Out & About: Windsor art gallery closes after three-year run

By LIZ SAUCHELLI

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 05-22-2023 9:58 AM

WINDSOR — Just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new gallery opened next to Bob’s Barbershop in downtown Windsor.

Called the Main Street Gallery, it became a spot for Windsor-area artists — some well-known and some not-so-well-known — to display their work. Cassie George, who has owned Bob’s Barbershop for more than 30 years, operated the gallery with support from volunteers. Often, she’d be with a client when someone would ask her to unlock the space next door for them to browse.

Now, after around three years, the gallery has closed.

A neighboring business needs the space to expand and the alternative location where the property owner proposed to move the gallery is too far from the barbershop for George to make it work, she said.

“I was either (hearing) people saying it had good feng shui or a good aura or it felt comfortable. It wasn’t a stuffy feeling,” she said. “They felt like the could browse without feeling watched.”

George is pivoting by making Bob’s Barbershop — which already features art adorning the walls — into a gallery space that will feature work by one local artist every month.

“I’m going to try to keep some of it going,” George said. “This shop has always looked like a gallery anyway.”

George opened the gallery after being approached by property owner Jane Osgood about the vacant storefront next to Bob’s. The two discussed ideas for the space, and within a half-hour, “I was signing a lease to open a gallery,” George recalled. “It was kind of a surprise to me.”

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It was a partnership that proved fruitful.

“Cassie has been a wonderful operator of the Main Street Gallery,” Osgood, who owns the commercial real estate company State and Main Associates with her husband Ted Hilles, said. “She spent a lot of time and effort putting it together.”

George did not have experience running a gallery, but she has a deep love of art and knowledge about artists who live in the community. The gallery quickly filled with pieces by area artists in an array of mediums hung side by side.

“It was not a typical gallery where you have one line of paintings along a wall,” George said. “It was pretty full.”

Maggie Neily was one of the Windsor artists whose work was featured in the gallery — and also volunteered. Her collages, mosaics and oil paintings along with a line of greeting cards were on display.

“Cassie had a way of finding artists that were very eclectic in their work,” Neily said. Volunteers would “think, ‘Oh my goodness I never thought of that.’ ”

There were price points that everyone could afford, such as greeting cards that cost $3.50 and earrings that started at $10 per pair.

“My favorite thing about the gallery was just seeing everybody’s work,” Neily said. “I was just absolutely amazed that people that I knew, that I did know were artists.”

There is an open storefront in the historic Windsor House that was previously a florist shop that has potential to be a gallery space.

“If someone wanted to rent that space, we would be very supportive of that idea,” Osgood said. She added that a gallery would be a good fit because the building is already home to the Windsor Artist Studios, which opened in 2020.

“We had smaller spaces for rent and each one of them has a sink, which I thought would be ideal for artists,” Osgood said. “Windsor is a growing community that has been revitalized and is in the process growing even more. It’s attracting startup businesses, young professionals and artists.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

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