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By Sheila Talley
 Each day thousands of cars blow right past. Drivers and passengers hurrying to work or to shop or back home again may not even notice it’s there. But if you slow the pace just a bit, you’ll see it. Just a few steps off busy Mechanicsville Turnpike sits an historic old house dating back to Civil War times. At first glance, one might think that beyond the trees and bushes you would find a Bed and Breakfast. Instead, what you will discover is something even a bit more unexpected. It’s Windemere Art Gallery. Take the time to come inside and you’ll meet Hanover native, Robert ‘Bob’ Duggan, who owns and operates the place.
Duggan has worked with his hands most of his life, doing plaster work with his father, and assisting in managing a ceramic studio business in the sixties with his mother and sisters. Later he ran his own construction company until a bad back forced early retirement. After taking some art classes, Duggan realized his love and talent for art and very soon became a serious artist.
“My mother insisted that each of her seven children, learn to sit and write properly. She encouraged us all to draw and color,” Duggan replied when asked what first inspired him to try art. When helping in her ceramic shop, he developed some artistic techniques that he would later use. Gradually, after five years of classes, he began to develop his own style.
Bettye, his wife, says, “Bob’s style can’t really be determined because every painting is different.”
Duggan paints mostly in acrylic and watercolor. He sometimes uses clayboard, scratching with instruments to make a picture and then adds color. His paintings range from portraits of Johnny and June Cash, to sunsets over the Grand Canyon, to a very unusual nativity scene. “It is my goal to make my paintings different enough so people can’t readily identify my work,” Duggan admits. As he conducted me on a tour of the gallery, I saw several award-winning paintings from exhibits in Shockoe Slip, Regional Memorial Hospital and the State Fair. |
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