Jasper and Ladybird were nowhere to be seen last week during a visit to their upcoming art gallery. They were probably snoozing by the fire up at the house, said their “mom,” Rose McVay. If not exactly namesakes, the pair of canines inspired the moniker Mountain Hounds Studio, which opens in Ripton this weekend. Jasper and Ladybird, who have a tendency to howl, will not be invited.
Located on a steeply sloping property off a dirt lane off Lincoln Road, Mountain Hounds Studio is a bit obscure, but it’s just a couple minutes’ drive from the Ripton Country Store. McVay and her husband, Tal Birdsey, share a workspace on the ground level — she makes elegant stained-glass panels; he paints warmly hued abstract compositions on paper and canvas.
The second floor of the natural-wood building, which is slightly cantilevered over the first, holds a high-ceilinged yet cozy apartment. It’s where Birdsey’s mother, Ginger Birdsey, stays when she comes to visit. It’s also now home to the Mountain Hounds Studio gallery.
Though it’s not typical for a gallery to include a kitchen, a comfy seating area and a bed, this 36-by-18-foot room practically cries out for art. Abundant natural light bathes the white walls. A rounded kitchen island and other surfaces serve as pedestals for small sculptures. Suspended works, if challenging to hang from 14 feet, have ample airspace overhead.
McVay and both Birdseys — Ginger makes expressive ceramic heads with elaborate adornments — are exhibitors in the debut show. So is Tal’s son, Henry Birdsey. He’s a metal fabricator, composer and recording engineer based in New Haven, Conn.; his contributions are snippets of scores somehow transmogrified into white-on-black pictorial forms.
In addition, Mountain Hounds Studio is showing two-dimensional works by Viscaya Wagner of Burlington, Lizzy Chemel of New York City and Ben Junta of Los Angeles, as well as kite-inspired constructions by Win Colwell, a Ripton neighbor. Tal Birdsey said they’re easing into their gallery venture with friends and family and will likely broaden their scope in the future.
“I would like to keep a rotating stable of different people coming in and out,” Birdsey said. “We know enough people who produce stuff who aren’t active in promoting themselves, and we have some students we’re encouraging, as well as friends who do incredible photography.”
For now, Mountain Hounds Studio will host just two exhibits a year. “The second show will be in the summer,” Birdsey said. “Then people can enjoy the light.”
The studio was born in 2007, he said, when “we tore down a garage and built an apartment for our parents from Atlanta to visit.” Burlington landscape architect H. Keith Wagner designed the structure, he added; Alex Carver of Ripton’s Northern Timbers Construction was the builder. Birdsey and McVay live in a nearby house, surrounded by flower and vegetable gardens and a couple of ponds. Both teach at the North Branch School just up the road; the nonprofit, independent school, which Birdsey cofounded, serves middle schoolers and emphasizes experiential and outdoor learning.
Why turn a private space into a public gallery?
“I was accumulating a lot of artworks and had no place to put them. I thought I’d just hang stuff there,” Birdsey said. “Rose had accumulated a lot of glass pieces, as well. Somehow we thought, Let’s just shove some art in there and have some shows. My mom already treats the place like a canvas, anyway.”
If that origin story sounds cavalier, Birdsey and McVay are earnest about the nascent gallery’s mission.
“When we were first talking about this, we [decided] we wouldn’t be making any money except from our own sales,” McVay said. “We just want to give the artists money.” She added that a percentage of the profits will be donated to three groups: NAMI Vermont, WomenSafe and 350.org. (The latter, climate-focused nonprofit was cofounded by another Ripton neighbor, Bill McKibben.)
“It’s a learning curve,” McVay said of the gallery. “We’ll figure out what works. We came up with the name last year and finally got it together.”
