Located at 77 Main Street, Art & Frame is a frame shop that doubles as a gallery space. Every employee is an artist, according to owner John O’Sullivan. Between the small staff at the frame shop, there is more than 160 years of combined experience.

Newtown residents and visitors can view some of that talent now, thanks to an exhibition currently on view approximatley one-half mile south of the frame shop, at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street. A presentation with the library meeting room is on view until June 30.

O’Sullivan told The Newtown Bee he does more than frame beautiful, local works of art at the shop, he also does art restoration.

“Now I do a lot of painting and sculpture repair,” O’Sullivan said. “I repair old paintings, fix tears and rips and things like that, and retouch, revarnish … that’s mainly my focus nowadays. It’s hard to even get artwork done because I do so much restoration.”

O’Sullivan has been an artist his entire life and has been framing since he was 15 years old, he said. O’Sullivan went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and studied sculpture.

His wife, Valerie Toth-O’Sullivan, is also an artist who is featured in the Newtown Art & Frame Staff Exhibit. She works with oil paints.

O’Sullivan said, “We all kind of work in different mediums, but then we all have shared things that we work on. Everybody here does touch up…so everybody here has to be pretty good with color and just everything with art. You really have to know what you’re doing…If you do this business, you’re an artist first.”

Among the other featured staff artists are Steph Zownir, Jacob Aronow, Peri Rasmussen, Lauren Conrad, and Katie Bassette. Zownir is a digital illustrator with a knack for fantastical elements while still having bits of realism at play. Zownir has been an employee of Art & Frame for ten years.

Aronow has also been at Art & Frame for about ten years. O’Sullivan said Aronow does a lot of fantasy illustrations as well, with a heavy inspiration coming from the popular card game Magic the Gathering.

“In his head, it’s like, ‘this would make a nice magic card,’ that kind of thing. [He is] that type of illustrator,” O’Sullivan said of his longtime employee.

O’Sullivan said Rasmussen is “primarily a glass artist,” though her photography is on display at the library. Bassette also has photography on display, while Conrad has ink on paper and acrylic pieces on display. Several of the art pieces are for sale.

O’Sullivan shared, “Usually we don’t do show outside of [Art & Frame], but Kate [Sasanoff] asked us to.” Remembering the adult programmer at the C.H. Booth Library, he shared that she was “full of energy.”

He had learned of Sasanoff's unexpected passing just a few days before they were supposed to hang the show.

“I was like, ‘Shoot, what are we even doing? What’s going on?’ And she was such a nice lady, too, I showed for her for a long time,” O'Sullivan said.

A work by Sasanoff — or Sassy, as she was often lovingly referred to — is still hanging at Art & Frame. O'Sullivan he tried to return the painting to the artist, but she did not take it back. Zownir had chimed in that it is a nice size for the area in which it hangs, prompting O’Sullivan to agree.

O’Sullivan said a new show is featured about every month and a half at Art & Frame; coming next is William Frucht’s photography (see related release). Frucht focuses on “brown areas,” or buildings in disrepair.

Art & Frame also works with local art groups.

“Really we’re happy to work with any of the local art groups because we always feel like this is more about being a community art place versus ‘oh this is our art.’ I’d rather have more people involved,” its owner stated.

“The more art businesses, the more art stuff going on in Newtown, the better for all of us I feel. I don’t want to be the one guy who’s got the gallery in Newtown. I’d rather be one of the guys who runs the galleries and the art stuff. It’s better for the town,” O’Sullivan said.

=====

Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.