KEENE VALLEY — Vermont-based artist Poppy Gall decelerates a design career and dials in on her mixed-media art, which abstracts the woods and waterways of the Adirondacks.
Her work is on view in “Shoot For The Moon,” a group exhibition at the Corscaden Barn Gallery, 58 Beers Bridge Way, Keene Valley through Labor Day.
Opening Reception is today from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Artists include Gall, Michael Gaudreau, Dennon Walantus, Kate Gaudreau, Eliza Twichell, Stephanie DeManuelle, Sandra Hildreth, Eva Kusmirek Stamper, Sid Miller, Lynda Mussen, Garrett Jewett, Julia Gronski.
KV TIES
Gall grew up in Vermont, but her family has long standing ties to Keene Valley.
“Our family has spent a lot of time, and I spent a lot of time in Keene Valley and the Adirondacks since I was a baby,” she said.
“I’m in my 60s now. I have a deep affinity for the Adirondacks. I have a lot of artists in my family. Art was always kind of advocated for and, you know, art camps and all sorts of stuff. I did go to the University of Vermont to study art because, mainly, I wanted to be near a ski area. I dropped out, and I started a knitting business my sophomore year. That just took me on a whole different trajectory, and ever since then I’ve been in the ski and outdoor industry as an entrepreneur and a designer.”
In 1998, Gall started Isis, a company of all women’s outdoor gear.
“Then in 2010 we sold it, and I’ve just been a freelance knitwear and apparel designer,” she said.
“Just in the last few years, I’m like, you know, I just really need to concentrate on making art for myself and not for a client. I’ve really been working hard on my art practice spending a lot of time on that in the last few years, and I’m phasing out of working.”
PUBLISHER’S DAUGHTER
Gall has made mono-prints for probably 25 years or more working on a press.
“I just been making art handmade books,” she said.
“I recently inherited lot of wood type. My mother owned a newspaper. She passed away, and I inherited all the wood type from the 1800s. I’ve actually been learning how to use that for the past couple of years and incorporating that into my work.”
Her mother, Gayle Gall, owned the Manchester Journal, a weekly, in Manchester, Vt.
“My mom sold the newspaper,” she said.
“When she had it, she took it offset. She had all of the old sheet-fed presses, the jaw presses, the Linotype, the whole print shop in the back that just closed. The guys that ran it that I knew when I was a kid, they all retired and were gone and she just concentrated on the front end. But when she sold the paper the building went with it, and the people who bought it said, ‘Well, we’re just going to knock the back end out of this building, and we’re going to take all these presses and lead type and Linotype and we’re just going to sell it for melt.’
“My mom, was like ‘A-ha, no, you’re not taking that wood type.’ So, she brought the wood type home with her because she didn’t want to see it divided up and sold in flea markets. Here’s an r. I’m going to buy an r, an o, a b, an i, an n, and put it on my mantle piece. She didn’t want that. She had the foresight to see that there was value in it, but it also sat on her side porch for 30 years until she passed away and I could get my paws on it.”
Gall brought it all home, cleaned it up and has been experimenting with it.
“I only have one piece in Martha’s exhibit,” she said.
“I have an owl collage that has the letter o that I printed. I don’t have a press. I have a friend who lives in Stowe, who is head of the print shop at Shelburne Museum. Her parents were the Hales, and they owned a newspaper over in Lake Placid or Saranac Lake. They had a print shop when she was growing up. So, she has a very strong letterpress background. She’s been my mentor, and she has a whole printing workshop at her home. So, that’s where I’ve been printing. It’s been pretty fun.”
A mixed-media artist, Gall carves, lino blocks, whatever sort of strikes.
“I’m curious about everything and willing to explore everything,” she said.
“So when Martha asked me to be in her exhibit at the last minute, I said, of course, I will do that.”
In her artist statement, Gall writes:
“Born into a family of artists and art lovers, I have been making art for as long as I can remember, though my career is as knitwear and apparel designer. I am now able to focus my time almost solely on my art.
My interests in printmaking, collage, painting, drawing, letterpress, stitching and textile art all find their way into my mixed media artwork.
With no formal training, I work intuitively and quickly following my innate sense of color, perspective and proportion. No two pieces are ever alike; each is an experiment in expressing myself by layering media and discovering new ways to work with the materials at hand. Each day brings new surprises.
Inspired by the natural world, I tapped into a lifetime of memories spent in the High Peaks to create the works I’m calling “Field Notes” for Corscaden Art Barn Gallery for 2024.”
ECLECTIC SKETCH
Gall’s pieces includes monoprints with natural vegetation.
“So, I’ve used leaves and vines and seed pods in the work that I’ve done for her,” she said.
“I created one new monoprint piece for her exhibit. But otherwise, I just went back in to some existing pieces. One in particular, I took four pieces, which I cut up, and I rearranged them and stitched them back together (‘Field Notes: Early Spring’).”
In “Zero Gravity,” Gall used ferns and cut paper in it.
“They’re all a series, but they’re all individual,” she said.
“There are no two alike, and I just kind of roll along and see what happens. Most recently, I’ve been doing these sketches. This is where Martha tapped me because she had been following me on Instagram. I’ve been doing these sketches, where I just go out in the world and I have really small pieces of paper that I’ve glued together in a script.”
Gall sketches as she goes along, a view, a closeup of a shrub, winter scenes or clouds.
“It’s just sort of a record, a loose sketch,” she said.
“I did a long piece, which is ‘North Country Walk.’ That was something that she really liked. I love doing them. I just went into my memory bank of what it’s like to walk in the Adirondacks on the trails. That piece is pretty much what I’m currently doing.”
Gall bird’s-eye-view series focuses on waters around Keene Valley.
“I sort of had this in my head for a long time, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to do it,” she said.
“I love maps. I’m a map-aholic. I collect maps, and I always wanted to do a bird’s eye view of the Upper and Lower Ausable Lake. So, that’s what I did. It’s sort of a mixed-media piece.”
“Still Water” is a 7×7 work in the series.
“I did a longer panel of the Upper and Lower Lake that shows the hiking trails and the outline of the lake,” she said.
“I felt this was a good time to do it because the people who are in Keene Valley know exactly what that is. There’s no guessing. It’s sort of an abstract. It’s a mixed-media piece where I collage. I used pen and ink, watercolor, acrylic paint. I don’t know what else is in there. It’s a long piece, 24 inches long. I did four smaller pieces of portions of the lake.
“One is of ‘Still Water’ and one of ‘Flowed Lands’ because that’s one of my favorite places. It’s near the Opalescent River. It’s such a beautiful spot. It’s got an interesting shaped lake. A waterway with little rivers running into it. I love that place, and I thought that that would be a nice little piece. They are very green like the Adirondacks.”
Gall first exhibited at the Corscaden Barn Gallery during the tenure of its founder and late fine artist Vry Roussin.
“I showed mono-prints there, so this feels really nice to be invited back,” she said.