ABOUT US

How does a person find themselves in the custom framing and art business? Best answer: persistence. You might know art, but not the business. Or believe the business is a snap, but the art a mystery. The person who settles in has to have a passion for both. Then, as with many things, it just takes time to get better. In a world of instant everything, that means you need lots of patience to succeed. Those qualities can be hard to come by in our fast-paced, short-term thinking world. But life is often full of surprises, and if you're focused and stick to it, sometimes you can find yourself in a wonderful place.

​

In the case of Picture Source, it had its beginnings with a local Mississauga artist by the name of Jack Jelilian. In the early 1990’s the art business was still enjoying the appetites of the post-war, pop-culture “boomers”. This group had grown up with new music, new ideas, and prosperity. These were the days of limited editions by artists such as Trisha Romance, Robert Bateman, Ken Danby, The Group of Seven, and of course music concert posters, and an explosion in art photography across every genre.

 

So Jack, his wife Annie, and their son Vaskin began opening up art stores across the Mississauga area. At their height they were operating as many as ten stores and enjoying the patronage of both customers and artists alike. But all things pass as they say, and by early in this new century, the business began going through numerous changes. The boomers aged and bought less. Asia liked what they saw in the art business and began flooding North American markets with cheap art. And then behemoths like Amazon began selling everything online, including every form of art. Pretty soon, a lot of the art we see now became commoditized. Which on its own wasn't so bad because it improved affordability. But that change also came with many costs, key among them the inability of many art stores to remain in business. Picture Source was no exception to that rule.

​

As stores closed, in their place came those offshore products. But often with much lower quality, less selection, and less control over the size, shape and colour of the art you want. In addition, it's pretty hard to call China to complain about a poor quality item. We hear countless stories from customers who thought they’d try to buy their print online with a ready-made frame. Turned out the colour wasn’t what they were expecting; the size didn’t work on their wall; or it showed up damaged. Then they were stuck with the hassle of returning it to some foreign address with a different timezone and language. As a result, we think that maybe a trip to your local picture store still offers a lot of value.

 

By the time the retail art store shakeout was done, many locations had disappeared. Picture Source hung on, but today it operates just one store in the Milton Mall. In an e-commerce world, however, one of the missing components for the store was a good website. We've started the process of building one, and hopefully with time the selection of products and services will get better and better. Initially it’s been designed to help customers with their custom framing projects. Eventually  it will offer a a great selection of pre-framed art, original art, and home decor products. Until then we hope the website encourages you to bring us your favourite canvas, or diploma, or commercial framing project. We’re thrilled and happy to be of service to you, and look forward to helping you brighten up your home and your life with affordable, beautiful and creative art.