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Shaffer will open frame shop and gallery in Hardwick

Roger Shaffer works in his workshop in Barton on building a table he will use at his new frame shop and gallery in Hardwick.  Photo by Bethany M. Dunbar

by Bethany M. Dunbar

BARTON — Roger Shaffer is feeling better, and he plans to open a frame shop and art gallery in Hardwick in mid-January.

He emphasizes that he’s not moving away from Barton.  He loves his house, his friends, and the whole town deeply but fears there would not be enough business in Barton for such a shop.

“Barton is like a big family, and I’m like Uncle George,” he said.

Mr. Shaffer has Parkinson’s disease, and due to the illness he had to step down from the Barton Memorial Building Restoration and Revitalization Committee.

The stress of working on that committee was making his illness worse.  He had been taking a medication for the disease called glutathion, but since leaving the committee, he’s been able to stop and feels fine.

“I don’t feel bad,” he said. “I’m just very thankful that it’s under control.”

As for his new business, Mr. Shaffer said, “I thought it was about time at 70 to start something new.”

He’s not quite 70 yet but thought it sounded better than 69.

Mr. Shaffer’s shop will be right on Main Street.  He is familiar with the idea of running a frame shop as he has done it before.

Mr. Shaffer grew up in Baltimore,Maryland, and was interested in the theater ever since childhood.

In college, the first thing he did was get involved in a theater group.  He had a four-year scholarship to the University ofMinnesota but didn’t go for the whole four years.  Basically, he was much more interested in theater than classes.

At 17 years old he got a job working at a professional theater as a stagehand and never looked back.

Mr. Shaffer married his first wife, Ursula, and they had two children, Erik and Wendy, who live in Connecticut.  He was married to Ursula for 21 years and is still friends with her.

The two of them made and sold batik items.  Batik is a wax dye technique.

“We just worked out of our home and did shows,” he said.  They did 20 to 40 shows a year.

“I made my living for 17 years doing batik,” he said.

He said he might do batik workshops at his new shop.  Once he saw a demonstration of batik that made him laugh to himself.  The display made it look like it was terribly ethereal and the cloth was being washed in a stream outdoors.

“Ethereal it ain’t, and you don’t need a stream,” he said.

Mr. Shaffer always kept a hand in theater productions, once teaching a makeup class, and another time he wrote a course in introductory technical theater.

Mr. Shaffer had known Dale, who became his second wife, for a long time and had worked with her on theater projects.

“One thing I remember is her overalls with circles of color all over it,” he said.

One day while with his ex-wife, Ursula, they ran into Dale.  After the brief hello, Ursula commented to Mr. Shaffer, “She would be perfect for you,” and put that idea into his head.

Mr. Shaffer and his second wife moved to Branford, Connecticut, and worked on a music festival with Arlo Guthrie as the featured performer the first year.

“I had every detail of everything in my head,” Mr. Shaffer said.  “Can’t do that anymore.”

Roger and Dale Shaffer came to Barton in 1999 to open a bed and breakfast.  They loved the BartonMemorialBuilding and saw its potential for restoration.

“It would be considered an intimate theater,” he said, “which was a well-thought-of idea.”

“We put together a committee of 21 people,” he said.  It was a cross-section of the community.  “We were fresh eyes coming from the outside....  We just put together a list of things to do.”

The first grant was to put in three-phase power.  DeniseValley had put in a lift, and the next step were the huge windows.  Four windows on the west side had been covered for years.  The committee had them taken out, stripped of paint, the glass taken out, and had them redone and storm windows put on.  A sprinkler system was next.

Whenever the committee got together or did something to raise money, Mr. Shaffer noted, Avis Harper made cookies.

Dale Shaffer died in February 2005.  It was around the time Mr. Shaffer was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Needless to say, he had to take a step or two back for a while.  But he never wanted to leave Barton.

New people on the committee have redone the lobby.

“There’s still plenty of work to be done,” he said.  “I retired completely out of the deal.”

Mr. Shaffer will probably never be far from a theatrical production of some sort, however.  He has already contacted the theater in Hyde Park to help backstage a little bit.  A little volunteering will do him good, he said. As long as he doesn’t get too deeply involved it should not affect his health.

Meanwhile he will enjoy the stimulation of opening a shop in a new town, meeting new people, and helping artists and photographers who want to find the perfect frame.