Linda Falkenstein
Sister Isabel Rafferty in the PopUp Art Gallery on Schroeder Road.
When everything shifted due to pandemic restrictions last year, some good things came out of it. There may be something inherent in being human that prompts us to look for silver linings, to create something good out of something bad, and that’s certainly true for Sister Isabel Rafferty, a retired Dominican nun who started a pop-up art gallery in a former restaurant on Madison’s west side.
An unlikely combo of words, “Dominican nun” and “pop-up art gallery.” But invention and creativity, the urge for communication and connection, are part of Sister Isabel’s low-key m.o.
Sister Isabel, who retired from teaching art at Edgewood College in spring of 2020, likes to get up early to swim laps at Supreme Health and Fitness on Odana Road. This spring, after she became fully vaccinated, she would return to her apartment via Michael’s Frozen Custard on Schroeder Road, where she would get her morning coffee from the drive-through and talk with owner Michael Dix. “I’ve become more extroverted since the pandemic, and Michael is chatty.”
At the time, Sister Isabel had a show of her artworks at the Sinsinawa Mound Gallery, the Dominican motherhouse in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, near Platteville. Dix asked her where she would hang it after it came down. Sister Isabel told him she didn’t know, and Dix pointed across the parking lot to the empty La Nopalera Mexican restaurant, which closed in May 2020.
Dix owns the building, 5606 Schroeder Road, which originally housed a Bruegger’s Bagels.
Sister Isabel says she immediately thought of a pop-up concept for local artists who might not have the opportunity to show their work and immediately imagined art hung there. “How do you feel about nails in the walls?” she asked Dix.
Dix offered the space to Sister Isabel free and covers the electric and other costs as well. In return, she tries to steer visitors over to Michael’s for some ice cream.
The room, open and bright, with a black-and-white tile floor, was at that time painted orange and teal, yellow and black. And red. Sister Isabel and a group of friends painted the walls gallery white and did some other small improvements. Still, it’s basic. “I have tracks, but no track lighting,” she says, pointing at the ceiling. She’s also featuring only two-dimensional art hung on the walls; though the room is spacious enough to accommodate 3-D work, Sister Isabel says she is concerned about ceramics falling and breaking on the tile floor.
Despite the origin story of the gallery (which is called, informally, PopUp Art Gallery), Sister Isabel did not launch with a show of her own works. The inaugural exhibition opened July 23 and featured local artists Gerard Lawton, Robert Tarrell, Jane Fasse and William Del Moral.
“I’d never been a curator,” Sister Isabel says. “I have hung my own shows before, but I had no idea all the things you have to do before things go on the wall. Choosing images, making sure the dimensions work, how the images work together in the space, marketing, designing labels — I didn’t think about that.”
PopUp Gallery is not a sales gallery, but labels include information for contacting each artist.
The second exhibit, “View From Inside,” a solo show for artist DarRen Morris, opens Aug. 20 and runs through Sept. 5.
Morris was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 at age 17 for murder. On his website, Morris writes he was “party to the unintentional death of an innocent man” and that although he was “involved in this death, I am not a murderer.”
Sister Isabel hopes this exhibit will be an “opportunity to get a sense of DarRen’s perspective.” She wants the focus to be on Morris’s art.
Robert Tarrell, one of PopUp Art Gallery’s first artists and a professor of drawing and painting at Edgewood College, is one of a group from the school who has worked with Morris with his painting.
Following Morris’ show, Sister Isabel is finally mounting a show devoted to her own work. “Old and New” opens Sept. 10 and runs through Sept. 27.
Sister Isabel has been an art therapist and taught grade school art and interactive digital art at Edgewood College. Her master’s degree is in art therapy and she also has a master of fine arts degree in computer arts, which includes video and motion graphic installations. Her MFA thesis, called “Sacred Space,” used an old Dance Dance Revolution-style mat, programmed so that when someone stood on the different squares, they saw videos Judaism, Christianity and Islam. She now paints in water soluble oils.
“It has been difficult to be confined,” says Sister Isabel of the pandemic. Most days, she can be found in the gallery space, painting: “It’s better than painting in my back bedroom.” She also thinks it’s important for her to “be a presence in the space.” Even though official gallery hours are 5-7 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, PopUp Art Gallery is open by appointment as well; email popupgallerymadison@gmail.com. Or just knock on the window.
Sister Isabel has three more exhibits planned, through Dec. 15. Then the gallery will take a hiatus until March, when it will resume unless Dix has other plans. “I’m trying to hold it all lightly,” says Sister Isabel. “It’s a great lesson in impermanence. Everything is time limited, and we live as if it’s not. I’m taking it an exhibition at a time.”
