WEST TOWN — A frame shop whose clients have included the Chicago Bulls and White Sox — who recently commissioned a Pope Leo XIV jersey — is relocating from Wicker Park to West Town.
Helendora Samuels Picture Framing opened last week at 1851 W. Chicago Ave. after operating for more than a decade at 1736 W. North Ave. in Wicker Park. The Wicker Park location will remain open for the next few weeks.
It’s the latest chapter in a 50-year framing career for owner Tommy Samuels, a lifelong Chicagoan who learned the trade as a teenager from his brother and father and has been at it ever since.
In 2011, Samuels married Helendora Samuels and subsequently named his shop after his wife, who works with him on orders.
Over the years, the Samuelses have framed thousands — if not tens of thousands — of paintings, posters and prints, as well as more difficult assignments like dartboards, suit jackets, tablecloths and Michael Jordan’s baseball uniform for his former home in Highland Park.
It’s a level of service and dedication the shop plans to continue providing on Chicago Avenue.
“That’s our slogan: ‘You name it, we frame it.’ Period,” said Helendora Samuels. “I don’t think there’s one job that comes through the door that’s not challenging … but we work for perfection.”
Earlier this year, Tommy and Helendora Samuels learned their landlord would be selling their Wicker Park building, and the two decided to find a new location. The West Town storefront is smaller than the Wicker Park one, but the couple is optimistic foot traffic will be high and dedicated customers will keep coming back.
“We love people. And it’s been a blessing to be able to still make a living,” Tommy Samuels said last week as he and his wife finished setting up the new shop.
Tommy and Helendora Samuels grew up on the West Side, although Tommy Samuels moved to Roseland on the South Side with his family when he was a kid.
Tommy Samuels learned the framing business after his father and older brother — Wiley Samuels Sr. and Wiley Samuels Jr. — got into it while he was young. The family opened a shop in River North on Superior Street where Tommy Samuels worked, although he wasn’t too interested in it at first.
“When I got out of school, I had one hour to get to the frame shop. So I couldn’t go hang out with my buddies,” Tommy Samuels said. “I had to get to the frame shop.”
Slowly, Samuels learned the craft and took a liking to cutting wood and constructing frames. He built a reputation for quality and, over the years, owned at least half a dozen shops across the city, many of them in River North and the Near West Side, he said.
Samuels also started picking up high-profile clients like Michael Jordan and the White Sox, as well as hotels, colleges and other businesses.
At 65, Tommy Samuels is entering his 50th year of framing other people’s art and beloved possessions. Even with his steady hand and eye for detail, it’s a responsibility he doesn’t take for granted.
“Working with artwork, it’s personal,” he said. “You get one crack at people’s art, and if you screw it up, man, people will kill you about their art. Every time a frame job comes in, to me it’s almost like going to the hospital to get operated on.”
Helendora Samuels said she’s felt the same way since she starting learning the framing business from Tommy after working in a hair salon for more than 20 years.
“I love the customers. I love designing and helping them pick the colors or whatever,” Helendora Samuels said. “If something don’t look right, I’ll be honest, because I want people to know that when they come here, it’s personal for not just them, but for us.”
The couple are also actively involved in a church they run called The Righteous Way of Living Ministries, through which they regularly host collection drives for local kids around Christmas and Easter.
Those will continue as the frame store reopens in West Town. Helendora Samuels said she’s already starting to ask for backpack donations as kids prep to return to school this fall.
After bouncing around numerous locations, including a previous West Town shop on Grand Avenue, the Samuelses opened their Wicker Park store in 2014.
Business was up and down, but they made lasting connections with neighbors and other regular customers. And after struggling early in the pandemic, the couple saw a major boost following a Block Club article that helped spread the word about the shop — and even sparked someone to start a GoFundMe.
The Samuelses plan to continue framing anything that comes through their door — whether it be a jacket worn by a stock trader, a needlepoint tablecloth or even a car’s gas cover.
The couple also recently got their own taste of Chicago pope-mania when the White Sox called to see if they could frame a jersey for Pope Leo XIV — whose fandom of the South Side club has been well documented.
“I honestly believe [our success] is because of a good reputation, good reviews and repeated customers. We got a lot of repeated customers, and they come back,” Tommy Samuels said. “Like everybody else, we have to pay bills, and you’re waiting on your money sometimes, but [in] some kind of way, it seemed like we always wound up being able to pay the bills and survive.”
Helendora Samuels Picture Framing is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays and by appointment Sundays.
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