GALLERY ARCHIVES

PINCH POTTERY was founded in Northampton in 1979 by local artists Leslie Ferrin, Mara Superior, and Barbara Walch. Established as a studio and store, Pinch Pottery grew to include the work of numerous artists, potters and craftspeople.  “It was an incubator,” says Ferrin. It was also the first of many manifestations of Ferrin’s entrepreneurial and community spirit which, coupled with her love of ceramics, became her guiding principles. “We were artists who wanted to sell our own work and [the work of] others who worked in clay in our community,” she says of her goals at the time. “We were exploring what people were doing in the field.”

-Leslie Ferrin, Rural Intelligence, 2023

Pinch Pottery continued to show a wide variety of locally made functional pottery and decorative ceramic art as well as objects for the home by selected artists from throughout the country. During the course of a year, over three hundred artists and craftspeople became represented, some with established reputations, others introduced as emerging talents.

Click here to visit Pinch Pottery

FERRIN GALLERY was formed in 1987 when the gallery moved from Thornes Marketplace to bustling Main street, Northampton. The move to Main Street made possible a connected, but separate space. This move also came at a time when Leslie Ferrin became more interested in the realm of curation and sales.

In early 1991, the gallery presented a series of one person shows and theme exhibits both on and off the premises. The first featured Ikebana containers by Angela Fina, a local artist. The second exhibit included the work of another local artist, Donna McGee, who exhibited paintings on tile murals, thrown earthenware platters and vessels. Her imagery focused on four areas; domestic scenes, still lives, landscapes, and female nudes.

In 2002, Leslie Ferrin and business partner, Donald Clark, moved Ferrin Gallery to 69 Church Street in Lenox, MA. This move allowed the gallery to thrive along with the ever-growing cultural tourism in the Berkshires:

“The brick-and-mortar gallery allowed the duo to invest not just in their business, but in community initiatives as well as the bourgeoning careers of local arts professionals. “[Lenox-based artist] Maggie Mailer was our first gallery associate,” she says. Others came to work for Ferrin through the Berkshire Hills Internship Program (BHIP), a now-defunct program of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Cities and towns across the Berkshires were leveraging the arts for downtown revitalization in the 2000s, and Ferrin played an important role in this movement — particularly in Pittsfield, where the gallery was located from 2007 to 2013.”

-Rural Intelligence, 2023

“It was serendipitous that one of the strongest ceramic gallery programs existed in Pittsfield, my hometown,” says Michael Boroniec, who is currently represented by Kasper Contemporary. “I would frequent the gallery openings, seeing some of the most important contemporary ceramics. It was soon after that Leslie added me to her roster of artists. She gave me opportunities that most young artists would have to work at for several years.”

-Rural Intelligence, 2023