One Mile Gallery, located at 475 Abeel Street, near the railroad trestle, is opening this Saturday with a show by wood turner Josh Vogel. The gallery is the latest entrée to Kingston’s happening art scene. It’s located on the first floor of a charming brick building that was originally purchased a year ago as the weekend house for Janet Hicks, an artists’ agent, and her boyfriend, Eddie Mullins, both of Brooklyn. The couple and their Kingston house were profiled last summer in The New York Times.
Hicks, who holds a master’s degree in art history and previously lived in Oregon, said the gallery was a natural outgrowth of the couple’s interest in the arts. They plan to show both local and New York City-based artists. Vogel, a resident of Highland, makes drawings and physically imposing sculptures whose sensuousness is heightened by their “woodsy aroma,” according to Hicks. The August show will feature acrylic oceanscapes, followed by an exhibit featuring “the world’s most successful canine artist, Tillamook Cheddar,” which opens Labor Day weekend. “The dog does amazing work,” said Hicks. “Her process for creating the art is really a treat to watch.”
The gallery is open weekends, 12 to 7 p.m., and by appointment. Hicks said the parking lot across the street at Ulster Marina will accommodate any overflow of cars. She added that she plans to stage events in conjunction with First Saturdays and beyond. “We will be having an event with Tuthilltown Spirits at the gallery in July, and we are hoping to get a vehicle of some kind into the Artists’ Soapbox Derby in August,” she said. “Our dog artist has some ideas up her sleeve for the Labor Day opening that will be really fun.”
Hicks said the couple is spending more time in Kingston than they originally planned. “We fell in love with the city more than we ever thought we would,” she said. “We get a great feeling of being outdoors on the creek. It’s a country feeling yet, has all the conveniences of living in a town. And there’s a tremendous art and cultural scene close by, in the outlying towns.”
