When Kristen Dodge shuttered her eponymous Lower East Side gallery and decamped upstate, near Hudson, New York, we didn’t expect that she’d stay out of the art game for long. The briefly retired dealer began penning a series of witty and insightful articles on her newly agrarian life — and then came the launch of September, Dodge’s latest gallery venture. The space opened this past weekend with a group show, “Blue Jean Baby,” which remains on view through October 16. It features the likes of Rachel Foullon, Laurel Nakadate, Brie Ruais, Agathe Snow, and many others. (Dodge isn’t shouting it from the rooftops, but women artists comprise 100 percent of September’s programming from now into the foreseeable future.) We checked in with the gallerist to chat about her goals, the Basilica Soundscape festival, and goats.I have it on good authority that 61.9 percent of the New York art world has left NYC in the past three years. Many of these adventurous souls resettled in Los Angeles.I keep hearing about people who are leaving. New York is a tough place to rub up against every day. For everything incredible that the city has to offer, there is a lot that you have to push through to get to it, including the unfriendly cost of living. Recently a performance at the New Museum saved me from impulsive suicide by cab. The traffic and rain were culminating into something rude. I finally settled with a sandwich and watched the quiet, intimate exchange between two young performers grazing bodies behind glass. And again, I fell in love. It happens often, the swing of my affair with the city. It might be worse now that I live upstate: the addiction of distant lovers.A smaller percentage of expats, yourself included, have opted instead to try their luck upstate. What’s the best thing about living and working in the Hudson area?The best thing about living upstate is having goats and chickens. Or maybe it’s the time for conversations with strangers. Or maybe it’s MOTO, the combo coffee and motorcycle shop, or Lil’Deb’s Oasis, the pink dream with incredible ceviche. Or maybe it’s planting trees at home and watching them grow a little each year. Or maybe it’s the Crandall Theatre in Chatham that shows one movie a week. It’s definitely not the roadkill.One of the best things about Hudson is the incredible community of badass women — from artists, to actors, to musicians, to writers, to chefs, to performers, to small business owners — who reflect a community that I didn’t know I was missing. There’s a collaborative spirit up here that’s a distant cousin to the competitive opacity of “too busy” in the city. People are different when they shed the city for a day, a weekend, a season, a lifetime. Or maybe it’s just that there are fewer of us up here, and so we have a higher likelihood of getting to know each other and collaborating in some intentional or inadvertent way.Tell me a bit about the September space itself.We’re on the second floor of the Arcade Building on Warren Street. Our space is about 1,800 square feet with a row of windows inviting northern light, and facing David Hammonds’ church renovation. The lease negotiation, site design, and build-out began in February and ended the day before our first event. I didn’t love the tight finish, cutting too many checks, or regularly arguing with my project manager. However, the day-to-day visible development of the project running alongside the growth of our exhibition programming was fun. Between doors and flooring, I was doing countless studio visits from New York to Boston to LA to organize the opening show, “Blue Jean Baby,” and build the show schedule for our first year. I was also having fruitful and entertaining meetings with Amber Esseiva (future curator at SVA’s new ICA) who has helped launch September, and who curated the first installment of our performance series Arcade Bloc.What’s a typical day like for you now that you’re out of the city?I get up, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, feed the rabbit, feed the goats, rake their shit, collect Judy Dench’s egg, make Stewart’s coffee, read the Times, eat Judy’s egg, make a to-do list, respond to emails, respond to more emails, call my contractor, drink water, go to Hudson for meetings, have long meetings, say hi to people I know or don’t, do a studio visit, come home, take the dogs to Omi, help a turtle cross the street, come home, reply to emails, water plants, write, drink water, mow the lawn or weed, decide how to solve a problem, have ideas, plan studio visits, feed the goats, pick basil and cilantro, make dinner with Darren, eat dinner, watch “Sons of Anarchy,” like the show, hate the show, have a smoke, put the dogs to bed, go to bed, fall asleep, get up to catch the cat’s half-dead mouse, release the mouse, sleep, wake up with a cat in my face, pet the cat, greet the morning light, have ideas, get up.You’re also helping with this year’s Basilica Soundscape music festival, which happens September 16 to 18. The Basilica is a beautiful, inspiring space. I’ve been talking with co-founder Melissa Auf der Maur about programming there, and she invited me to curate the art component of Soundscape. The two criteria that we discussed were inviting an artist who lives and works upstate, and a woman to balance out the last three mega-dudes selected. I’ve chosen the artist Cal Lane, who works with metal, light, and dust. We’re showing an installation of oversized, laced panties cut from massive steel barrels.Is the art-dealing community in Hudson as tight-knit as one might expect? How do the handful of galleries that have opened there recently work together? Will you take part in the dreaded international fair circuit?Hudson is an incredibly creative community, and a supportive one. There’s really not a gallery scene here, but there are a few spaces that provide some context for what we are doing. The rest of the context is upstate itself, where artists, art lovers, musicians, music lovers, performers, performance lovers settle, find solitude and seek camaraderie. So many people of different ages have their heart in something creative, off-base, and on-point. I don’t know what our collector base will be like; probably medium-height, with a sense of humor and an untreated art addiction. Being between Boston and New York City is perfect given my time spent working and supporting art in both cities. My answer to art fairs is no, but… maybe. There is one, possibly two that we would consider bringing artists to. But it really has to be the right timing and context, not a by-default circuit. I believe people will seek us out and want to join the local circus.
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