Virginia Beach muralist Tessa Hall Duquette has become the matriarch to a whole tribe of local artists who didn’t know they needed one
There is a filament, a thin, umbilical thread, woven around Tessa Hall Duquette. It traces north, crossing rivers, crossing valleys, collecting New England’s frost upon itself until it finds it is in Vermont, where Duquette was planted, and where she first bloomed, and where she was filled with all she has to give.
If we keep an eye on that thread, we see it has brought us back here, to the sands of Virginia, where Duquette is now rooted, and where she has blossomed, and where her gift is an alchemy of vision, generosity and artistry that is pouring from her like wine from a bottle. Duquette is a newly minted muralist and entrepreneur in Virginia Beach who, quite by accident, has become the matriarch to a whole tribe of local artists who didn’t know they needed one.
“I am on a path that I never imagined I would be on,” says Duquette.
It started two short years ago when a friend asked her to paint a mural. Duquette has a background in art, and for a while organized popular art-based scavenger hunts for kids at First Landing (“Search and Find Adventure Cards”), so she was excited to take on the challenge.
The mural was a hit, so more followed, and then more, and more.
With large murals come many large cans of paint, so Duquette went looking for a place to store them all, landing on the commercial garage in the ViBe District that the friend owned. Somehow, the signing of that lease signaled the cosmos to strike up the band, because the garage quickly became “The Garage,” and right now stands as one of the ViBe’s most important and prolific art spaces.
Last year, up to 8,000 people came through The Garage. They came for the art shows, the workshops, the summer art camps for kids, the art markets. They came for supper clubs, and they even came for comedy shows. So far, 86 local artists have displayed their work at The Garage, and it was a first time for more than 40% of them. Nearly all of the artists are women.
Duquette is bowled over by the success.
“All I wanted was a place to store my paints,” she says.
She was raised on the legendary and historic Shelburne Farms in Vermont, a 1,400-acre agricultural estate established by the Vanderbilt family in the late 1800s, which operates as a nonprofit regenerative farm and education center.
“My parents were the organic gardeners (for the Farms). I didn’t have TV. I was raised with no sugar, no candy or white bread, and chores were helping to slaughter chickens,” says Duquette, of her life growing up on the estate. “It was almost like a fake— you know—like a Lifetime movie set.”
Along with cultivating gardens, her parents cultivated for her a childhood that would ensure, and perhaps enshrine, creativity. Duquette says her parents modeled her upbringing on the renowned Helen and Scott Nearing’s Living the Good Life principles (her parents met on the Nearing Farm in Maine).
But when Duquette fell in love with a Virginia Beach native, she knew the ocean’s pull would be too strong to keep him away forever. They married and moved to the Beach to start a family, settling back in the neighborhood her husband grew up in.
Yet, Duquette struggled to find her place. She felt ill at ease with the other moms. Out of sync. Out of place. Years passed, and it wasn’t until The Garage happened that the sands shifted.
What she has produced is a thriving venture, but also a kind of home.
“When I opened [it], I thought I’d eventually get someone else to run it, so I could focus on my own art again. I thought ‘Oh, I’ll have an assistant, and she’ll do it all!’ But that can’t happen. The Garage is me.”
There is The Garage, and then there are all of the endeavors that have sprung from it. Duquette hosts a regular podcast, Tea with Tessa, in which she is in conversation with panels of women to discuss their expertise on everything from business ownership to women in the arts.
The Neptune Festival asked her to collaborate on behalf of the Young Collectors’ Tent, in which kids go into the tent with $5, sans parents, and choose a piece to start their art collection. She sold 300 items for children age 3 to 13. More than 50 artists donated work for the tent.
Along with Kate Pittman, executive director of the ViBe District, and Robert Fiveashe, president of the branding company Brandfuel, she co-founded Creative Mornings in Virginia Beach, one of only two chapters in the State (and one of 254 in the world). Creative Mornings are held the third Friday of every month at 8:30 a.m., at The Garage and recaps can be viewed on the Creative Mornings website.
“We’ve had a singer, a cake baker, a runner. We had a drone guy, we had the people from Pharrell’s Team Yellow,” says Duquette. “You get coffee, you get some sort of breakfast, and you hear a creative person in Virginia Beach talk about their journey.”
Before the clock even began ticking on 2025, The Garage was booked a year out. And not just for art shows. There are sound baths and book swaps, too. A psychiatrist has donated surfboards for a teen mental health event, in which the surfboards will be painted. There are Teen Mural Camps. And Community Mural Painting Events. And one Beach artist is having a solo show there, with the caveat that no art be sold, as it is only for viewing.
“If people are new to the art scene and not sure what to do, I tell them just show up,” says. Duquette. “Show up at any event. Show up to something free.”
She is planning for growth. At a recent show, 500 people came through the doors in three hours. A larger venue in the ViBe, of course—would be helpful, and would ideally include studio space for artists to rent. Meanwhile, The Garage, with all of its many faces, is still being used to store paint.
Duquette’s paintbrush is poised for mural number 23. Her parents raised her to be “living the good life,” and with credit to what amounts to a shipping container on 17th Street, squeezed between a boutique and a hardware store, she is.
Learn more: tessahalldesigns.com, thegaragevb.com. Facebook.com/thegaragevirginiabeach,
creativemornings.com.
About the Author Patti McCracken is a longtime journalist and the author of The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring (HarperCollins). She is a native of Virginia Beach. Learn more at pattimccracken.com.
