The Gallery Opens School Year with the "Three Bs" of Doug Dale

The Gallery at the Rhodes Art Center opens its fall season with a look into the whimsical, beguiling world of longtime Northfield Mount Hermon resident and artist Doug Dale P’86, ’03. 

“Bicycles, Beaches, and Bovines” opens Sept. 8 and runs through Oct. 10, with a public reception Friday, Sept. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

The show shines a light on Dale’s idiosyncratic creations, which many members of the NMH community have heretofore only caught glimpses of, said visual arts teacher and gallery coordinator Mona Seno.  She enlisted Dale for a gallery exhibition after attending an open house at his home.

“If you walk [by his house], you can see just inside the entryway the numerous collage pieces lining the walls, reflecting a creative and very productive artist,” said Seno.

A deeper look inside reveals Dale’s studio: a panoply of color and form filling nearly every inch of wall. Layers of decorative papers, gift wraps, stencils, sketches, and fixatives spill across his work table. In between Dale’s collages hang mementos from his personal life: drawings by his grandchildren, letters from friends, family photographs, and esoteric notes referencing inside jokes.

Dale’s collages draw on elements of his varied interests — the cycling world, the flora and fauna of the seaside and rural New England, human silhouettes, and caricatured bovines — to weave an ambiance that is fantastical, subversive, and nostalgic all at once.

Though art was always in the background, for years, Dale’s primary passion was cycling. He trained for the Olympics as a young man, then later opened a bike shop that grew into multiple locations in western Massachusetts. In between ventures in cycling, Dale taught middle school in Springfield and other nearby districts. His students helped shape how he engages with creative work today.

“I had to prove to a lot of these kids that there was a point to coming to school, so I based all my curriculum on constructing projects and always having a graphic element to every class,” said Dale.

“A lot of people talk about ‘the process’ of art, but you put some stuff out in front of sixth- or seventh-graders, give them a theme, and they take off,” he continued. “They ask questions: ‘Why did you put out this paper like this? What do you want us to do? What's the significance?’ That's the connection.” 

Dale’s life shifted drastically in 2011 after a near-fatal crash during the Tour of Battenkill in New York. During his recovery, he turned to art as a distraction and soon discovered a passion for the process. His first professional work was a poster created to raise money for the EMTs who saved him.

“I wanted to pay those guys back,” said Dale. “I went to the race committee and said, ‘I have this hobby of fooling around with artwork; maybe we can do a commemorative poster, sell a few of that, and turn the proceeds over to the [EMTs].”

The project raised more than $4,000 and launched a new career that has since brought him national recognition and hundreds of collectors.

Despite his growing reputation, Dale remains a low-key presence on campus. That’s why, said Seno, it’s exciting to finally showcase his work at NMH.

“He's an enthusiastic and humble person who has been attending the opening receptions at our gallery year after year,” Seno said.

“What I love about Doug's work is the sense of playfulness and experimentation, like using San Pellegrino labels or the remnants of his paper cutouts to make new work; the way he works in series to explore a theme; and his excitement about telling a story, making a clever visual pun, or representing the multiculturalism of his largely female buyers.”

Dale deflected when asked what he hopes students will take away from his exhibit, chuckling in his affable way. For him, the connection his art fosters with the audience is the lesson.

“I like to let the viewer create their own narrative,” Dale said. “The conversations that occur from that connection, many times, become autobiographical. To stand in front of a piece and get someone’s personal narrative — I learn so much. You can't read about stuff like that; you can look at all the television programs in the world, and it’d never be the same.”

— Max Hunt

“Bicycles, Beaches, and Bovines” is on display in The Gallery at the Rhodes Arts Center through Oct. 10. An opening reception with the artist will be held Friday, Sept. 12, from 6:30 to 8 pm. Off-campus visitors can email mseno@nmhschool.org to arrange a visit during gallery hours.

Art by Doug Dale. Photos by Max Hunt.