We both showed up for lunch at The Palm Café wearing animal print pants. Instant friends. Then we learned that her birthday is Christmas and mine is Christmas Eve and we are both only children. Her daughter is an only child too. The next day we bumped into each other again and discussed that Gail’s middle name is Noel to my Joy. Seems to come with the Christmas-baby territory.
Sitting with Gail Gamble is as peaceful as can be. If you didn’t know her you might imagine a towering superhero of sorts with lightning bolts shooting forth from her wrists as she gets things done all for her love of art. DFAC President George Ann Bissett describes her superpower: “Gail can visualize and then organize and clearly see from concept to completion. Very few people have this talent. She does the whole package! And without fuss or fanfare.”
So here we are, lunching adjacent to the gallery that bears her name. Gail is unfazed by this. I have stars in my eyes. She is enjoying a bagel slathered with Chef Masson’s homemade cranberry jelly. I’m having the avocado toast featuring Chef’s homemade lemon aioli (worthy of rooftop shouting). Did I mention that Gail was instrumental in renovating The Palm Café?
She got involved with Dunedin Fine Art Center in 1998 when her daughter left for college, and Gail was looking for new ways to occupy her time. “I met Brooke Allison and I started taking pastel classes.” She joined the board in 2000, “and I’ve been here ever since.”
Dubbed the “Goddess of Trashy,” Gail has been heavily involved in DFAC’s wildly popular, annual Trashy Treasures event. “So, it’s like my thing,” she says but is quick to point out that she couldn’t do it without the help of Bob Hartman, Linda Covert, Sherrie Strand and other staff and volunteers.
“Bob Hartman helps me. And that’s important because if Bob wasn’t able to pick things up and move them around, we wouldn’t be able to do it. Linda and Sherrie help sort and price all the non-art donations.”
There has already been a load of stuff donated for this year’s event, “and we haven’t even collected yet!” Gail says. “We get things from all over the place. People are so generous. It’s really wonderful how generous they are.”
George Ann is a fan. “I love Trashy Treasures with the excitement of accepting all the donations and when we receive them it is akin to a birthday surprise.”
“And Gail was DFAC’s mentor on all four Creative Visions campaigns,” George Ann continues. “From the East to the West Wing her mantra was Matisse’s quote: ‘Creativity takes Courage’. If we did not have Gail, there would not have been the courage to do the Food Arts Studio. She drew it, talked about it and was up to taking the risk of putting it all together. She never gave up.”
In concert with her epic do-gooding, Gail also creates art.
“I do etchings and lino block prints. And I’ve always enjoyed making jewelry,” she says.
She’s been collecting vintage materials for 30 years and claims she’s reached the point in her life to put them to use. Of her jewelry featured at this year’s Galore! show, Gail says, “This year is mostly found and recycled stuff but usually I start with new components.”
Gail summers at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, and “ends up” running the resale shop there. “I feel like I’m the keeper of other people’s things,” she says.
I asked her, soooo when you aren’t busy pulling off Trashy Treasures, building houses in Dunedin, making art in multiple mediums, knitting for New Yorkers in need, serving on the board and generally making great things happen…what are your hobbies? “Those are all my hobbies,” she says. “That’s my life.”
- FUN FACTS:
Streaming: Schitt’s Creek and The Great British Baking Show
Favorite colors: Blue and green
Wants from Santa: Nothing
Reading: The Sheltering Sky (with her book club)
Living in Dunedin: Since 1976
Wish: That the DFAC lives on and that more and more people get to enjoy it.