Clinton Hill Simply Art and Framing has outlasted over three decades of “guns, gangs, and gentrification.”
BY EMIL MOHAMED
When Ms. “L.B.” Brown opened her store, Clinton Hill Simply Art and Framing, in the Fall of 1991, she didn’t know she was being quietly surveilled by the NYPD 79th precinct.
“Cheap rent,” Brown said. “That’s what it was like. Let’s just put it that way.”
At the time, a retail and residential art and framing business was unheard of in the low-income area mostly populated by restaurants and takeout spots, so police in the neighborhood assumed the business was a front for drug trafficking. Brown only discovered she was being watched around 15 years later, when a then-retired police officer came into her shop as a customer and recounted the event. “He said [he and his partner] looked at each other at the same time and said, ‘Oh this is not weed. This is cocaine.’”
But as unlikely as it seemed, Clinton Hill Simply Art and Framing had opened in earnest. After years of “guns, gangs, and gentrification,” as Brown puts it, the business is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, making it among the oldest African-American female-owned businesses in New York City.
Brown, a former art dealer and executive with Ebony Magazine, opened her business selling ethnic prints and artwork, focusing on “bringing more African American, Latin American, Caribbean American, and Native American artists into the industry.” Opportunities for artists of color were few and far between; most galleries didn’t see the market that Brown did, and many artists of color didn’t feel that existing galleries would adequately represent their work. Brown said. What began as a retail print and poster reproduction business expanded to include high-end framing informed by Brown’s art dealership, and eventually, a community art gallery.
“The artists found me when I opened it,” she said.
After the neighborhood’s post-9/11 gentrification boom, Brown shifted to preservation framing, noticing the changing interests of the people who moved there. To this day, preservation framing remains its focus, although you’ll still find ethnic and historic art prints available around the store and along the walls. You’ll also find an array of framed items–a dollar bill, a youth jersey, a porcelain plate, a woven bag, all with their own custom-designed frames and backings. For L.B. Brown, it seems anything is frame-able.
“What we do is protective,” she said. “That’s what I enjoy doing, because I hear the stories.”
L.B. Brown and Simply Art and Framing are full of stories of their own. To celebrate the business’ 35th anniversary, Brown has been posting historic photos and anecdotes from the history of her business and career on Instagram (@clinton_hill_framing_
“[The customers] are the ones that inspired me to talk about my history, and I’ve realized how important that is and what a milestone it is for anyone in business,” Brown said. “And it just seemed like yesterday. I just can’t believe I’m standing here talking about 35 years.” She also hinted at “unadvertised surprises” for those who visit the store during these ongoing anniversary celebrations.
Over the course of its storied history, Simply Art and Framing has had celebrity clients like Jason Sudeikis, actor Ato Essandoh (a regular when in town), and Jay-Z’s mother–whom she says is “a very nice lady.” But her career hasn’t only intersected with celebrities; she has framed for the widow of Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, and keeps a copy of the print and frame she designed hung up in her office. During her time with Ebony Magazine, Brown met civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, and spoke personally with him about his work as “the architect of the March on Washington.” Upon meeting him, she shared her own experience of attending the March at 15, while visiting family in DC.
She says it was formative. Brown marched with her aunt and cousin, but soon got lost in the mass of people and signs. “You were just kind of swept up,” she said. As a Queens latchkey kid, the movement and crowd didn’t scare her much. She describes them as being dressed in their Sunday best, as if they were all going to church. “It was like family.”
Following the movement of the crowd and scouting out for a safe place to shelter, Brown made her way to a tree and settled underneath, close to the stage where the Reverend Martin Luther King would speak. She was captivated.
“When he spoke and held his hand out, I felt like I was at church,” Brown said. “It was a major blessing, and I can’t say it wasn’t true. Look where I am now.”
