Somerville Artist Bridget Galway: A window into her artistic soul

Initiated in 2009, the Inside-Out Gallery, located in the CVS Window in Davis Square, is a unique space that allows the public to view an eclectic array of works from artists and local organizations each month. Through May to June, Bridget Galway is displaying her evocative and stunning art.

You talk about being from a bohemian culture of artists. How would you define bohemian?

My early childhood memories of the 50’s and 60’s begin when we were living in New York’s West Village bohemian culture. This is an upbringing that, especially during that time was a departure from the so-called normal. It is rooted in the arts, literary, and spiritual pursuits.

That culture of writers, artists, actors, and musicians, as well as people of all sexual orientations fills my memories with the wonderful experiences that came with it.

This milieu inspired my creativity, and continues to do so to this day.

Like many bohemians during the time of my childhood, we had little money, yet rich in the abundance of that wonderful life. When the rent went up we got moving. Looking back I feel it would have been best if we lived like Gypsies, like the van life, or more so converted school buses of today.


Talk about your experiences in Provincetown and New York City.

In 1971, when I was 17, I left home and moved into a van for a couple of years. I still finished my senior year while living in the van. As I was raised in the sense of always being in transition, I was still able to follow through within what was familiar.

My Mom moved back to Provincetown after I moved out. She had done a brief stint of living there in 1953, before moving to Key West, and then Marathon, where I was born in ’54.

After several sojourns living in different areas, I moved to Provincetown in 1976 until 1984. The 70’s and 80’s were the last romantic bohemian years in Provincetown.

Then the plague AIDS swept through the town, taking the lives of so many loved ones; beautiful young bright beings.

In 1983 I left for Amherst with my 21/2-year-old son Blake. I received a scholarship to attend U/Mass Amherst Art Department, which lead to my career in the arts.

I returned to Provincetown in the summer of 1994 and stayed through the summer after my Mom passed away in 2006. I felt it was time to leave. For me it had lost so much of its romance its history was associated with. There was little to no affordable housing. It had become extremely commercial, and the crowds more like Coney Island.

I moved to Somerville, because at the time my sister Meghan was living in Alston, and I wanted to be close to her. Meghan ended up moving, and I isolated for three years with my two cats, until I got my tenacity in gear and emailed Doug holder. I am not sure how I ended up on his email list, someone must have been watching over and nudging me, I had been ignoring it for three years. I sent him an email introducing myself, and a little about my history. He was quick to respond, and invited me to meet with the Bagel Bards at Au Bon Pan in Davis Square. I have been a Bagel Bard since 2009, and it has been a springboard for my art and writing, and I am so very grateful.


Are you in any 'school' of painting--- which influenced you? I am reminded of the Greenwich Village painter Alice Neel in some of your work. She had a unique quality in her portraiture.

Alice Neel is great. It is a compliment my art reminds you of her. Her portraits convey a moment in time, along with the emotions of her subjects. This is also what I try to capture.

I am not in any particular school of painting. My early inspiration as far as artists was Chagall, and Iris Brody. Iris was a Greenwich Village artist who died quite young. The first piece I saw of hers was when I was 13, at house of a friend of my Mom. After seeing that piece I started drawing surreal images with pen and ink. I continued to do so for many years after, along with my still expressing ideas with my passion for color.

My professor and mentor in college was John Grillo. He was a wonderful colorist. He studied under Hans Hoffman in Provincetown. He started out and continued to be an abstract artist, but worked both abstract and figuratively. His sense of color and composition was my immediate attraction to study under him.


Your work has been displayed in a number of literary magazines, including Ibbetson Street. There is a real intersection of poetry and your art. Can you talk about that?

My art is inspired from personal emotional memories, both good and lamenting. Like my poetry it defines impressions of what was, what might have been, and is. This is either captured though being descriptive and narrative, or conceptual with a sense of romantic whimsy or melancholy. My smaller mix media pieces are notations of ideas for larger conceptual ones.



Any parting shots?

I would like to end by expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to exhibit at the Inside Out Gallery, hosted by the Somerville Arts Council.

SAC creates many opportunities for local and visiting artists to receive recognition. The Inside Out Gallery is a main stay for artist to receive recognition by the Somerville community.