Press Coverage

Ferrin Contemporary in the news

Renowned British artist Paul Scott on view at Shelburne Museum

Renowned British artist Paul Scott on view at Shelburne Museum

Posted by Isabel Twanmo in News, Press Coverage

ARE WE THERE YET? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle

A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS

NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way to move forward is to look back.

Leslie Ferrin, director of Ferrin Contemporary, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is doing just that with “Are We There Yet?” It’s an exhibition that is one-part retrospective, one part celebration. It’s a show about evolution, of transition.

It’s an introspective show, for Ferrin, who after 40-plus years in the ceramics market is pondering the next phase of Ferrin Contemporary.

Posted by AxelJ in News, Press Coverage

CERAMICS GALLERIST LESLIE FERRIN & “ARE WE THERE YET?” Featured in Rural Intelligence

“Are We There Yet?” opening at Ferrin Contemporary on July 15 is not just another Berkshire summer gallery exhibition. Well, it is and it’s not. Most works, including newly created pieces, are for sale. But some are on loan from private collectors and artist archives, which is odd for a commercial gallery —particularly one of this caliber. Ferrin Contemporary is renowned for its specialization in contemporary ceramics and introduction of living clay artists to a wider population of art appreciators and collectors.

But “Are We There Yet?” is a uniquely introspective exhibition for gallery owner Leslie Ferrin as well as the 20 participating artists and the community at large. You could call it a survey show, but not of a specific artist’s work. It’s a survey show of the gallery itself.”

Posted by AxelJ in News, Press Coverage
Courtney M. Leonard featured on NewsdayTV

Courtney M. Leonard featured on NewsdayTV

“Courtney Leonard is the local artist behind two new exhibits on Long Island, at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington and Planting Fields in Oyster Bay. The Heckscher exhibit explores the different definitions of the word breach, focusing on the environment and Leonard’s heritage as a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation.” – NewsdayTV

    • Watch the Full Feature on NewdayTV HERE
    • More from Courtney M. Leonard HERE
    • View Courtney M. Leonard: Logbook 2004-2023 and BREACH: Logbook 23 | ROOT HERE

Courtney M. Leonard, Contact, 2,023…, 2023, detail. The Heckscher Museum of Art. Museum Purchase: Partial Funding from the Town of Huntington Art Acquisition Fund. Photo courtesy of The Heckscher Museum Art.

Posted by Becky Waterhouse in News, Press Coverage
Courtney M. Leonard featured in WSHU Public Radio

Courtney M. Leonard featured in WSHU Public Radio

“Leonard has opened her first retrospective art exhibition at The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington. It showcases her work over the years, exploring ecological issues and Indigenous culture with the whale as a common thread.

Printed on a wall in the exhibit, Leonard poses the question “Can a culture sustain itself when it no longer has access to the environment that fashions that culture?”

In the face of land loss and climate change, she tries to answer that question through her art, speaking to her community’s resilience.

‘Ultimately, the thing that I’ve learned with the work of breaching this question is that we do our best to care for the place that we live on, because it is what we have, and what we love,’ she said.”

    • Read the Full Feature on WSHU HERE
    • More from Courtney M. Leonard HERE
    • View Courtney M. Leonard: Logbook 2004-2023 and BREACH: Logbook 23 | ROOT HERE

Courtney M. Leonard: Logbook 2004-2023, installation at The Heckscher Museum, 2023.

Posted by Becky Waterhouse in News, Press Coverage
Beth Lipman Featured in New Suns Interview

Beth Lipman Featured in New Suns Interview

Posted by AxelJ in News, Press Coverage
Judy Chartrand in Studio Ceramic Canada

Judy Chartrand in Studio Ceramic Canada

JUDY CHARTRAND featured in

Studio Ceramics Canada
Written by Amy Gogarty

Born in Kamloops, BC, Manitoba Cree artist Judy Chartrand was raised in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). While she is a status member of the Pine Creek Band in Camperville, Manitoba, where she has family, she has never lived on the reserve. One of thirteen children, she grew up in a multi-racial, urban environment, where she experienced both the positive aspects of diversity as well as the negative impacts of racial prejudice, poverty, and the inter-generational trauma of the residential school system, which her mother endured for twelve years as a child.

Although art was not important in her home, she was a curious and precocious child. She spent many hours in the Vancouver Museum, which was housed in the Carnegie Building at the corner of Hastings and Main between 1957 and 1967, when it moved to its present location in Vanier Park. 1 After sitting vacant for a number of years, the building was renovated and reopened as the Carnegie Community Centre in 1980. The newly refurbished structure, often referred to as the “Downtown Eastside’s Livingroom,” housed a reading room, art gallery, dark room, pottery room, and other educational and recreational amenities.

Judy Chartrand, “…is a zero”, 2022, low fire paper clay, underglaze, glaze, 11.5 x 11.5 x 2”

Posted by Isabel Twanmo in News, Press Coverage
Sergei Isupov and family featured in The World

Sergei Isupov and family featured in The World

This radio segment explores how Sergei Isupov and his family use their unique forms of art to express the current war’s affects on each of them.

“Sergei’s parents, Nelli and Vladimir, met in art school in the port city of Odesa in the late 1950s, during the Soviet period. They later settled in Kyiv to raise their two sons, Sergei and Ilya. And they basically insisted that their sons become artists, too.
Sergei’s mother, Nelli, and brother, Ilya, still live in Kyiv. And Sergei talks to them all the time. ‘Sometimes [when] I talk to my mom, I hear sirens in the back,’ Sergei said.”

Nelli Isupov, "Fish" - a ceramic fish sculpture with a human face, feet in red shoes, and seven bird heads sticking out the top

More on Sergei Isupov’s family, in Sergei’s own words

Excerpts below recently published in The Craft Quarterly from the James Renwick Alliance.
Read the full article HERE.

Nelli Isupova

“My mother Nelli can find something positive in everything that happens around her. Now because of the war, those with cars have left and she says she kind of appreciates that there are fewer cars and people in the city. She lives in the very center of Kyiv and still she goes for walks in the parks. She refuses to go to the bomb shelter even when the air raid sirens howl. During World War II, when she was three years old, she and her mother were evacuated via ship from Stavropol. Their ship was bombed while they were in the Caspian Sea but luckily they both survived.

My whole life my mother has been a working artist. Now, at age 83, she still works hard at her painting and exhibits her work a lot. She says that “people now need to see bright colors.” In March of last year, she had an exhibition at Sofia Kyivska. She went there every day and posted selfies with the visitors on her instagram feed–it looks so normal, and she looks very happy in her ceramic “garden of joy.” Then in July, she had an exhibition at the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art. That museum, housed in a beautiful 19th c. mansion, was severely damaged in a nearby Russian strike on October 10 and it’s feared that many parts of their extensive permanent collection may have been damage (editor’s note: Nelli removed her works from the gallery just a week before the bombing). – Sergei Isupov

Learn more about Nelli and her artwork HERE.

Follow Nelli on Instagram HERE.

KYIV, UKRAINE - AUGUST 17, 2022 - The Kyiv Art Gallery National Museum displays the Illuminated Space exhibition of ceramic sculpture by the artist Nelly Isupova, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. Illuminating Space exhibition by artist Nelli Isupova in Kyiv PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxRUS Copyright: xHennadiixMinchenkox

Illuminating Space
exhibition by Nelli Isupova
The Kyiv Art Gallery National Museum
Kyiv, Ukraine
August 17, 2022

Ilya Isupov

“My brother is also an artist. He evacuated two of his children from the city to a seemingly safe place. His other two children are older and were already in school or working outside of the country. But pretty quickly the war came right to the village where he had evacuated his children. Even with the bombing, he still managed to save them and get them out by making his way through roadblocks and along forest paths. He and his wife took them to the Polish border. The children and their mother have remained exiled in France. According to what we hear it is not easy for them, just as for any refugee.

My brother returned home to Kyiv where his pet was waiting for him. Soon he learned that a bomb had hit the house in the village where his children had been staying. The relative who had taken in his children was buried under the rubble of a fallen wall, but she survived. The children are physically safe, they were taken away in the nick of time.

My brother had a job in the advertising industry, but it is gone now so he works from home; his paintings are full of dramatic unreality. They are beautiful and not intimidating but these paintings are reminiscent of the events happening all around him. It may be obvious for those who know what he’s going through. The paintings do not sell now. Friends who can are helping him survive. He recently exhibited in Paris at a group exhibition with Ukrainian artists and for that he received permission to leave Ukraine for two weeks. He is 51 years old.” – Sergei Isupov

Learn more about Ilya Isupov and is artwork HERE.

Follow Ilya on Facebook HERE.

View a catalogue of additional artworks HERE.

Ilya Isupov, "Car", 2022, watercolor on paper
Ilya Isupov, "Car", 2022, watercolor on paper
Posted by Becky Waterhouse in News, Press Coverage
Kadri Pärnamets: Choreography of Water Featured in Ceramics Now

Kadri Pärnamets: Choreography of Water Featured in Ceramics Now

Kadri Pärnamets: The Choreography of Water is on view at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams

December 3, 2022 – February 11, 2023

After installing her work in the gallery, Pärnaments stood outside in the rain, looking in on her work.

“It’s amazing to me, we all share this substance. Everyone all over the world is sharing the same water,” said the artist whose primary inspiration for this work is rain.

The exhibition features her biomorphic, organic vessel forms. Thinking of herself as a choreographer, the artist explores shapes that connect to water, from cloud to cup. Pärnaments interests range from fragile, natural environments to female identity and this is evident across form, color, and function.

Posted by Isabel Twanmo in News, Press Coverage
Sergei Isupov Interview Featured in the JRA Quarterly Winter 2023

Sergei Isupov Interview Featured in the JRA Quarterly Winter 2023

Sergei Isupov graduated from the Art Institute of Tallinn, Estonia with an M.F.A. in Ceramics in 1990. He immigrated to the United States in 1994, and has lived and worked at Project Art in Cummington, Massachusetts since 2006.

How has migration shaped your artistic education?

When I arrived in the U.S. from Estonia in 1994, I was young, newly married to an American artist, Dana Major and we started a studio, Nine Pines Art in Louisville, Kentucky. Selling work became my first American education. My work was highly detailed, figural and immediately appealed to collectors at the ACC [American Craft Council] and Smithsonian Craft Fair. With each series, I added more details and bold narratives, and I received more attention and support; my skills became more accomplished as I mastered the material….

Thanks to JRA CRAFT for this excellent interview with Sergei Isupov and the ongoing interest in Sergei’s captivating work for these many incredible years that he’s been working. And!, what perfect timing to coincide with the Figuring Space exhibition at The Clay Studio.
Posted by AxelJ in News, Press Coverage