Ann and John are originally from the Northeast and have lived in Florida since the late 1980’s.  Both Ann and John have been employed in the Marine Industry.  Ann has also worked in the custom home building and remodeling field.  Weekend trips to the Florida Keys started Ann in an interest in photographing the beautiful scenery found in that unique setting.  This started the collection of photographs that are used in our Designing Dog Studios creations. 

     Additional travels through New England and the Caribbean have presented more opportunities to capture beautiful scenery to be utilized in our art.

     It was after a recent trip to Downeast Maine, that John created our first shadow box frame from an old lobster trap that we had in our garden.  John’s intention was to make only a few frames from the lobster trap to display our lighthouse pictures and a few frames as gifts.  This was soon changed as more people saw our displayed frames and requested one for their own home.  Because of our exposure to the Marine Industry we have access to lobster traps that would normally be destroyed.  Thus grew our idea to form Designing Dog Studio and create shadow box frames and other art from worn out spiny lobster traps.

We feel other people with the appreciation of lovely photography, shells and the uniqueness of the repurposing of lobster traps would be interested in our creations which are a very unique form of art.

     Madison (the family dog) joined us in 2004 and appears in some of Ann’s photography (actually, she is one of Ann’s favorite subjects).