After years of experience working in the furniture and interiors industry, artist Joshua Vogel founded Blackcreek Mercantile and Trading Co. to explore small-scale product design and manufacturing, all the while reconnecting himself with the practice of handmade goods. While showrooms and gallery spaces have been a part of the Kingston business for a long time, the studio recently added BCMT Gallery into the mix to support high craft and the artists who create it. An artist-forward concept, the Ulster County gallery seeks to represent creatives who express themselves through their work.
For 15 years, Blackcreek Mercantile and Trading Co. has maintained an open studio policy, which ultimately inspired the creation of BCMT Gallery. Together with business partner Kelly Zaneto, Vogel officially opened the new gallery in the fall of 2024 to share work by community members with community members. While the brand still remains committed to local involvement, the gallery stands out thanks to the unique collective of artists behind it whose work spans several mediums that all explore the natural world. Although Blackcreek Mercantile mainly focused on furniture previously, the gallery gives the Kingston studio the chance to explore objects and fine art as well.
“Artists need space to create and explore their visions, and I want to help those visions become a reality in our gallery. My process in finding the artists, who I’m hoping will be a ‘permanent collective,’ has been strictly intuitive,” says gallery co-founder and curator Zaneto. “I’m excited to be a witness to each of their journeys of creation. I am also excited to help curate these works as a group and witness the resonance of all the pieces together and, ultimately, I am excited to help facilitate the connection of these beautiful works to the beholder.”
For Zaneto and Vogel, “artist-forward” means that the artists should be at the center of financial transactions rather than the gallery. As their work has led the two to understand the processes behind the craft and the difficulties involved in the creation, marketing, and sale of art, Zaneto and Vogel feel a great deal of responsibility to support artists with BCMT Gallery.
As for what visitors can expect to see at the new Kingston gallery, each work creates a wonderful harmony of textures, shapes, and intentions to share a unique vision of nature and our place in it. “In a modern world as uncertain as it is, and a culture that is as on the move and demanding as ours, I believe the call to create moments of beauty has never been louder . . . Nature is not singular to me. What we find is that context matters. In its vastness, seeing things clearly often requires juxtaposition . . . one thing becomes more itself in relation to another. Nature is all about relationships.” says Vogel.
On January 18, BCMT Gallery hosted the opening reception of its first show of 2025 called Nurturing the Spirit, a show dedicated to sharing and offering the works of young artists ages nine through 15. In the future, the gallery hopes to incorporate more meaningful and timely work in an accessible way and become a hub of artistic activity and upstate inspiration.
“We feel proud to continue to be a part of what makes our area special and, going forward, we want to continue to add to the strength and presence of the arts community here in the Hudson Valley by reaching out to the world beyond,” Vogel and Zaneto share.
BCMT Gallery is located at 79 Hurley Avenue Suite 110A in Kingston.
Related: The Lockwood Gallery Is a Hub for Narrative-Driven Art in Kingston
