The following article appeared in The Trentonian on Tuesday, April 4, 2000.
EWING—It was “lights, camera, action” at one of the area's more popular stencil shops on Monday. Linda Robinson, owner of “Not Just Stencils,” the small shop with a homespun touch at Scotch Road Plaza in Ewing, spent better than four hours discovering first-hand what an often tedious and time-consuming job filming a television segment can be.
Promptly at 8:30 a.m., Daniel Kroeger, an associate producer of Banyan Productions in Philadelphia, arrived at the shop accompanied by correspondent Tracey Matisak and a three-man film crew (pictured above) to shoot an upcoming “Design Basics” segment to be shown on the Home and Garden Network.
Linda Robinson, who purchased the shop about 15 months ago, said she was flabbergasted one day earlier this year when Kroeger called to say he was interested in doing a HGTV segment on stenciling. “He told me that he had found me listed on the Internet; no small accomplishment in itself because I don't have a web site and finding my shop really took some searching,” Robinson said.
Early-on in Monday's shoot, Robinson quickly came to realize what separates the TV acting professionals from neophytes like herself. “Relax Linda, relax,” Kroeger implored at one point as the storeowner and Matisak examined a small chest of drawers adorned with an assortment of interesting stencils-from a brilliant yellow sunburst to blue sailboats, fish and sea birds.
As Matisak wisely observed-naturally with the camera rolling, “This (chest of drawers) is proof you can do some pretty dramatic things with stencils.”
“It's also proof that stenciling is more than just putting borders around a room.”
Robinson, pointing out that a certain piece of furniture usually inspires the type of stenciling used, said the seascape chest of drawers cost less than $50 for stencils and paint, and recently sold for $350.
As Kroeger and his film crew moved to other stenciled items in the store, Robinson began to, admittedly, “loosen up with Matisak. “I was so nervous in the beginning,” she said, “but as we went along it was almost as if I was simply showing a customer—in this case, Tracey—through the shop.”
Linda Robinson says she measures her years in stenciling business by the age of one of her daughters. “The first thing I ever stenciled was my daughter's toy box and she's now 16.”
Before she purchased the shop in early 1999, Robinson had taught stenciling classes there and also ran a part-time “custom” stenciling program, whereby she actually would to to customers homes and stencil for them. Not Just Stencils continues to offer stenciling and hand-painted furniture classes under the supervision of Ellen Smith.
“More people are into stenciling these days than ever before,” said Robinson, while noticing that designs have become much more sophisticated. “Today, stenciling designs are practically all laser cut, meaning that virtually anything that can be drawn, or put down on paper can be made into a stencil. As a result, stencils appeal to a much larger group of people nowadays.”
Actually, the Home & Garden Show's Design Basic segment that was filmed Monday at Not Just Stencils won't be shown over HGTV until sometime in October. “I wish it could be aired sooner,” Robinson said, “but I'm certainly not complaining. The exposure for a small shop like mine is tremendous.”
And the HGTV exposure comes at a time when the nation's large art supply store chains are giving small stencil shops like Robinson's increasing more competition. “We still feel we have the advantage in that they (the large chains) can't match small shops like ours in either stenciling sophistication or personal attention.”