Dari Williams Goggans is a legend in the Sarasota art world. She bought Jessica’s Picture Framing 18 years ago and has since become synonymous with the downtown business, which offers framing and matting services for everything from fine art to sports memorabilia and family keepsakes. Goggans was born in Sarasota in 1958 and has never lived outside the city limits. She studied printmaking at Ringling School of Art and Design (now Ringling College), where she learned to frame her own art, and worked a variety of odd jobs and raised a son before ending up at Jessica’s, where she has hundreds of loyal customers who trust her and her staff with some of their most treasured possessions. 

Behind one workstation, you can find a photo portrait of Kevin Dean, the beloved artist, Ringling professor and Goggans’ friend, who died in 2014. “I miss him a lot,” says Goggans. “He was so generous.”

Some customers assume that the art on the walls was simply never picked up, but that’s true of only one piece, a child’s colorful painting that was dropped off and then never retrieved. If the owner ever stops in again, Goggans says, they are welcome to it.

In addition to framing art, posters and photographs, Jessica’s also works with keepsakes like old sports jerseys and military uniforms. Near the front of the store, you’ll find a weighty hunk of metal cut from the high wire that aerialist Nik Wallenda used to cross the Grand Canyon.

In addition to framing others’ work, Goggans is an artist herself. Some of her prints and fiber art can be found on a wall adorned with work from dozens of other artists, many of them local.

Goggans may have lived in Sarasota her whole life, but she enjoys traveling and once harbored a secret dream of becoming a long-haul trucker. A custom map near the rear of the store is marked with all the places she’s visited, including her most recent destination: the far north of Canada, where she witnessed the northern lights.