What types of art do you specialize in?

We specialize in contemporary ceramics from the 1950s onward, including clay and porcelain sculptures.

Do you offer collection services?

Yes, we work with private collectors and artist archives to organize, document, and appraise ceramic art collections for deacquisition or placement.

Can you help with exhibition development?

Absolutely, we collaborate with museums and cultural institutions to develop and present ceramic art exhibitions.

Do you provide touring programs?

Yes, we curate and organize touring exhibitions for contemporary ceramic artists.

What are legacy projects?

Legacy projects include customized services for artists, such as retrospective catalogs, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions.

Blog

Notes and Happenings from Ferrin Contemporary:Ceramic Specialists

Jul

2013

SCENE + SEEN: Summer 2013 | Project Art and Ferrin Gallery

SCENE+SEEN:

SUMMER 2013 at Project Art and Ferrin Gallery

Summer brings ART + ARTISTS from far away places around the world Adelaide, Australia, Jingdezhen, China, Seoul, Korea, to the small village in Cummington, MA, USA on the Eastern edge of the Berkshires, in the heart of the Hilltowns and just west of the Pioneer Valley.

The former mill building, on the bank of the Westfield River, became Project Art in 2007 and home base for Sergei Isupov and Leslie Ferrin. Now with Ferrin Contemporary located there, and Sergei and his wife Kadri traveling to Estonia in the summer, the studio hosts resident artists and new projects get launched. This year the sessions run July – September.

Adjacent to the group studio on the first floor, Ferrin Contemporary exhibits selections from current projects and houses the library, offices and warehouse.

Our next open house and artist salon is Tuesday, August 14, 6 – 8:00, but other days, we are open by appointment. Call 413.446.0614 or email leslie.ferrin@gmail.com

SERGEI ISUPOV at Ferrin Contemporary

Sergei Isupov, “High Heel Shoes Teapots” 2013, detail, porcelain slip, glaze, 6.5 x 9.5 x 5″

Sergei Isupov, Women with Cats Series, 2013

Sergei Isupov, “The Hero’s Mother”, 2012, Porcelain, Glaze, Stain, 8.5 x 12 x 4″

SERGEI ISUPOV at Ferrin Contemporary

The Personal is Professional by Sarah Buttenweiser in American Craft magazine

Sergei Isupov in Nature is Right Outside My Door, by Brooke Mason, Financial Times

Summer at Project Art, Cummington, MA

Joon Park, “Moon Jar”, 2012, clay, crate, pallet, resin, 22 x 22″ (ceramic), 58 x 24″ (complete)

Stephen Bowers, “Walk the Plank” 2013, handmade surfboard (shaped by Peter Walker from paulownia timber), painted decoration, fiber-glass, resin, 7’7” x 22″

Ceramic works by Stephen Bowers, Sergei Isupov, Joon Park, and other artists installed at Project Art in Cummington, Massachusetts

Current Projects of Ferrin Contemporary at Project Art

Front Design, “Blow Away Vase” 2008, Royal Delft porcelain, 11 x 12 x 9″

SMALL WORKS AND CURRENT PROJECTS …

SERGEI ISUPOV – portrait plates and small sculptures featured in Small Works at Ferrin Contemporary, at Project Art, Cummington, MA, USA.

Selected works from our current projects, “Walk the Plank”, surfboard from New Blue and White by Stephen Bowers and Peter Walker and Moon Jar by Joon Park, one of the summer residents at Project Art.

Link to MORE …

PROJECT ART VISITING AND RESIDENT ARTISTS

JULY: Robin Best | Joon Park | Molly Weiss

AUGUST: Joon Park | Tanya Rudenjak | Wendy Gingell

Link to MORE on Project Art …

READ FROM THE MEDIA:

Link to “The Personal is Professional in American Craft Magazine by Sarah Buttenweiser

Link to “Nature is Right Outside My Door” in the Financial Times by Brook Mason

Jul

2013

SCENE + SEEN: Meet Me At … Boston, July 2013

Robin Best’s presentation at Harvard Ceramics, July 2013

Robin Best, “The British East India Company – Trade and War”, 2012, cast translucent white porcelain, on-glaze painting, silver foil, 12 x 41.25 x 4.25″

Robin Best, “The British East India Company – Trade and War”, 2012, reverse, cast translucent white porcelain, on-glaze painting, silver foil, 12 x 41.25 x 4.25″

Robin Best, “The British East India Company – Trade and War”, 2012, cast translucent white porcelain, on-glaze painting, silver foil, 12 x 41.25 x 4.25″

Giselle Hicks, “And Then It Was Still II” 2012, detail, vitreous china porcelain,wood, 48 x 60 x 24″

Claire Curneen, “Blue” (detail), 2013, porcelain, cobalt, gold luste, 24 x 21 x 6″

Stephen Bowers, “Walk the Plank” 2013, handmade surfboard (shaped by Peter Walker from paulownia timber), painted decoration, fiber-glass, resin, 7’7” x 22″

Paul Scott, “Cumbrian Blue(s) – Spode Works Closed, Italian Blue, 03/10/09/09l,” 2013, in-glaze decal, gold lustre on small Spode casserole, (marked Made in Portugal) salvaged from the kiln area in the closed Spode factory 07/09, 3.5 x 9 x 11.25″. Rhode Island School of Design Collection.

Front Design, “Blow Away Vase” 2008, Royal Delft porcelain, 11 x 12 x 9″

SCENE +SEEN:

Robin Best is a visiting artist for the month at Project Art in Cummington, MA and one of the artists whose work was featured in New Blue and White at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Upon arrival from Jingdezhen via London, she visited Boston, spoke at Harvard Ceramics and met curator, Emily Zilber for one last tour of the exhibition with artists, collectors and writers. While the show at the museum closed on July 14, selected works from the exhibition are being shown this summer at Project Art by Ferrin Contemporary.

MORE about Meet Me At … two days of behind-the-scenes with artists, curators, art professionals and collectors, Juy 9 – 10.

Link to MORE about Robin Best and works in New Blue and White at Project Art Summer 2013

Jun

2013

SCENE + SEEN: Yale University Art Gallery | Study day with collectors and art professionals

Henry Varnum Poor at Yale University Art Gallery

Sometimes when you’re visiting a collection and there is an impulse to take a photo and share everything you see, and then there is one object that conveys it all. Henry Varnum Poor’s portrait of Ben Hecht, has a face that looks like someone I know, maybe even someone I was with. Donald Clark, one of our archivists and project manager for The Marks Project, joined me at Yale. This portrait platter from 1926 appears quite contemporary and old at the same time. One of Clark’s many collections is a grouping of objects in all media that feature portraits of other people who look like him, many of them are gifts. Yale’s collection is all online 24/7.

Henry Varnum Poor,Plate with Portrait of Ben Hecht, 1926

Maker: Henry Varnum Poor, American, 1887 – 1970
Gift of Mrs. William R. Scott, John G. McCullough, Class of 1936, and Mrs. William G. Heaphy, by exchange 2004.84.1

POST FROM SCENE + SEEN – Great day at Yale with Patricia Kane and John Stewart Gordon discussing old and new, contemporary and historic decorative arts, new building and integration of the sculpture, paintings and decorative arts at Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, CT, USA. On view this summer is the Waterbury Collection of Art and through July 14, Society Anonyme, Inc.

Rooftop Sculpture Garden – Aristede Maillol – old + new architecture, view from the roof.

MORE … meet up with John Gordon and Patricia Kane

MORE … Waterbury Collection of Wood Art and other current exhibitions at Yale University Art Gallery.

Jun

2013

SCENE + SEEN: Downstreet Art, North Adams

SCENE+SEEN:

Kahn and Selesnick at MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams, MA. This show, “The Other Hudson 2” opens on June 20, the launch of Downstreet Art 2013. Extended hours during Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival, June 21 – 23 at MASS MoCA. Follow SeenArtScene on Tumblr through the weekend for collected random sounds and images of the art, the artists and the scene around them.

MORE … Downstreet

MORE … Wilco Solid Sound Festival

Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick have been affiliated with Ferrin Contemporary on and off for over 20 years. Following their sculpture as it becomes photographs and installations has been a long strange journey. Great to see it altogether and presented at MCLA Gallery 51 … several of the photographs and sculptures were shown in COVET 2013 at Ferrin Gallery in Pittsfield in 2012.

MORE … FerrinGallery

Jun

2013

SCENE + SEEN: Ken Price Opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

SCENE+SEEN:

Carol Hochman, director, Barry Friedman Ltd. at the June 18 opening of Ken Price Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. On view through September 22.

Carol has excellent taste.

May

2013

The Personal is Professional: Crafted Lives | American Craft Magazine

Sarah Wertham Buttenweiser | “Leslie Ferrin wears three professional hats. Through Ferrin Gallery, which she established in 1979, she represents many contemporary artists, with an emphasis on figural sculpture and studio ceramics. She also has a busy roster of lectures and consulting gigs. And she’s the director of Project Art, an 8,000-square-foot live/work compound on the banks of the Westfield River in Cummington, Massachusetts, that hosts resident artists, exhibitions, salon-style talks, and potluck suppers. It’s also where Ferrin lives. We asked the multifaceted Ferrin about her decidedly artful balancing act… You have an unusual living arrangement. Can you describe where you live – and who else lives here?”

Click here to read the full article.

May

2013

Collective Design Fair, NYC, May 2013

NYC May 2013 at Collective design fair with the art dealers from left to right Lewis Wexler, Sienna Patti and Stefan Friedemann at Collective.1, New York, NY “building collections – one object at a time”

May

2013

New Blue & White at the MFA Boston

Emily Zilber, curator and Mark Cooper, artist , listening to Thomas Michie – about newly reinstalled Dutch rooms in context of New Blue and White, MFA Boston through July 14. His site specific work is one of the nearly 40 artists, designers and collaborators who are showing recent works in ceramic, glass and mixed media. #newblueandwhite meets #oldblueandwhite at #mfa #boston with #markcooper (at Museum of Fine Arts)

Emily Zilber, curator and Mark Cooper, artist – in conversation about his recent installation New Blue and White, MFA Boston through July 14. His site specific work is one of the nearly 40 artists, designers and collaborators who are showing recent works in ceramic, glass and mixed media.