Articles
Deborah Szirbik, Steve Kovel & Kelsey McLaughlin
May 2011
A New Haven institution since 1947, Hull’s Art Supply and Framing has been a linchpin of the local arts community for generations. Located directly across from the Yale School of Architecture, Hull’s doesn’t just offer an extensive inventory of paints, brushes, markers, pens, inks, papers and more, but it also boasts the best stock of architectural and modeling supplies in the country – that’s right, the country.
But all the paint and straightedges in the world wouldn’t matter without customer service, and that’s where they have the most pride. “People don’t come in for a tube of blue paint,” says general manager Shawn Szirbik. “People come in with a problem, and we send them out with what they need.” Apart from friendliness and a desire to help, the Hull’s staff offers unrivaled expertise, with every employee on-staff possessing an art-school education.
Thanks in no small part to the business acumen of owner Steve Kovel, a Yale graduate with deep roots in the Bulldog community, Hull’s has also begun expanding in past years, offering full-scale goods and services to the local university community, and opening up 400 square feet of new space for the children’s and custom framing departments. This spring you can even look forward to kids’ art classes taught in-store. With all this and more, you couldn’t paint yourself a better place for artists.
If you thought Hull’s was the best place in town to get art supplies, you were right; but what you may not know is that it’s also at the top of that heap in custom-framing as well. Hull’s experienced staff, including Kelcey McLaughlin and Deb Szirbik (with an interior design degree from Syracuse University and over 15 years custom-framing experience, respectively), don’t just work with customers to design the perfect frame for their needs; they craft them from scratch with high quality metals and woods.
“We’re dedicated to serving our customers,” owner Steve Kovel says, “we’ll bend over backwards to say yes to any requests or urgent needs – and we always do it with a smile.”