New owner at Dragonfly
By Brooks Robards
Published: February 26, 2009
The change at Dragonfly Gallery, at the corner of Dukes County and Vineyard avenues in Oak Bluffs, will be more a flutter than shake-up. After creating Dragonfly in 1996, owner Holly Alaimo has sold the popular art gallery to landscape painter Don McKillop and his wife, Susan, a photographer and nonprofit consultant. Mr. McKillop has been a featured exhibitor at the gallery for 11 years. Ms. Alaimo, a linchpin in establishing the Oak Bluffs Art District, will continue at the Dragonfly during the summer to help make the transition in ownership as smooth and efficient as possible.
"It's a good match," Mr. McKillop said in a telephone interview while traveling in California. "We have a very good and trusting relationship, and we will try to live up to the high standards Holly has set."
After summering on Martha's Vineyard for 18 years and visiting friends, including Ms. Alaimo and her husband, pianist John Alaimo, in the off-season, the McKillops moved to Oak Bluffs this past May.
"We have a very comfortable feeling about the gallery and its artists," Mr. McKillop said, "and we have some good ideas. The gallery is kind of an institution."
Dragonfly, in operation for almost 14 years, is located in a neighborhood on Dukes County Avenue that has a long history of being an artists' community, providing both studio and residential space to such Island artists as Molly and Herbert Kahn, Michele Ratte, Fae Kontje, Barney Zeitz, Ted Arnold, and Edith Yoder, among others.
Holly and John Alaimo moved to the Vineyard in 1995 and lived in the 100-year-old remodeled porch of the Kahns' former home and pottery studio, where the Marinelli family's general store once stood - now part of the gallery. Ms. Alaimo became guest services manager for Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown, and a year later, opened Dragonfly.
For the past 14 years, Ms. Alaimo has produced the May Flower Art Show, Plein Air Show, Arts District Gallery Walks, as well as artists receptions and shows involving such local artists as Brooke Adams, Stephanie Danforth, Lanny McDowell. Traeger diPietro, Elizabeth Lockhart Taft, and Peggy Turner Zablotny.
Neighbor Michael Hunter, owner of PikNik Art & Apparel, said Ms. Alaimo had been considering a change, and that new ownership was positive news for all involved. Ms. Alaimo could not be reached for comment.
