Blick Art Materials — Attraction in Edina

I must say that having NEVER written a review of ANY kind it takes severe failure on the part of a vendor to require me to now write. This past fall, I took a collage piece and a commissioned watercolor to Blick Art Materials in Edina. It was recommended to utilize their framing facilities, as I was sent there by a watercolor artist I thought highly of. What a disaster. The entirety of Blick’s failures would take pages to describe in detail, but in the interest of steering anyone away from Blick, I will do my best to shorten the story but at the same time impress upon readers of these reviews to look elsewhere for your framing needs. I arranged the collage piece, in fairness with some help from a framer there, asked him to take a picture so items would be put in the designated areas, and chose both frame and background paper. Completed in 2 -3 weeks was the GTD. Two weeks later Blick called and said the background paper was discontinued. Why they never checked stock when ordered or better, had the discontinued paper culled from their samples, I don’t know. The framer stated over the phone they had another paper that was very similar to the chosen paper and this was in stock. Piece is framed, I go three weeks later to pick up and the piece is hideous. The background paper was not remotely the same. Not the same texture, nor color tone or look at all for that matter. Twice this happened. I Requested they reframe, and at their expense. Manager argued but relented in part only to give me a 15% discount on the new paper selection. I Chose a THIRD paper, asked that they call to check availability and confirmed this paper as a go. Another 3 weeks. I go to pick up the collage and the watercolor, which also needed reframing due to a color difference in paper selected and the actual paper but this is another story entirely. Blick had arranged the collage entirely incorrectly. I showed the photo taken of my preference for arrangement and they stated no one had “seen” this photo as their camera was broken at the time they started framing. I suggested they might have called ME to email them the photo I took but….so now we are somewhere into 2 months and we are leaving for CA, wanting to take this to our house there. I go to pick up the collage, pay and go home in relief - finally done to my satisfaction - not my first choice blue ribbon winner but fine. I lift the piece from the back seat of the car and the foreign coins in this collage all slipped to the bottom of the frame. I place the piece back into my car, turn around, and head to Blicks roaring mad. They apologize and muttered something to the effect that they ‘wondered ’ if the coins would hold. Two days more. I go to Blicks to pick up and as god is my witness, one of the image cards had tilted and slipped on a very noticeable incorrect angle. I asked, “Why didn’t anyone in framing notice the incongruent nature of the arranging of the image cards?” Back into the frame shop. Three months to complete, full price paid to Blicks, though I did argue with the Manager, a woman of few customer service skills but multiple hair colors, who finally relented and gave me a % off. Not wishing to tell anything of an untruthful nature I honestly do NOT remember what the total price was for the finished piece, honestly can not remember the discount I was given. But I do remember three very important facts; 1. I was given NO apology, 2. A three month timeline to finish a framing job estimated to complete in 2-3 weeks, and 3. Their lack of customer service with me or anyone else that entered the shop during multiple times I was in their facility. I saw on multiple occasions they actually turned away customers without a ‘scheduled appointment’ only to see an idle framer sitting reading a magazine. The ennui, the lack of product knowledge, the sheer laziness of the employees was astounding. Please believe every word of this review and know there are multiple places to spend your hard earned money on framing, and with a more pleasing end...

Well they don't carry my watercolor paint brand anymore, but there are several professional grades watercolor brands there that I really like. The employees are always helpful, and I was looking for a hake brush, and couldn't find it. The employee that was helping me said that he did not believe that they carried hake brushes, but I told him I looked online and it showed that they had some in stock. He looked a long time with me and neither of us could see any. Real time accurate store stock information is a very difficult business issue to get right in real time all the time. So I wasn't upset about that. He did go the extra mile and while I was looking at other things he went on the website for that particular store and did find that it said that they had a couple left in stock. After seeing the photo of the product, he finally found it and brought it to me at checkout. Even though it was not really what I was looking for, I really appreciated that he went the extra mile. They have nice professional watercolor paints, Good watercolor paper, brushes, and a variety of items that you would need or want to paint watercolor pictures. They usually have their watercolor paint on sale, so I get a reasonable price when I go there. The store is just fun to go into, and I've always been welcomed and treated with kindness and receive the help that I need in the store! 💯%...

Blick Art has a super fun and unique range of art supplies. However, I am disappointed with their job of putting together art kits for college students. My school orders kits ready for us to pick up and purchase at Blick. The kits are composed of multiple items sold at Blick and are assembled at the store. Multiple of the kits we’re missing items including my own. Most of the students in my class payed different prices for our kits (some students received student&kit discounts while others didn’t). We were also not given the option to leave out supplies from the kit, even if we already had those supplies. This was because corporate puts together the kits and makes it it’s own SKU. This is so wasteful, many of the students did not need everything in the kit, our professor even asked us to not buy those things because she would provide them for us. She even called and asked them to edit the kits but they couldn’t “because of the corporate SKU”. This is also what they told me when I asked in person to exclude items from the kit. I also received not one but 2 different kneaded erasers that were not useable and solid as a rock in these kits as well. I suppose this is because the kits were assembled months in advance, but why put perishables in a kit and let it sit...