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.

Project Tag: Mark Shapiro

Oct

2017

NEW YORK CERAMIC & GLASS FAIR 2018

NYC&G FAIR 2018

Bohemian National Hall, New York, NY | January 18–21, 2018

Bringing together a carefully selected and distinguished international group of more than 25 galleries offering all things “fired” — porcelain, pottery, and glass, in a setting perfect for the exhibition and sale of important small objects.

FERRIN CONTEMPORARY presenting work by

Chris Antemann
Robin Best
Stephen Bowers
Bouke de Vries
Edward Eberle
Evan Hauser
Charlotte Hodes
Sergei Isupov
Steven Young Lee
Crystal Morey
Kadri Pärnamets
Peter Pincus
Paul Scott
Mark Shapiro
Linda Sikora
Caroline Slotte
Dirk Staschke
Mike Stumbras
Mara Superior
Susan Thayer
Kurt Weiser

SPECIAL EXHIBITION

“Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists at The NYC&GF and The Frick Pittsburgh”

Organized by Dawn Reid Brean, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Frick Pittsburgh, and Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Contemporary.

In 2017, twenty contemporary artists were invited to respond to and produce new works that reference the art, objects and social history of the The Frick’s collections. Selected works by these artists whose artistic practice is informed by the past will preview in a special exhibition at the NYC&GF followed by the full exhibition at The Frick Pittsburgh, February 16–April 27, 2018. Click for more.

See below for illustrated lecture by Dawn Reid Brean.

LECTURE HIGHLIGHTS

“Pincus: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood”
with Peter Pincus
Friday, January 19, 12pm

Artist Peter Pincus speaks about his research and into the Wedgwood Collections at Birmingham Museum of Art and how conversations with curator Anne Forschler of the Birmingham Museum of Art are being incorporated into his new work and teaching. Pincus is visiting assistant professor of ceramics in the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Click for more.

“Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists at The Frick Pittsburgh”
with Dawn Brean and artists TBD
Friday, January 19, 2–3:00 p.m.

Dawn Reid Brean, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts at The Frick Pittsburgh, with Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Contemporary and artists featured in the exhibition whose work is inspired by, responds to, or relates to historic ceramics in The Frick Pittsburgh’s permanent collection. Click for more.

“Time Travel in the Period Room”
with Elisabeth Agro, Barry Harwood, Sarah Carter
Friday, January 19, 4–5:00 p.m.

Three museum curators speak about exhibitions and projects that connect past and present in innovative ways, activating spaces through collaborations with contemporary artists and interdisciplinary scholars and informing new works. The curators will share how through working with contemporary artists and interdisciplinary scholars new works evolved, historic information revealed, audiences engaged, educational programming developed and connections made to the past while reflecting on present day issues.

• Elisabeth Agro is The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Sarah Anne Carter, Ph.D. is the Curator and Director of Research of the Chipstone
Foundation
• Barry R. Harwood, Ph.D. is the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Brooklyn Museum

Click for more.

“American Studio Pottery — Making of a Movement”
Adrienne Spinozzi with Linda Sikora and Mark Shapiro
Saturday, January 20, 4pm

Internationally recognized potters Linda Sikora and Mark Shapiro discuss their divergent backgrounds, training, and influences as a way to touch on significant themes in postwar North American ceramics.

Moderator Adrienne Spinozzi is Assistant Research Curator of American Decorative Arts, The American Wing, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Linda Sikora resides near Alfred NY where she has a studio practice and is a Professor or Ceramic Art at Alfred University. Mark Shapiro is a potter in Western Massachusetts. He is a frequent workshop leader, lecturer, curator, panelist, and writer, and is mentor to more than a half-dozen apprentices who have trained at his Stonepool Pottery. Click for more.

Chris Antemann, “Shell Stand” 2016, porcelain, china paint, decals, luster, 21” x 10” x 10”.

Robin Best, “The Aldrovandi Vases” 2017, porcelain, on-glaze Xin Cai, 12.5 x 5″ each.

Stephen Bowers, “Plates”, Various 2015-7

Bouke de Vries, “Peacock 1″ 2016, twentieth-century Chinese porcelain bird, eighteenth-century Chinese porcelain fragments, mixed media, 24 x 13.5 x 25”.

Edward Eberle, “The Least of Eye is Flesh” 2007, porcelain, stain, 11.25 x 17.5 x 18″.

Evan Hauser, “Preservation & Use (Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail, 1873, Albert Bierstadt)” 2017, porcelain, gold leaf, 15 x 11 2.5″.

Charlotte Hodes, “Dressed in Pattern: Portrait” 2016, handcut transfer on china, 11.25 x 29 x 1″.

Sergei Isupov, “Growth Rings” 2016, porcelain, underglaze, glaze, 23 x 10 x 6.5″.

Steven Young Lee, “Gourd Vases with Dodos” 2018, porcelain, cobalt pigment, glaze, 10 x 19 x 18”.

Crystal Morey, “New Symbiosis: Pronghorn” 2017, porcelain, 10.5 x 6 x 4.5″.

Kadri Pärnamets, “Picnic” 2014, porcelain, glaze, stain, 7.5 x 10.25 x 4″.

Peter Pincus, “Vase” 2018, colored porcelain, 16 x 7″.

Paul Scott, “Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), Houston No:3” 2017, in-glaze decal collage on pearlware shell edge platter c 1820. 15.75 x 11.75” (400mm x 300mm).

Mark Shapiro, “MORON” double walled vase.

Linda Sikora, “Small Group” 2017–8, porcelain, stoneware, approximate sizes: kettle 10 x 11 x 9″, box 8 x 7 x 7″, stand 1.5 x 11 x 11″.

Caroline Slotte, “Going Blank Again” 2016, reworked second hand ceramics.

Dirk Staschke, “Vanitas 1″ 2015–6, ceramic, 11 x 8 x 8”.

Mara Superior, “Venus of Urbino” 2018, porcelain, underglazes, oxides, glaze, gold leaf, decal, 13 x 19 x 3″.

Susan Thayer, “Return” 2016, teapot: porcelain, china paint, glazebase: lowfire stoneware, slip, 16 x 9 x 5″.

Kurt Weiser, “Random House (globe)” 2017, porcelain, glaze, china paint, metal, 30 x 14 x 14″.

Dirk Staschke "Vanitas 1"

May

2017

MARK SHAPIRO

ON VIEW

Are We There Yet?

at Ferrin Contemporary

ARTWORK

ARTWORKS & INSTALLATIONS

BARRELS

Mark Shapiro, Barrel 1, 2, & 3, 2021, Wood and salt fired with slip and markings, various dimensions

ABOUT

MARK SHAPIRO

STONEPOOLPOTTERY.COM

BIO

ABOUT

In 1986, I moved from New York City to rural Western Massachusetts to make pots and build a wood kiln. I was able to buy a shipwreck of an old place that has an unusual feature from which I took the name for my pottery—a stone pool that Russell Conwell, turn-of-the-century preacher and educator and founder of Temple University in Philadelphia had built in 1893. The farmhouse, where Conwell was born, is rich in history—it had been a stop on the Underground Railroad during Conwell’s childhood, and he remembered John Brown and Frederick Douglass staying at the house.

While working on the place, I dug up a shard of a gray salt-glazed four-gallon crock that happened to have the makers’ stamp on it. “Hastings and Belding, Ashfield Mass.” It turned out to have been made only about 15 miles from my home and studio, at the middle of the last century. It got me thinking about pots that were made, bought, used, broken and disposed of within a specific region and the connection this implies between the community of users and makers. It led to my decision to move and restore the old shed (the one where fugitive slaves had slept) for use as a gallery to welcome local people at the pottery. It also prompted a deeper interest in early New England potters and their wares. In particular, the pots made from 1790–1830, wonderful swelling volumes of ovoid forms with their firing scars and flashing, spoke to me as powerful vernacular objects.

Before moving to Western Massachusetts, I had been living in New York and making sculpture while supporting myself as a carpenter. The turn to pottery answered the vexing problem that I had been unable to resolve with my sculpture: Where does the stuff go? On a pedestal in patron’s living room? In front of a building? In a museum storage vault? As a potter, on the other hand, my work would be held and used; it would stay in the main places of people’s lives. And, I could control most aspects of creative production—the concept, making, finishing, marketing and selling of the work, in a process and within a scale that preserves and enhances the humanity of the creative experience. As my work has evolved I continue to be compelled by the challenges of domestic pottery, but I have also recently become interested as in making larger scale work that is more appropriate to the scale and abstractness gallery space than the kitchen.

EXHIBITIONS

“ARE WE THERE YET?”

July 15th – September 2nd, 2023 | Ferrin Contemporary

ARE WE THERE YET? is a celebration of Ferrin Contemporary’s 40+ years as leaders in the field of modern and contemporary ceramics. What began in 1979 as a woman-owned cooperative studio and gallery in Northampton, MA has flourished across the years and the locations to become the international ceramic experts and material champions known as Ferrin Contemporary.

View the exhibition page here

NEWS

ARE WE THERE YET? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle

31 July, 202314 February, 2024

Ferrin Contemporary, "Are We There Yet?", 2023, Exhibition Portrait with Isabel Twanmo (Gallerist pictured left), Leslie Ferrin (Director pictured center), & Alexandra Jelleberg (Gallerist pictured right), Photo by John Polak Photography

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way...

Mark Shapiro on Tales of a Red Clay Rambler

17 March, 202314 February, 2024

PODCAST: Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Hosted by Ben Carter featuring Mark Shapiro 365: Mark Shapiro on 19th-century potter Thomas Commeraw March 17, 2023 In this interview, Mark Shapiro...

INQUIRE

May

2017

NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2017

ABOUT THE NYCGF

New York Ceramics & Glass Fair
Bohemian National Hall, New York, NY
January 19–22, 2017
Click here for more

Bringing together a carefully selected and distinguished international group of around 28 galleries offering all things “fired” — porcelain, pottery, and glass, in a setting perfect for the exhibition and sale of important small objects.