Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Latta Cain.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Building the frame shop and studio began in 2020 (inside the Pigfish Lane Antiques & Interiors building) and continued through the Covid lockdown, but we were here and plenty busy! As people began venturing out again, albeit masked, things really took off. Soon after, all aspects of KLC Fine Art Conservation • Framing • Restoration really fleshed out the schedule and soon my colleagues came to help with the workload in the frame shop, We have framed some unusual things, including a life-size Leprechaun costume for the mascot of University of Notre Dame. I concentrate on the artworks and frames that need restoration or conservation. We have experience of over 40 years, and the three of us love what we come to do everyday, and can frame absolutely anything that wants framing, and restore any frame to it’s beauty, while the paintings and works on paper are repaired, cleaned and given all they need for another lifetime.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s been mostly a smooth road, however we do have to contend with the State Fair traffic in October!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As an artist with a BFA in painting from East Carolina U., and studies in painting and conservation at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Phila., art restoration and conservation work came naturally. I use my skills and vision as an artist, while my knowledge of art history and the science of materials, pigments and mediums lends to the process. Framing also came naturally; as an artist who showed work in NYC, Philadelphia and the Triangle here, I had to have expert knowledge of preservation and framing. Framing art also gave me a needed steady income! I think that type of vision and attention gives the studio and frame shop that special magnification.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
As I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, my parents having been raised in the more rural Bucks County Pa., visiting my respective paternal and maternal family farms built by immigrants, was always a treat! The Swedish family farm had cows and wide open fields and a house built in the 1700’s. My Ukrainian great-grandparents and grandparents farm was also built in the 1700’s; it had crops and cows and plow horses and the most fragrant honeysuckle, and was the subject of many American painters, including Edward Redfield and Ranulph Bye, among more recent painters. That farm is still in the family and still painted by many artists. I suppose it’s also noteworthy that I had family in NH. Jack Sykes was an artist, known as the painter of the White Mountains and was also known as the Candy Man of the Mountains! Making candy in Sugar Hill NH was HIS income-maker as an artist! I cherished all of those places.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
