Through Closing Door, Damon Galleries Finds Another Open

When Damon Galleries opened its doors on Maple Avenue in 1973, it quickly became known as one of the town's premier art stores.

Shirley Damon, founder and owner of the store, shared her passion for art with Vienna by selling popular pieces of artwork and sturdy frames in which to preserve them.

But earlier this year, Damon announced she would be closing the store and entering retirement.

The announcement wasn't quite what Damon and her daughter Diana were expecting.

"There were people literally coming into the store crying over the fact that we were closing," said Diana, who has worked in the store for several years. "It was shocking."

But the store did not stay closed for long.

It took just one week for Damon's longtime employees Steve Rigby (40 years at Damon Galleries) and Taffy Millar (28 years) to begin plans to re-open the store as a frame studio.

"We all just thought 'What are we going to do now?' after the store closed, and before you knew it we were planning to open again," Rigby said.

The newly-coined Damon Framing Studio is aiming to open in a new space on Mill Street in Vienna by the end of August.  However, the new business will be a bit different than before. The new store will no longer sell art, instead focusing just on frames. Rigby said the store will sell the frames, assemble them and size them to the proper dimensions for a particular piece of art.

The store will be left in the hands of two longest-tenured employees: Rigby and Millar. Damon joked Millar is still the "new girl" at the store, because her 28 years with the business still comes more than a decade short of Rigby's 40 years. Millar and Rigby hope to rely on their longtime allegiance to the store as they try to continue the Damon legacy at the framing studio.

"I think our customers will still follow us," Millar said. "When we suffered a fire at our Maple Avenue location and had to move to Church Street for nine months, our customers followed us then. That was much more challenging than this move, so I think they'll follow us now, too."

Rigby and Millar also hope the Mill Street location will bring in more foot traffic and connectedness to other areas of downtown, and in turn, will attract new customers.

"It's a lot calmer, a lot more industrial over here," Rigby said. "Here, people can walk by or drive by slowly and decide to come in and check things out. Before, if you noticed our store driving down Maple Ave., you probably would have just kept driving past on your way to where you were going."

It will be a mixture of new and old, and the new owners of Damon Framing Studios hope that elements of both will help make the new store as successful as its predecessor.

"We are very excited to be open again," Diana Damon said, "and I think the town is, too."