Jan and Bruce Dynes are retiring after being small business owners in Medicine Hat for the past 45 years. The Thursday Night Bluegrass Band will be playing in the store tonight for Midnight Madness with Bruce on the dobro.--NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Jan and Bruce Dynes own the building that houses their small business, Framing and Art Centre, on Second Street downtown. After 45 years they are ready for retirement and are seeking a buyer for the business, but will continue to live above the shop.
Extended vacations are part of their retirement plan, visiting new places along with spending more time at others they’ve visited previously.
“There are some parts of Canada we really want to see and other parts of the world,” says Jan. “I realize in retirement, you don’t have schedules, but Saturday working has always been a commitment, you miss family things and other things that are happening on weekend when you have to work, so it will be nice to have the time to ourselves.”
Married 46 years and working together for 45, the Dynes already know how to spend all day together and are looking forward to doing so without working. They also have grandchildren who live locally and want to spend more time with them. Bruce, who plays the dobro with the Thursday Night Bluegrass Band, intends to enjoy the freedom he has to do that more.
Bruce took photography at NAIT and the pair returned to Medicine Hat in 1978 and took over Freelance Photos in Crescent Heights, then in 1979 opened the Mitre Box, a framing shop downtown. Bruce recalled many of the highlights from working in the photography business for 15 years and taking photos in schools of children as they aged from Grade 1 to 12, and then photographing some of their weddings.
“About the time we got out of the photography business was when photography was becoming computerized,” stated Bruce. “We did all of our own printing and finishing of the photographs up to that point and it was a time to change more than anything. The digital photography was making inroads at the time, it looked very interesting, but it meant changing a lot of different things, so moving into the framing business full time, for me, looked like a good step.”
The Mitre Box was originally on Fourth Street SE before the couple moved to Gaslight Plaza and changed the name to Dynes Gallery. They had more space and were able to hold gallery openings for many local artists. In 2000 they joined a franchise called Framing and Art Centre and moved to their current location on Second Street.
The decision to begin selling pottery in the front of the shop was also to support local artisans.
“We had the space and felt there was a need within the community because it’s really strong into pottery and there wasn’t a retailer. We contacted some of the local potters to see if they were interested in consigning their work to The Clay Trade, so we now have almost 15 potters who contribute their works to the store,” explained Jan.
She added that downtown Medicine Hat is a great community and they’ve proved a small business can be successful. They will miss the community of customers and friends who pop in, and feel it’s a bittersweet end to an era.
“The bittersweetness is there are so many things we do, because there isn’t another local picture framer to do those things, that probably won’t get done and that is the sad part,” stated Jan.
The couple has seen many changes in the city and the many evolutions of downtown over the years.
“We’ve always been happy to be downtown, it’s been our main interest, we think it’s a great area that it should be a vital area of the city,” added Bruce. “We certainly aren’t the only ones of our age looking to retire and we hope we see a lot of new people taking over some of the businesses so that we don’t see the downtown die because of lack of ownership. I think that is a big part of keeping the city vital, is keeping small businesses going and having the people come to them.”
The Framing and Art Centre is open until Dec. 23, will be closed between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and then the Dynes will hold an inventory clear-out in January.
