Belle Meade Framers and Midtown Gallery Framers Join Forces

A city as creative as Nashville — awash in iconic memorabilia from cultural events, major league sports matches and world-class performances — needs talented resources for framing and preserving art and artifacts, from ticket stubs and jerseys to albums and autographs. 

Belle Meade Framers, owned by Kevin and Joanna Dransfield and children Evin and Katie, and Midtown Gallery Framers, owned by Gary Tisdale, have topped the list of framing professionals for many years. In fact, Belle Meade recently celebrated 50 years in business since its 1974 debut on Kenner Avenue. Now, the venerable framers have come together under one marquee in Paddock Place on White Bridge Road.

In January, Midtown’s Gary and his longtime employee Anita Marshall closed their Berry Hill shop and joined the Dransfields at Belle Meade. The family had already consolidated with The Beveled Edge framing studio in 2019. All under one roof, the combined shop will update its sign to include all three names: Belle Meade Framers and The Beveled Edge with Midtown Gallery. 

Anyone who has ever worked to select a custom frame for a treasured artwork or souvenir knows how personal the process can be — and how much a confident professional can help guide the selection. For example, if you’ve got an 89-by-92-inch vintage movie poster backed with linen, that’s too big to fabricate and then move into your space. So Gary, who started framing part-time in college and owned his own studios for 36 years, tackles that kind of project by sourcing custom plastic that can bend just enough to fit through the door of a house. Then he assembles the frame on site for a one-of-a-kind result.

That commitment to custom craft spurred Gary to link up with the Dransfields, who work with large and longtime clients, including downtown hotels and honky-tonks, the Tennessee Titans and Nashville Predators, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Belle Meade Framers recently helped select and frame art for the newly opened 12th and 14th floors at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital.  

Father-daughter duo Kevin and Katie work in the Columbia, Tenn., warehouse, fabricating custom-cut molding for the frames, while mother and son Joanna and Evin lead the Paddock Place team in matting and assembling artworks on site on White Bridge Road. 

Midtown can merge client records with Belle Meade, so customers will have access to the specifics of their past orders, and Gary can trust his clients are in good hands. “I wanted a soft landing for my customers,” he says, adding that he has many second- and third-generation clients. “This merger allowed me to do that.”

These days, the Paddock Place store buzzes with the familiar faces of longtime framing pros, including Gary, general manager Randy Reed and showroom manager Murphy Duke, who joined the team as part of the Beveled Edge merger. Meanwhile, the Belle Meade team has also added Frames Unlimited in Franklin to its enterprise, widening the frame, so to speak, on their esteemed family business.