[From the Fall 2023 Showcase of Homes Magazine]
Written By WENDY HOBDAY HAUGH
Photos by WENDY HOBDAY HAUGH AND MARILYN SARGENT
Constance A. Dodge is a figurative artist, renowned for capturing the fluctuating moods of the Adirondack Mountains and the Sacandaga Valley. Her lakeside home studio in Edinburg, a stone’s throw away from the Batchellerville Bridge, is filled with oil paintings and pastel scenes reflecting the region’s haunting history, rugged residents, and picturesque landscape.
Dodge always knew she wanted to be an artist. “At age 10,” she recalls with a smile, “when I declared to my grandfather that I wanted to be an artist, he replied, ‘No, you don’t want to do that! There’s no money in that.’”
Undeterred, Dodge earned a BS in Art Education from Nazareth College, Rochester, and an MFA with distinction in oil painting from Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. She studied art history for two post-graduate years at SUNY Albany and, later, studied pastel painting with several noted artists. Dodge pursued a teaching career for 31years, 23 of them as the high school art teacher at Schodack Central Schools. At the collegiate level, she taught full-time at Adirondack Community College for several years and part-time at the College of Saint Rose, Empire State College, and Goddard College.
Like many creatives, Constance Dodge’s artistic journey has been marked by experimentation and innovation, her guiding principle: Never be afraid to change. Dodge’s work is largely figurative today, focused on real-world figures and objects. But much of her earlier, post-MFA work was more abstract in nature. During the turbulent ‘60s, she combined diverse materials, everyday objects, and paints to express her political and social beliefs. “I was drawn to the idea and feel of collage to express my views on the world around me. I was interested in pushing painting to sculpture by combining painting and sculpture in collage or assemblage-like form.”
In 1969, a two-month art history study tour of Europe, Russia, Hungary, and Austria dramatically fueled Dodge’s artistic vision. “Seeing the great monuments of Europe and the Russian icons, and studying the artists’ use of symbolism, was a very powerful experience,” she explains. “It enriched me both as a teacher and an artist.”
Inspired by the icons and symbolism she’d observed overseas, Dodge began working from personal photographs of family members, incorporating their images with objects of intrinsic importance to them. “Renaissance and Baroque artists used symbolism to express how volatile we are—how short, truly fleeting our lives are. I began using collage elements in my paintings to create a story for the viewer.”
Since the 1980s, Dodge has worked extensively with insets: smaller, separate scenes inserted within larger paintings to convey additional detail. These intriguing paintings-within-paintings enable the artist to express a deeper understanding of the person or scene portrayed. For example, one painting shows Dodge’s once-strong mechanic grandfather, with whom she lived for several years, stooped with age, his deeply-etched face reflecting the weight of time. Inset within this painting are nostalgic objects reminiscent of the man, including his beloved Victrola with “Nipper” listening intently to the music.
Fascinated by the interplay of light and shadow, Dodge frequently employs underpainting in her oil and pastel work. In a scene depicting a dinghy, she begins by painting the vessel an eye-popping yellow and, then, successively adds darker layers. Although the dinghy ultimately appears dark in color, an arresting glow shines through, adding great depth to the scene.
The Dodge House Gallery's lakeside view.
PEACE TIME
Interacting with other artists is vitally important to Dodge. She has been a member of the Guild of Adirondack Artists—an assembly of juried artists from the Southern Adirondack region—and the Oak Room Artists, a juried, by-invitation-only group of 24 artists based in Schenectady. In 1997, Dodge was instrumental in the formation of the Sacandaga Valley Arts Network (SVAN), a group that encourages cultural growth by offering year-round art exhibits and classes, theater presentations, and musical events.
Constance Dodge has exhibited extensively and garnered numerous grants, awards and honors. For 23 years, she exhibited at the Amos Eno Gallery in NYC, and her work can be found in private and public collections both here and abroad, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and Artpool in Budapest, Hungary. During the pandemic, Dodge spent 15 months illustrating a children’s book, REGARDS, WALTER. Written by her friend and former Schodack English teacher, Warren Applegate, the book was published in 2022.
Visiting an artist’s home studio/gallery is always an adventure, affording an up-close glimpse of the environment in which much of the artist’s creativity takes place. On a recent visit to THE DODGE HOUSE, Constance’s lakeside gallery, I was impressed by the many shoe-box-to-sofa-sized oil and pastel paintings adorning the home and by the warmth and interest shown me by Dodge and her partner, Marilyn Sargent.
Sargent pointed out that the entire house is Dodge’s gallery, indicative not only of the artist’s painting prowess but of her visionary architectural sensibilities as well. Dodge, Sargent insists, sees the beauty in everything—even derelict old buildings. In 1987, Dodge purchased her home—then a long-neglected “hellhole,” according to Sargent—for $39,000. Although the home, purportedly, had once been the finest in the community, years of rentals and landlord neglect had rendered the place a nightmare.
“I thought she should just plow it under, it was so far gone,” Sargent states emphatically, “but Connie insisted the house had ‘good lines.’ When she said that, I grabbed a sledge hammer and drove it into a wall—that’s what I thought of those good lines!”
After gutting the farmhouse themselves, the women hired contractors to reconfigure the rooms according to Dodge’s detailed vision, restoring its old-time history and charm while, simultaneously, making the space more conducive to its new role as home, art studio, and gallery. This wasn’t Dodge’s first rodeo in the renovation arena. Previously, she’d gutted and restored a four-story townhouse in Albany, with stunning results. But their lakeside home presented the more daunting challenge, and as it evolved into a place of beauty, Sargent was blown away by Dodge’s amazing insight. The home did, indeed, have good lines.
This fall, as you head out on a leaf-peeping excursion around Great Sacandaga Lake, consider visiting The Dodge House Lakeside Gallery, meeting Constance, and perusing her exquisite scenes of mountains and valleys, Adirondack chairs and rowboats, waterfalls, lakes, and flowers. It’s best to call ahead, but if you happen to be in the area, do stop in. As the artist’s welcoming roadside shingle reads: BY APPOINTMENT . . . OR BY CHANCE.
The Dodge House, 936 South Shore Rd., Edinburg; 518-863-2201;
