GALLERY ARCHIVES

1979

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. A broad collection of contemporary jewelry by over fifty nationally known jewelers continually changed. 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

2002

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. BHIP lured dozens of young, international arts administrators to the region at a time when student retention was low and the county was hemorrhaging young adults. 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

2014

In 2014, Ferrin Contemporary opened on the MASS MoCA campus in Building 13. At the time, MASS MoCA was expanding rapidly, the local economy was growing, and the tourism stream to Northern Berkshire County was about to BOOM. Ferrin Gallery became Ferrin Contemporary, and once again, the business adapted to meet the demands of the local and national art worlds. 

Ferrin Contemporary, Building 13 Exterior from Courtyard A

Ferrin Contemporary Building 13 on the MASS MoCA Campus, North Adams, MA