children can create art. While an elementary school teacher in Arlington, Va., and a preschool teacher in inner-city Memphis, she encouraged her students to be creative and would host shows of student’s work for their parents. As an educator and artist, she opened the Frame Gallery with the vision of providing a space for local artists of all ages to exhibit their work and celebrate the creative tradition in Sewanee.

After a year in business, the “Framing Gals” (Harriet and Rea Mingeva) have restored art, hosted painting groups, installed gallery walls in homes, and worked with the Sewanee Elementary School and the Sewanee Children’s Center students to upcycle/recycle art.

Other shows that have graced the front wall included the photography of John Willis, a pop-up art sale with a variety of works from the local community, and Martha Keeble’s painting group, which highlighted how many artists there are in the area.

“I am so appreciative of the support from the community and the University,” Harriet said. “I am grateful to live in a community that loves and appreciates art.”

It is clear from the warm and happy atmosphere in the shop, and Harriet and Rea’s passion for art and fostering creativity, that the Frame Gallery is a true gem.

All are invited to enjoy the local art at the Frame Gallery whether you need a frame or not, and take advantage of the monthly showings in the front room. For the month of February, Mary Priestley will be showing illustrations from her new book “Sewanee Wildflowers in Watercolor.” At the opening reception from 5:30-7 p.m., Friday, Feb. 1, there will be a book signing, and prints and note cards will also be sold.

The Frame Gallery also specializes in archival framing and restorations, art consulting and installation. The Frame Gallery is located at 12569 Sollace M. Freeman Hwy., Sewanee. The frame shop and gallery’s regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

​Frame Gallery Hosts First Art Exhibit & Reception

For Rea Mingeva, coming to work at Frame Gallery was yet another turn of fortune in her life—and a reunion with a kindred spirit.

Mingeva, a longtime art professor at Minnesota State University, first met Harriet Runkle when Mingeva was working in the kitchen at St. Mary’s Sewanee retreat center, where Runkle’s husband John was director. The two women had a love of art in common and formed a quick bond.

“On several occasions I was like, ‘I really need this person (Mingeva) in my life; I don’t know how,’” Runkle recalled.

When Runkle purchased the assets of Corners Custom Framing and started her own business there in January, her vision was to not only offer framing services, but create a corner shop of artistic invitation and education. Soon she tabbed Mingeva, a master framer, to join the staff.

“How awesome could anybody’s life be, where you could end up in this fabulous space with this fabulous partner doing this after lifting heavy dishes at St. Mary’s at 65 (years-old)?” Mingeva asked.

Throughout her journey, Mingeva said she has had wonderful opportunities as she wades through what works and what doesn’t for her. She retired from teaching at Minnesota State to focus on her own art, when she could have been making a six-figure salary with summers off—but she said she couldn’t teach passion.

Mingeva’s portraits are on display at Frame Gallery through the end of May, and the shop will celebrate her work with a reception today (Friday), May 18, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Runkle, an art historian, former teacher and museum gallery director, selected Mingeva as the first artist to feature because she felt her friend’s art could be in some of the best galleries.

“I just admired her work and thought it had substance,” Runkle said. “I wanted to give her the opportunity to show other people this talent of hers.”

Mingeva’s exhibit features portraits of people close to her, including her late father, whom she cared for in his last days, and her brother-in-law, Rob Moore, a Sewanee grad and teacher at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, who died from AIDS.

Some of her works are appropriations, which incorporate another artist’s work behind her own portrait. For example, “Melencolia,” a 16th century piece by Albrecht Dürer, serves as background and complement to the pencil drawing of Moore.

Mingeva’s creation process is prayer and conversation, she noted.

“It’s trying to capture a silence between me and the painting that feels like a conversation between me and the real person,” she said. “All my work is very silent, it’s very quiet.

“If there’s anything that feels so honest, so reverent, it would be when I’m watching that brush on my canvas,” she added. “Every mark becomes something that I have to react to differently. I don’t set out to make a painting look any (specific) way, I set out to have this conversation.”

Another aim of the reception today is to showcase the new frame shop, which John, an architect and woodworker, helped remodel. Harriet said she wants to add more artistic opportunities there, possibly workshops and an “Art on the Spot” station, where people can create in the store. Mingeva also currently offers private art lessons at the gallery.

“It’s not a static place where you bring in your art, leave it and come back and get it, but you can look at an exhibit and hopefully get to know this as a place where creativity is alive,” Runkle said. “As a teacher, an art historian and art lover, it’s a place where I feel creative and feel like I can encourage that for people who come in the shop.”

Frame Gallery is between Village Laundry and Shenanigans. The monthly art exhibits continue in June with the photography of John Willis.

One Frame Shop Closes & Another Opens

Mindy Melton is packing up when her son Wyatt comes through the shop door on the last day of business for Corners Custom Framing in Sewanee.

When asked why she started Corners in February 2009, Wyatt raises his hand. She was catering when she was pregnant with him and needed something less physically demanding, so she opened the shop.

“I don’t think my time could have been better spent in the past 9 years than being here, in this community,” Melton said. “I truly have appreciated everyone and getting to know all the different people.”

Melton learned the framing trade while working at her ex-husband’s frame shop in Florida in the 1990s. She tears up a few times talking about closing the store, but said it was too much to operate the shop and a bar she purchased last year, “The V” in Monteagle.

“It’s a little overwhelming, it’s emotional,” she said, “but I can’t imagine handing it over to anyone better.”

Sewanee resident Harriet Runkle recently purchased all of Melton’s assets inside the store and will open a new frame shop and art gallery in the same location, between Sewanee Dry Cleaners and Shenanigans.

Runkle, a longtime educator, artist and former gallery director, said “Frame Gallery Custom Frames and Art” will exhibit artwork, host art parties for kids and adults, and contribute in other ways to Sewanee’s rich creativity.

“I want it to be a business that supports the arts and supports children,” Runkle said, “and to be another fun thing to do in Sewanee.”

She said she feels that she is coming full circle with the business. In college at the University of Tennessee, when she was dating her husband John, now an architect and a priest, she told him she had dreams of owning her own gallery.

For Melton, she hopes to do more writing in her spare time, “confessional prose,” and also focus on The V, a venue she said allows hardworking musicians another place to play on the touring circuit. But as she centers her attention on other art forms, Melton said she will miss framing for the community.

“I enjoy people and their different tastes and likes and being able to work with them to come up with exactly what they’re looking for. I think that’s the best part,” she said. “It’s hard to be that eclectic in your own home but you get to enjoy all the different things this way—and really good art.”

Runkle said she is building on Melton’s foundation and love for framing.

“I’m continuing what Mindy started,” she said. “Even though I’m changing the name, I’m still in the same space, I’m continuing her good work. The whole process has been great between us.”

Frame Gallery Custom Frames and Art is now open and Runkle said any pending work during the transition will be completed. She also noted there are plans for some interior modifications to the shop.