Detour Framing owner Erin Crinigan in her new shop, a former staircase factory. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Seventeen months after Detour Gallery debuted with a splash in downtown Red Bank, a spinoff framing shop has now opened on the West Side, completing the transformation of a former amplifier factory and staircase builder.

And this weekend, Detour Framing kicks things off with an art exhibit of its own.

Victoria Steel with one of her photorealist drawings in charcoal. Below, a detail of a painting by Rumson’s Eileen Burgess. Both are included in the frame shop’s debut exhibit. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

The show marks the completion of a two-year transformation of the building, at the corner of Drs. James Parker Boulevard and South Bridge Avenue, that was the longtime home of B&C Custom Wood Stairs and Rail. Detour Gallery owner Kenny Schwartz now uses the second floor of the two-story building to store artwork and as his office. The first floor is given over to the frame shop.

While the framing business was originated by Schwartz to support his giant gallery on Clay Street, he decided last year to hand the it over to Crinigan to own and run for herself.

“After putting a lot of money into it, he gave me the opportunity to just take it over,” Crinigan said last week.

“I wanted to cut down. I don’t want to do more,” said Schwartz, a longtime auto dealer and art maven. Crinigan, he said, “has a tremendous talent in that area.”

Crinigan said the upshot of the arrangement is that instead of being a Schwartz employee, she interacts with Detour Gallery as one of her customers, and her landlord.

Crinigan has worked as a framer for 23 of her 39 years, first in New York as well as for eight years at Chetkin Gallery on Wharf Avenue. She’s trained in museum-quality framing techniques an material selection.

“A frame is like a piece of furniture,” she told redbankgreen last week. “It’s not inexpensive, so you should only frame something once. A frame should last.”

Throughout the remodeling of the building, and since opening her shop in December, Crinigan said she’s been conscious of embedding the business into the fabric of the neighborhood, which has been undergoing change, with the opening of Isacc’s Grocery across the street earlier this month and burgeoning residential development in the area by developers Roger Mumford and Charlie Farkouh. In fact, it was a neighborhood mom who asked Crinigan if she was going to offer art classes.

“I wasn’t going to,” Crinigan said, but the inquiry got her thinking, and she’s now brought in 23-year-old Red Bank artist Victoria Steel to teach painting and drawing classes in the shop.

Steel offers classes for teens and adults on Sundays, and kids’ art classes on Mondays. Check out her website for details. She will also have one of her photorealist charcoal drawings in the exhibit that opens Saturday as the debut for the frame shop.

The show, titled ‘Peripheral Glances,’ is curated by Crinigan’s husband, street artist Roberto Nunez, and includes works by Nunez, Rumson artists Eileen Burgess and Jeannine Rothenberg, and three New York artists. The opening reception runs from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

In addition to housing B&C for many years, the building, 131 Drs. Parker Boulevard, served as the original home of Danelectro Corporation, an amplifier company founded in 1947 by Nat Daniel that later became best known as a manufacturer of low-budget electric guitars that are still prized for their distinctive sound.

The company relocated to a nearby factory building on River Street that is now slated to be demolished to make way for a 22-unit townhouse project being developed by Mumford.

Danelectro later moved to Neptune City, and went out of business in the late 1960s. After long dormancy, its name and product line have since been revived under new owners.