Today Meeks runs the Little Havana workshop with his three children. Steve Jr., 40, is in charge of sales; Dan, 39, manages the shop; and Lauren, 27, is the office manager.

Borders Custom Framing handles the needs of a wide variety of customers, including the Miami Art Museum and the Margulies Collection. The shop offers clients 20,000 different framing options.

Meeks has secured his place as a premier framer through sensitivity to the physical and aesthetic needs of the art he handles.

''One of the main problems in Miami is moisture,'' says Meeks. ''If people use the wrong materials, such as cardboard, to frame the artwork, it acts as a sponge and absorbs moisture.'' Instead, Meeks uses museum board, which is made from acid-free cotton fiber.

Javier Mora, a Miami collector with a substantial number of photographs in his collection, says he uses Borders Custom for all his framing needs. ''A lot of the work that we have is photographs and works on paper. And we're in Miami, so it requires a certain analysis of how to keep and frame things,'' he says.

Another local photography collector, Jay Richard DiBiaso, says he uses the Meeks' shop because of their ability to find the right frame for each picture. ''They're very helpful in identifying a frame that will work best for a particular work. There's more of an art to that than people think,'' says DiBiaso. ``A poorly framed piece is art that can become a poor piece of art. You don't want the frame to detract from the object.''

Meeks agrees. ''You have to have an art background to look at a piece of art and know which color mat to put behind it,'' he says.

And he has that. Meeks studied art history at the University of Kentucky, collects photography and is a practicing artist himself. He even built a darkroom in the back of Borders Custom. ''Some people still do silver gelatin,'' he says. ``I just don't want it to die.''

High-caliber framing doesn't come cheap. It can cost several hundred dollars to frame even a small piece of art. ''But in the long run, you're saving money,'' says Meeks Sr. ``If it's framed wrong, you're going to have to redo it and have a conservationist work on it.''

CAREFUL HANDS:

GANDER AND WHITE

Once an artwork is acquired, there is the matter of getting it from the gallery or fair and into the hands of the buyer. For this, collectors turn to a small network of expert art handlers who specialize in moving fragile, bulky and often priceless pieces of artwork around the world.

One such company, Gander and White, opened a location in Miami this past summer. Situated in a nondescript 8,500-square-foot warehouse near the airport, the new site expands the company's network, which already includes facilities in London, Paris, New York and West Palm Beach.

Giles de Greling, general manager of the West Palm Beach and Miami locations, says the shipping of paintings and sculptures is its own form of art. ''Every case is custom-made,'' he says. ``We don't carry stock crates because art is not stock work.''

To transport a work of art, Gander and White employees will go to, say, the gallery that made the sale, and, if the piece doesn't already have a crate, the workers will measure the work and build one. Each custom wooden crate is nailed together and screwed shut. Foam molds hold the work in place. The painting itself is wrapped in sheet plastic. Sometimes framers will include foam barriers to absorb shock and mitigate temperature fluctuations.

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