The Rural We: Patrice Galterio
Her collage work is on exhibit at The Souterrain Gallery in West Cornwall, Conn.
Patrice Galterio, who lives in Kent, Conn., has made her living as a graphic designer, vintage store owner and now museum director. She was the cofounder of the Kent Film Festival with her husband, Frank Galterio, a photographer and filmmaker. Galterio has parlayed her graphics skills into collage design, partly, she says, because she hates to throw things out. The Souterrain Gallery at The Wish House in West Cornwall, Conn. is exhibiting the collages in her first show ever. “Cut and Paste: A Show of Collages” runs through Sept. 22.
I’ve always been a graphic designer, but in the early 2000s the business was changing, and I was looking to do something else. That’s when I opened the vintage store in Pawling.
I met my husband, who lived in Kent, in 2004. I moved there from Patterson, New York the next year. I was still doing graphic work but on the side, because Frank and I created the Kent Film Festival. We ran that for five years. We were a good duo with the film festival. Now, besides my work as a graphic designer, I’m the director of the Kent Historical Society, where we’re focused on making The Seven Hearths, the former home of artist George Laurence Nelson, a museum of art and history together.
The collages are related to my early days in graphics. In high school, I wasn’t a great scholar, so art was my thing. I chose to go to a technical school and took commercial art, not really even knowing what it was. One of the first things we did was make ads using magazine pages. It just sent me. I loved it. I thought, this is what I want to do. It always stayed with me.
So I started doing it again about five years ago, just for myself. I hate to throw things out — I’m a big recycler and saver, and I love paper and magazines. It’s kind of like what happened in the '70s — I’m doing it again.
I start my collages with things that are pretty. There’s not necessarily a theme to my work, but it does turn into something that makes a statement.
I’m excited about having my first show. I had asked the Kent Library if I could have a show there and they said yes, but not until 2021. That one ask gave me the courage to ask Bianka Griggs about showing my work at the Souterrain Gallery and she said yes. This is going to be a new thing for me. It’s such a lovely little gallery. The walls are so bright and the art just pops off the walls. We’ll see how things sell.
In this time we live in, I try to be very hopeful as a person. Northwest Connecticut is a lovely place to be, and I feel blessed to be able to live here.
