Gardiner Cupcake Festival Serves up a smorgasbord of #GOSTdoors

GOSTdoors before they are installed
at the Gardiner Cupcake Festival

GOSTdoors At the Gardiner Cupcake Festival

The Gardiner Open Studio Tour comes only once each Spring to Gardiner NY. Since its second year of existence, it has always been preceded by the mysterious appearance of a fanciful and intriguing art installation made out of artist painted doors.

The first year they appeared, the GOSTdoors were scattered along the many roads and byways of the Hudson Valley towns of New Paltz and Gardiner. One day nothing, and the next day, they would just pop up all over the place. People were puzzled. What were these, what did they mean? "Hey look, another one of those funny doors...." The GOSTartists would go out all at once and put up all the doors in one single day of mad post pounding and screwdriving just to add to the fun and surprise.

A row of figurative GOSTdoors at the Gardiner Cupcake Festival. It was a great chance to see them up all together as a group. Most often the doors are spread all over the place and it's harder to see the diversity of approach than it is here.

Then a week or so later, the little hashtag signs went up: "#GOSTdoors". Then a week after that the big yellow banners went up announcing the Gardiner Open Studio Tour. This year, that's happening later than last year. Don't worry, you haven't missed the Tour. The Tour will be on June 3rd & 4th, 10am - 6pm both days.

This year there were twenty-five GOSTdoors at the Gardiner Cupcake Festival.

[TOUR HINT: Get out on the Tour early. Between 10am and 11am you'll have the artists all to yourself while everyone else is still luxuriating over a big breakfast at one of our sponsors like Cafe' Mio in Gardiner, or still in bed recovering from the night before and that delicious dinner they ate at The Mountain Brau Haus.]


But I digress -- the GOSTdoors. Well you might notice on the big yellow banners it says: "Go Behind the Doors." That's the artists' doors, the doors to the artists' studios. We are all opening our doors to you, the public, because we love to share what we do, and to share a little about how we do it and why.

Why do artists make art? Fair question, be sure to ask it if you want to on the Tour. How do we do it? What does it mean? What is your inspiration? No question is really out of bounds, and you may be astonished by the answer, or not, but we are offering you the opportunity to ask.

Is the artwork on the GOSTdoors representative of the various artists who did them? The answer is: "It depends." The idea behind the GOSTdoors was to allow the artists on the studio tour to create a visual representation of the diversity of their styles and approaches to artmaking. There are no rules for the GOSTdoors, no jury selecting them, and we leave them out in the rain and sun--not the usual place for paintings on wood.

Mostly the doors do not reflect the typical work of the artists on the tour. The artists who contributed #GOSTdoors were really just trying to share their playful enthusiasm for artmaking, not intending to "advertise" their particular style or demonstrate their ultimate skills. The GOSTdoors are just meant to be fun and whimsical and a bit of a tease, so that if you would like to learn more you should come out on the Gardiner Open Studio Tour and meet the artists of the tour for yourself.  Our doors are open....