Artists represented in this 17th edition of Small Favors range from the most established ceramic artists in the field, to young artists new to the field. Small Favors engages artists’ creativity in new and exciting ways with the challenge of making pieces on a very small scale. For some artists, the work they create is similar to what they normally make, but at a reduced scale. Others use it as an opportunity to break away from what they create in their daily studio practice. There is an open call each year for juried work, as well as a group of invited artists who participate. This year includes artworks coming from Japan, China, and Budapest in addition to those from around the United States.
Making History: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection features objects that have been acquired by Fuller Craft Museum since December 2020. Twenty artworks are included in the exhibition, representing a range of materials, techniques, subjects, and artistic innovations. Ceramic sculptures, basketry forms, hand-stitched textiles, blown glass objects and more illustrate the technical and expressive accomplishments of today’s craft artists.
Several of the works explore themes of identity and belonging, while others investigate social justice themes of racism, inequity, and political strife. Additional critical global issues being addressed include COVID-19 and the fragile balance between humans and the natural world. Many of the featured artists honor the traditions of craft, illustrating creative excellence that results from accumulated knowledge of their chosen medium, exceptional material intelligence, and highly developed handskills.
Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramics using traditional hand-building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using colored stains highlighted with clear glaze.
Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum Angewandte in Kunst, Germany, and in the US at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts–Boston, Museum of Fine Arts–Houston, Mint Museum of Art, and Racine Art Museum. In 2017, his solo exhibition at The Erie Art Museum presented selected works in a 20-year career survey titled Hidden Messages, followed by Surreal Promenade, another survey solo in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art in Minnesota.
Kadri Pärnamets works in porcelain using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting. Her biomorphic, organic forms provide a means to convey personal interests ranging from the fragile, natural environment to female identity. Focusing on gesture and expression, she selects known classics of female beauty by painters from the European Renaissance and Impressionist eras, like Lucas Cranach the Elder and Edouard Manet. Pärnamets has taught in the Estonian Art Academy and is a member of the Asuurkeraamika Studio, Estonian Artists Association, and Estonian Ceramist Association.
Pärnamets’ work has been shown internationally at Ferrin Contemporary, (North Adams, MA), the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, (Tallinn, Estonia), and at the International Tea Trade Expo, (Shanghai, China). Since 1996, she has participated in symposiums in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, USA, Norway, and Hungary. In Pärnamets graduated from the Art Institute of Tallinn, Estonia in 1994 with a BA/MFA in Ceramics. Dividing her time between Estonia and USA, her primary studio is the USA at Project Art in Cummington, MA. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.
Peripheries launches EDGES, an ambitious international ceramic and sound art project between three nations at the western and eastern edges of Europe: Ireland, Estonia and the UK.
EDGES focuses on international exchange and residencies with artists collaborating across the disciplines of ceramics and sound art. Outcomes include exhibitions, presentations, performances, geo-located sound walks and community engagement activities.
Peripheries invites two sound artists from Ireland to collaborate with two ceramic artists from Estonia, the results of which will be exhibited as the centre piece at The Ceramic House offering this May, accompanied by an exhibition of contemporary ceramics by leading Estonian artists.
The exhibition is curated by artists and curators Kay Aplin and Joseph Young.
The results of the residency will be exhibited in In Camera Gallery, The Ceramic House’s white cube, and the Estonian ceramics show will be displayed throughout the house. All the exhibiting ceramic artists selected have an interest in exploring traditional techniques with a contemporary sensibility, offering UK collectors, specialists and artists a rare overview of the breadth of contemporary Estonian ceramic practice today. The month-long residency is funded by I-Portunus EU funding.
Peripheries is a pilot for EDGES, a 2 year-long investigation into meeting places, what it means to work at the edge of something, to be on the fringes, and understanding artistic practice as a so-called ‘cutting edge’, where boundaries are pushed back, and frontiers explored. EDGES will continue in 2023-24 with an exhibition of Irish ceramics at The Ceramic House, international residencies in Estonia and Ireland and culminating exhibitions at Watts Gallery, UK and Wexford Arts Centre, Ireland.
Kadri Pärnamets, ‘Noon Dance’ 2019, porcelain, slip, glaze, 8.5 x 9 x 4.5″
Kadri Pärnamets, “Lime Vase”, 2017.
Kadri Pärnamets, “Moor” 2019, porcelain, slip, glaze, 8 x 9 x 6″.
Kadri Pärnamets, “Blue Vase”, 2017.
Kadri Pärnamets, “Black and Red Vase” 2019, porcelain, slip, glaze, 11 x 9.5 x 6.5″
Kadri Pärnamets, “Sultry Night” 2019, porcelain, slip, glaze, 6 x 10.5 x 5.5″.
Kadri Pärnamets, ‘Spring Announcers’ 2019, porcelain, slip, glaze, 10.5 x 7 x 5″.
Kadri Pärnamets, “Cups”, 2020, porcelain, slip, glaze, ~4 x 4 x 4″ (each)
ABOUT KADRI PÄRNAMETS
Estonian, b. 1968, Rakvere, Estonia
lives and works in Cummington, MA
Kadri Pärnamets works in porcelain using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting. Her biomorphic, organic forms provide a means to convey personal interests ranging from the fragile, natural environment to female identity. Focusing on gesture and expression, she selects known classics of female beauty by painters from the European Renaissance and Impressionist eras, like Lucas Cranach the Elder and Edouard Manet. Pärnamets has taught in the Estonian Art Academy and is a member of the Asuurkeraamika Studio, Estonian Artists Association, and Estonian Ceramist Association.
Pärnamets’ work has been shown internationally at Ferrin Contemporary, (North Adams, MA), the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, (Tallinn, Estonia), and at the International Tea Trade Expo, (Shanghai, China). Since 1996, she has participated in symposiums in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, USA, Norway, and Hungary. In Pärnamets graduated from the Art Institute of Tallinn, Estonia in 1994 with a BA/MFA in Ceramics. Dividing her time between Estonia and USA, her primary studio is the USA at Project Art in Cummington, MA. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.
NATURE OF NURTURING | Notes from Director Leslie Ferrin
A renewed awareness and galvanizing commitment for change is surging through American cultural and academic institutions, organizations, and businesses of every sort, exposing the crying need for structural change. Specifically, this includes the advancement of equality for artists of all genders, eliminating the sexual harassment, wage discrimination, and the other forms of sexism that continue to affect the lives of women, transgender and non-binary individuals. As part of the movement to reverse and rebalance priorities as well as open new doors, it is crucial to offer opportunities to artists who have been historically marginalized.
Ferrin Contemporary has invited twelve female artists to pause and reflect on the role gender plays in their artistic practice, to consider the impact of the #MeToo movement, and/or to examine how the constructs of gender and gendered behavior impact their personal and professional lives. Nature assigned these artists who identify as female on a given path, whereas nurture is an accumulation of experiences and influences has had both positive and negative impact on their personal and professional lives.
Individual artworks do not always offer specific references to identity through direct content. However, a close look at the career paths in the short biographies and written statements in this exhibition, Nature/Nurture reveals information about how each of these artists – members of several different generations – has sustained her creative practice. The ceramic artworks in Nature/Nurture converge in a dialogue and accumulation of experiences and influences; they reflect on positive and negative forces shaping contemporary female and non-binary identities. Together, through the artwork, statements and biographies, these women artists who identify as female and are at various stages of their careers, convey different experiences defined by their gender, age, geographic and cultural identities.
Mara Superior, Sally Silberberg, Tricia Zimic have had decades-long careers that began before the two youngest, now in their 30’s were born. Unlike the women who began their career in the 70’s, Crystal Morey and Lauren Mabry and others born in the 80’s are already well established with museums actively acquiring important mid-career works. Linda Sikora and Linda Sormin have balanced their international artistic practices with teaching in University programs. As a graduate student, Linda Sikora was unable to attend a program led by a female professor. Linda Sormin, of the generation following, pursued graduate studies specifically with three leading women artists Linda Sikora, Andrea Gill and Anne Currier. Likewise, Giselle Hicks and Cristina Córdova had the advantage of powerful female faculty and confidence that led to independent paths, establishing their own studio practice supported by periodic short term teaching, unhindered by the politics of full-time academia. International artists, Kadri Pärnamets (Estonia), Rae Stern (Israel) and Anina Major (Bahamas)
have located their practices in the USA where residencies have welcomed them, supported the development of their work and proximity to the marketplace.
For the two artists who began their careers in the 70’s, their education took place in institutions with male-dominated programs. As they began their careers, the studio craft movement provided independent economic security and a “workaround” for women whose chosen media, ceramics, had yet to be embraced by the fine art world. For those who followed beginning their careers in the 90’s and until the market crash in 2008, the glass ceiling showed cracks. Women were hired in academic positions, replacing retiring male faculty as programs were rebalanced to achieve diversity.
Starting in the eighties, studio craft was avidly collected by private collectors through fairs, galleries and directly from the artists themselves. The ultimate goal of self-support through sales was viable for a large number of artists but that ended with the recession. For those who began their professional careers at a time when the market system had collapsed, these artists were ultimately fortunate as a new path opened for work in ceramics when the groundbreaking survey exhibition in 2009, “Dirt on Delight” jettisoned ceramics into the broader field of contemporary fine art in the USA. In addition, the explosion of international biennales inclusive of ceramics and craft that provided context for material based artworks in the broader art scene.
This wide acceptance for ceramics and the other female associated media, fiber arts, has settled the Art vs. Craft debate. For both emerging and established artists whose chosen primary material was previously segregated and independent from the mainstream, these new opportunities for their works have begun to balance the gender and cultural gap of representation at galleries and museums. Foundation support for diversity initiatives have had a significant impact through awards for artist fellowships and new scholarship. For those whose work took the form of vessels or studio pottery, a new generation of curators have embraced their work by making connections between practicing contemporary artists and past masterworks in the areas of decorative arts and design.
Inspired by the important work of Judith Butler and Helen Longino, the artists in this show were invited to explore the influence of ‘Nature/Nurture’ within their practice. Their work ranges from more direct interpretations of the natural world, to more abstract notions, such as the construction of gender, and endowed role of women. “Possibility is not a luxury; it is as crucial as bread.” ― Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, 2004
Seen as a whole, this group of twelve women artists who live and work throughout the USA, is representative of the rising tide of professional opportunities. While significant earnings and advancement gaps remain, a course correction is underway through the increasing number of gender and culturally specific exhibitions. As priorities shift for museum collections, educational public programming and private collectors, these efforts to course-correct are bringing recognition to artists previously overlooked and undervalued and to undocumented legacies. Nature/Nurture seeks to contribute to and further this recognition.
Leslie Ferrin, director Ferrin Contemporary
NATURE/NURTURE a group exhibition of twelve contemporary female artists invited to explore the influence of gender and its impact on their practice.
NATURE/NURTURE | Group Show of 12 Women Artists LESLIE FERRIN | Director Notes | Nature of Nurturing CRISTINA CORDOVA | Nature/Nurture | PBS Craft in America – Identity GISELLE HICKS | Tiles & Vessels | Teaching Online in the Time of COVID19 LAUREN MABRY | Nature/Nurture | Cylinders & Flow Blocks ANINA MAJOR | Nature/Nurture | No Vacancy in Paradise CRYSTAL MOREY | Nature/Nurture | Museum Acquisitions KADRI PÄRNAMETS | Nature/Nurture | Small Matters and Roots & Pollinators LINDA SIKORA | Nature/Nurture | On Nurture: Our Social and Political Spaces MARA SUPERIOR| Nature/Nurture | Museum Acquisitions RAE STERN| Nature/Nurture | In Fugue TRICIA ZIMIC | Nature/Nurture | Sins & Virtues
“I was born into a household that both challenged and upheld gender archetypes. This simultaneity created a fluid identity in my creative perspective that has moved me to engage with a wide spectrum of narrative embodiments from the sexually untethered and universal to the absolutely feminine. I am human, I am Puerto Rican, I am a woman. Each of these breaks into a thousand fractals that create the prism through which my work comes into the world.”
“My creative interests and curiosities were nurtured early on by my parents and teachers. I was exposed to a variety of visual and performing arts growing up with my mom who enjoyed learning about and collecting art, while my dad was a big proponent of Joseph Campbell’s ‘follow your bliss’ mantra. He thought, if you do something you love, doors will open. What a gift to offer your child. My announcement that I wanted to study art, particularly ceramics, was met with encouragement. I came out of the womb driven to achieve, so my parents must have trusted that I would figure out a way through a career in the arts.
Fortunately, the path had been paved by some incredible makers that continue to serve as inspiring models – Ruth Duckworth, Lucie Rie, Marguerite Wildenhain, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hess, Viola Frey, Agnes Martin. I’ve been fortunate to have as many wonderful male mentors and teachers – David McDonald, Errol Willett, and Doug Casebeer to name a few. However, it is the female mentors – Beth Lipman, Leslie Ferrin, Linda Sikora, Ann Currier and Andrea Gill – that gave me space, support and permission to develop my voice as a woman, teacher, and full-time studio artist.” – Giselle Hicks, 2020.
“As a young woman, I was emboldened to embrace my natural strengths – an independent, competitive spirit, believing that I could achieve whatever I set out to do. Born with a gift and a drive, I have made it this far because I have been nurtured by many strong women in my life, starting with my mother who always encouraged me to follow my passion for art. Along the way, my female educators never hesitated to push me even when I was struggling – Jane Shellenbarger, Cary Esser, Sanam Emami, Gail Kendall, and Margaret Bohls. My career has been continuously shaped by females, gallerists, and curators like Leslie Ferrin and Catherine Futter, who create exhibition opportunities, connections, and help put my work in important collections. Of equal importance are the many women artists who, although I haven’t known personally, have influenced my voice a great deal – Betty Woodman, Viola Frey, Karen Massaro, Lynda Benglis and many more. I am so grateful to have all of these women who have led by setting the example.”
We first met in 2018 when she appeared in our doorway having just arrived to participate in a three week residency in the Artist for Assets program located above us in Building 13 on the MASS MoCA campus. Our quick friendship grew when she decided to stay in North Adams for the year at 36 Chase & Barns Artists and Art Historians Residency, culminating in a show The Rhythm of Hybrid Interactions nearby in MCLA’s Gallery 51. She is currently working at Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and like so many artists, she has work on view in several concurrent exhibitions currently closed to the public.
Drawing inspiration from her cultural background, she continues to work in ceramics using techniques that draw from Bahamian plaiting and indigenous weaving. The objects and installations make connections to contemporary issues. In her future hopes and dreams, she plans to trace her ancestry through weaving and maybe even set new roots in North Adams.
ANINA MAJOR ON NATURE/NURTURE
“My practice exists at this intersection of craft, commerce and identity. Particularly as it relates to home being defined by a familiar cultural lineage. As a naturalized American, to maintain a connection I have adopted straw weaving, practiced by my grandmother as radical inquiry and artistic expression. This indigenous form of weaving, known as plaiting is a salient indicator of a tradition passed down from my enslaved West African ancestors. Yet it is one of the most underrated manifestations of Bahamian artistry due to its decreasing economic demand. Every year, I witness the few straw objects left by my grandmother deteriorate and notice the parallels between this depreciating craft and the disintegrating object. My work contends that these woven baskets are physical manifestations of my inheritance and are the ideal metaphor to carry forth my lineage, figuratively and literally. The fragility of re-establishing the significance of plaiting beyond its monetary value and acknowledging it as an intrinsic factor in the formation of identity becomes evident with the use of ceramic material. In process it evolves to a language capable of recording my migratory experiences through a postcolonial lens.”
“I grew up in Northern California of the 1980s and 90s, influenced by the movements of free speech, feminism, and living close to the land. My ideas of gender were rooted in feminine strength, connected to the power of nature. As my love for nature, equality, and art have grown, becoming my own, I have realized the historical absence of female voices depicting our bodies and experiences. Now, as a woman and an artist, I want to reclaim the art historical nude with its powerful beauty, relationship to the natural world, and the ability to share a new, contemporary narrative.
Reclaiming the feminine body as containing autonomy, self-determination, and strength are important in my creations. Pulling from traditions of classical beauty and realism, while also using exaggerated gesture and body positivity is very important. I am continually looking to create figures with emotional strength, luscious sexuality, and evocative forms that share a kind of raw power and self-containment.”
Kadri Pärnamets and I met through the social network of the artists the gallery represents, which is often the way I’ve begun relationships that develop long term. This “net” is actually a form of nurturing that connects one artist to another, first through their professional art practice, and over time, growing to become increasingly personal.
We got to know Kadri during the summer she spent atProject Art working in the studio with Sergei Isupov in 2008. Both artists produced independent works, and while working side by side, they also created a collaborative series. Kadri’s biomorphic forms and Sergei’s painted details merged along the lines of the surrealist game,exquisite corpse, when one artist starts and the next one adds, and is something that came naturally to these two artists. Their international lives in Estonia and USA and time working at international symposia and residencies provided time for collaborations, and now with the dual residencies, they work side by side tackling domestic projects in both of their home environments.
During the course of Nature/Nurture, suddenly in quarantine with their daughter, Roosi who was schooling from home, Kadri’s work in the family studio became focused on a series of small works and collaborative home projects atProject Art.
Due to the extended run of Nature/Nurture, we have been given the opportunity to reflect on paths taken, connections made and shared experiences in our now weekly series of FC News & Stories with each issue focusing on an individual artist in the exhibition. The ON NURTURE statements written by each artist acknowledges family, artist mentors, education and, particularly for Kadri, recognition of nature as inspiration and metaphor for her sculptures. Focusing our attention on “small matters”, Kadri’s sculptures of roots and painted details of common insects and pollinators recognize the foundation of our ecosystem and our inter-dependence – something that has become more obvious to us all as we observe the impact of global warming and the spread of the coronavirus.
ON NATURE/NURTURE
“My new work is drawn from my roots. Focusing on the little simple things in nature, like bugs and their sounds, these things give us an understanding of time and space. Wherever I hear the sounds of the first fly in the spring or a mosquito buzz in summer I’m reminded of how important it is to keep balance in our surroundings and to appreciate the annual life cycles that begin from most ordinary and common things. Small matters.“
“It was Gertrude Stein, and then scholars of Stein and Hannah Arendt, who influenced my understanding of social space, political space and the household. One example is an essay about Stein and her experience of the private, household space as the space where the mind is truly free (the most creative and masterful). In this, Stein inverts conventional ideas wed to gendered, privileged (early Greek) structures that typed the household as utilitarian (a place of women, necessity and restriction), in contrast to the public (male) platform as the only space of freedom. This is a powerful assertion and essential to understand when we consider creative work that is either inspired by or, destined to operate in domestic spaces. When one takes home a creative work– one is really taking home one’s own imagination. And, if we follow Stein’s thinking, we are taking our imagination home to the freest space of our mind. Each time we engage this ‘work’, it reflects our imagination back to ourselves (anew). This is one way we stretch ourselves, one way we change – a form of nurture.
In the home-space, service, storage, and display are obvious realms for ceramic pottery form to operate. This trio has become a framework for recent inquiries into specific subjects (teapot, kettle, crock, box) and the groupings they generate, such as the extended series in the Nature/Nurture exhibition. I have been using these realms to think more specifically, about what ceramic work in this genre is trying to do. To serve (provide, assist), to store (hold, contain, preserve), to display (present, offer, remind) –are gestures in the world. To serve, to store, to display are gestures that occur on a small scale: individual, household level. And, they also occur on a large scale: societal, global level. Things and gestures occur in private spaces or highly-visible places. Service, storage and display impact the way use becomes leveraged against (an object’s) appearance and subject to influence how it is valued, it’s relevance or, whether it remains meaningful. Inquiry into these realms also connects to ideas about the household as a space of freedom. Such associations might influence the way we embody or make meaning of complex conditions …like existence or time for example: consider a teapot that is ‘performative’ over a short, finite duration (until the tea is drained), and the storage jar – in which stillness and silence can actively hold for durations longer than a life.”
We continue our series of news and stories about the twelve women artists in NATURE/NURTURE focusing our eighth in the edition on Rae Stern.
Rae Stern and I met through Ceramic Top 40, the 2013 survey of contemporary ceramics organized to address the absence of documented, comprehensive, media specific surveys during that time. With support from Belger Arts, the exhibition was presented at their newly opened, expansive space in Kansas City, MO and again, in 2014 at the newly opened gallery of Office of the Arts, Harvard Ceramics.
Stern’s work in CT40 show featured Web Souvenirs, a collaboration with Aya Margulis that used printed transfers on plates of images sourced from the internet. Attending the opening began a relationship with Belger Arts that led to the long term artist residency and enabled her to tackle the process of using photography, porcelain and lithopanes. The fall exhibition, In Fugue presented the resulting 30 vignettes as a complete installation with images sourced from the community. Selected individual works are featured in Nature/Nurture at Ferrin Contemporary and an online exclusive on ARTSY.
Nature/Nurture, like Ceramic Top 40, is a survey exhibition that explores and documents the work of a group of artists at a specific moment in time. The nurturing role of survey exhibitions becomes more evident as careers evolve.
Due to the extended run of Nature/Nurture, we have been given the opportunity to reflect on paths taken, connections made and shared experiences in our now weekly series of FC News & Stories, each issue focusing on an individual artist in the exhibition. The ON NURTURE statements by each artist acknowledges family, artist mentors, education, and, particularly in Rae Stern’s case, recognition of the importance of foundation support and artist residencies in the development of new works by individual artists.
Spending time at American art residencies has impacted my professional growth in unpredictable ways. Coming from a non-ceramic background, residencies allowed me to immerse myself in open-end exploration and experimentation with the medium. As an immigrant, spending time at these unique transient ecosystems offered an opportunity to build a professional network despite having graduated from a foreign school. One of the best experiences was the recent year-long residence at Belger Arts, KC, MO, during which I created the exhibition “Rae Stern: In Fugue”. The close mentorship from Evelyn Craft-Belger and the Belger Arts team was an empowering vote of confidence in my conceptual body of work as well as an unparalleled opportunity to step up the scope and technical complexity of my work.
Due to the extended run of Nature/Nurture, we had the opportunity to reflect on paths taken, connections made and shared experiences in our weekly series of FC News & Stories with each issue focusing on an individual artist in the exhibition. The ON NURTURE statements written by each artist acknowledges family, artist mentors, education and for Linda Sormin, a growing context for her work “Reshaping Rage” conceived of and titled prior to COVID19.
My first introduction to Linda was in 2008 when she started teaching at RISD but I didn’t fully understand her work until I experienced it in person when I met her at Greenwich House Pottery to see her solo installation, My Voice Changes When I Speak Your Language. Arriving with deeply held preconceptions of tightly controlled pedestal presentations, my viewpoint was permanently altered by seeing her bold, ambitious and gravity-defying use of the earthbound material – clay.
“Sormin practices the art of the slow burn– both literally… and also figuratively, in that her sprawling installations communicate a carefully controlled fury. It is a vivid, visual chamber music, in which not a single note of pragmatism, didacticism or functionalism can be heard… The visitor is encouraged to wander through this ceramic wonderland as if through an ancient forest.” –Glenn Adamson
We are pleased to announce that Linda Sormin will be included in MASS MoCA’s upcoming exhibition Sculpture and the Possibilities of Clay opening fall 2021 curated by Susan Cross, senior curator.
LINDA SORMIN ON NATURE/NURTURE: RESHAPING RAGE (WHEN REVENGE MAKES PERFECT SENSE)
The intricate hand-work in my visual art process embodies traditional Buddhist practices in Thailand & Laos. Living in both countries during my 20’s, I joined groups of women who created floral floats & wreaths in preparation for rituals and festivals. Mounds of fragrant material – orchids, marigolds, jasmine blossoms, bamboo leaves, string and gold leaf – surrounded us as we pieced together objects that offered intricacy, meaning and function beyond the everyday. My art practice is motivated by sensorial and poetic use of natural and found materials.
I experiment with the use and behavior of ceramics in the context of contemporary life and visual art. Ceramics is alert and nimble, evolving with the changing needs of cultures and communities. Clay is most familiar as a material used in traditional making. While deeply respecting these traditions, my curiosity and passion for working in clay spring from the mischief and delight I experience in inviting it to misbehave.
Toying with the rules of craft, I engage hands-on skill as language, subverting “fluency” and “correctness” in making. I explore the “wrong” way of doing things, striving to decolonize ceramic language – to open up new possibilities for ceramic encounters.
I roll and pinch clay into forms that melt, lean, lurch and dare you to approach. Shards, souvenirs, test tiles and trash are collected into ceramic structures. Nothing is thrown away (this immigrant lives in fear of waste). Old yogurt is used to start a new batch. What is worth risking for things to get juicy, rare, ripe? What might be discovered on the verge of things going bad?
I push clay bodies beyond temperatures they are able to withstand. In extreme heat, forms twist and slump – upright linear elements sway and “lose” their shape. In my sculptures, I stop just before structure gives way – pausing at the point between construction and collapse.
Fracture, “unbuilding” and re-situating ceramics are part of my process in creating large scale, site-responsive installations. Aggressive physical interactions with material and form embody the ways that humans de-construct and re-shape our lives in situations of upheaval, change and trauma. My sculptures and installations alternately hold and release these points of tension and precariousness.
The title of my sculpture in this exhibition, Reshaping Rage (when revenge makes perfect sense), is drawn from a recent New Yorker interview of Judith Butler. I am inspired by how Butler talks about rage as something that can be crafted:
“People in the world have every reason to be in a state of total rage. What we do with that rage together is important. Rage can be crafted—it’s sort of an art form of politics. The significance of nonviolence is not to be found in our most pacific moments but precisely when revenge makes perfect sense.” – Judith Butler Wants Us to Reshape Our Rage
The New Yorker, interview by Masha Gessen February 9, 2020
In the works presented in Nature/Nurture, Superior’s political views are expressed front and center. The large-scale porcelains use the format of Renaissance-era storytelling platters with wide-rimmed borders functioning as frames. Carefully placed medallions and miniature objects in relief are emblazoned with messages delivered in delicately, hand-painted, calligraphic, heavily-laden serif fonts. Whether she is channeling mother nature or calling on higher powers to impact the coming election, Superior speaks loudly in large, all caps type, using the language of decorative arts to shout her beliefs in beauty and humanity’s inherent goodness.
Originally a New Yorker, Mara has been living and working in Western Massachusetts since the 70’s. Her life and work are an ode to Western culture. While embracing traditional values of home and beauty, her work is from a modern perspective with a feminist nod to sensuality and pleasure. Whenever possible, she spends leisure time wandering the museums of the world– in person. But, now, quarantined at home, she is touring these museums virtually, attending online classes, watching zoom lectures, and enjoying her vast library of gorgeous art books. She shares these moments along with the slow progress of painting her next work All American on her Instagram feed.
Superior met Leslie Ferrin at the beginning of her career. Both were in school, Mara at UMASS in the MAT program, Leslie at Hampshire College. Mara’s husband, Roy Superior, was Ferrin’s professor. They shared studios as artists, founding Pinch Pottery in Northampton, followed by East Street Clay Studios (Hadley, MA). Their intertwined, four-decade-long careers have weathered many changes and challenges over 40 years. Roy passed away in 2013, truly a renaissance man, an artist, sculptor, musician and beloved professor for 40 years spending 16 years at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Mara continues to live in the New England farmhouse they slowly renovated together, surrounded by the furniture he built to hold her works, his drawings, their library and his “wunderkammer” collections. The studio filled with hand made, hand tools, is still intact.
Superior’s artwork features ideas gleaned from research and travel, uniting all her interests in thematic approaches to specific content. Like her exuberant country garden, her work is always a beautiful mix of heirlooms and hybrids, free-ranging and grafts that come from strong rootstock. Her mashup mix of source material is delivered as stylized interpretations through images and didactic text. Using a combination of folk traditions, references to the classics of Western art, she infuses not so veiled socio-political messages from a contemporary perspective. Her deep love of ancient Greek, Roman, Asian antiquities, European and Early American pottery and ceramics – these objects become the subject matter of collection platters that feature miniature versions of her coveted favorites.
“My passion for Art History and the History of the Decorative Arts has informed my work throughout my career. I seek to create beauty through the reinterpretation of historical inspirations synthesized with my own visual vocabulary and contemporary views. The resulting objects are rooted in the historical continuum.”
MARA SUPERIOR ON NATURE/NURTURE
“I was nurtured and encouraged to develop my imagination by my family and art teachers all the way through graduate school. Further enrichment came by way of my extraordinary good fortune to have been married to Roy Superior, a wonderful Artist and Professor of Art.
Over the course of my career, ceramics, art schools, museum curators and society have evolved to become more inclusive. Barriers have disintegrated, and currently, it feels as if ceramics is female-empowered given that so many of the magazine editors, gallerists and many curators are women.
For my entire professional career, I have been blessed to have only one brilliant and visionary female art dealer, Leslie Ferrin, of Ferrin Contemporary. Leslie has always encouraged my best work, offered me opportunities, and given me valued professional advice.
The choices that I employ regarding my own work for materials, content, palette and ornament might, by historical standards, be considered feminine work by nature. That label has never been a hindrance to me. I have had a very privileged life and career as an artist and am grateful for it all.
My piece in Ferrin Contemporary’s exhibition Nature/Nurture, Only One Planet Earth, is a commentary on the current predicament mankind is facing — Climate Change — and what to do about it. I can only hope that this universally shared crisis will bring out the best in us and bring humanity together to find remedies.”
We continue our series of news and stories about the twelve women artists in Nature/Nurture focusing on Tricia Zimic. We first met in the fall of 2018, as she arrived for a workshop at ProjectArt given by master figural sculptor, Sergei Isupov. Known as an accomplished painter, Zimic was inspired to work in porcelain after a visit to Dresden and the massive Meissen menagerie. Further research and visits to the extraordinary collections at theMFA Bostonand Wadsworth Atheneum led to Sins & Virtues, a series of related paintings and porcelain sculpture. The series draws inspiration from Meissen’s Monkey Orchestra, satirical figurines of fashionably dressed monkeys imitating human behavior. Zimic uses this tradition of anthropomorphism to deliver contemporary social commentary from a female perspective. Selected works from the series are introduced in Nature/Nurture and featured online in an exclusive on ARTSY.
TRICIA ZIMIC ON NATURE/NURTURE
“My porcelain sculpture series “Sins & Virtues” harkens back to the original Meissen masterworks by Johann Joachim Kändler, when men were the only artists recognized and producing great works. My work is the contemporary female extension of the Meissen heritage with a sensual touch. The Seven Deadly Sins and Virtues are a timeless quest for all storytellers, but women have been the primary vessels for passing stories down from one generation to another. Having started originally as a book illustrator, telling a story in clay not only comes naturally to me, but is a tradition and a legacy.”
Group show of contemporary artists who are breathing new life into the ceramic medium by reinvigorating age-old motifs, processes, and techniques. In 2017, artists were invited to respond to and produce new works that reference the art, objects, and social history of the collections.
at NCECA Conference
Convention Center Ballroom B
Thursday, March 15, 9am–12pm
Friday, March 16, 1–4pm
“I will demonstrate the construction of a large scale torso through the use of slabs. Utilizing proportional references the building strategy will involve developing individual elements that will later stack into a four- to five-foot-tall piece.”
ONGOING: CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: JUNGLA
solo exhibition at Alfred University Ceramic Art Museum, Alfred, NY
NCECA National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts, annual conference is in Pittsburgh, PA. Each year the host city provides collectors and artists the opportunity to see regional museum collections, explore established and pop-up galleries and meet up with colleagues. The exhibitions of ceramic sculpture and studio pottery are mounted throughout the city and provide an opportunity to survey current trends and discover young artists.
Showcases contemporary artists who are breathing new life into the ceramic medium by reinvigorating age-old motifs, processes, and techniques. Contemporary ceramicists were invited to respond to and produce new works that reference the art, objects, and social history of the collections at The Frick Pittsburgh, 7227 Reynolds Street, Pittsburgh, PA.
photo: Mara Superior, “Kangxi Period, Qing Dynasty/ A Collection” 2018.
Join us for a happy hour in The Frick Art Museum to celebrate the opening of this exhibition, Be among the first to see this unique exhibition, which features work from established and emerging artists. The evening will also feature gallery talks from exhibition curator Dawn Brean and exhibited artist Beth Lipman (pictured). Click for more.
photo: Beth Lipman working at John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
FERRIN CONTEMPORARY’S SQUARE SHOP
Browse our eclectic selection of small works by resident and gallery artists and our diverse collection of books and catalogs.
Presenting newly available American studio pottery from private collections and artists studios.
Pincus: Channeling Josiah Wedgwood
lecture at NYC&GF with Peter Pincus
Friday, January 19, 12pm
Artist Peter Pincus speaks about his research 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.
Ferrin Contemporary presents selected works by women artists whose primary medium is clay. On view in the gallery and online, we introduce new works by emerging and established artists along with masterworks available from private collections and artist archives.
ON VIEW IN THE GALLERY
Ferrin Contemporary
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA
through Dec 31, 2017 Click to view exhibition.
Kardri Pärnamets’ biomorphic forms are a canvas for paintings drawn from art history’s iconic images of women. Currently on view in THE WOMEN at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA.
Featured in EXPOSED: Heads, Busts, and Nudes
our recent exhibition of figural ceramic sculpture from 1965 to the present featuring masterworks by noted American and British sculptors.
Introducing artist Crystal Morey to be featured in
Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists at The NY Ceramics & Glass Fair and The Frick Pittsburgh in 2018
Crystal Morey, “Entangled Wonders: Across a Divide” 2017–8, work in progress. Click for more work by Crystal Morey.
The Margaret Pennington Collection includes works for sale by pioneering female artists Ruth Duckworth, Viola Frey, Elsa Rady, Toshiko Takaezu, and Patti Warashina.
Lecture Saturday, January 21, 4:00 pm “American Studio Pottery — Making of a Movement”
Join Linda Sikora and Mark Shapiro in a conversation about 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.
Visit our square shop to purchase available works by Laura Andreson, Kim Dickey, Karen Karnes, Linda Sikora, Jenny Mendez, Dorothy Hafner, and Kadri Pärnamets.
Curators and Artists in Conversation at the
New York Ceramics and Glass Fair
Friday, January 19th
“Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists”
Dawn Brean with Crystal Morey, 2:00 pm
“Time Travel in the Period Room”
with Elisabeth Agro, Barry Harwood, Sarah Carter; 4:00 pm
Women in Ceramics Vol. 45 No. 1
In this issue of Studio Potter: nine essays remembering the life of Karen Karnes, a deep investigation of the legacy of women in wood-firing, several narratives about artists’ personal journeys in clay, artist profiles, and international perspectives. Click for info on Studio Potter. Click to request complimentary issue online.
Ferrin Contemporary presents selected works by women artists whose primary medium is clay. On view in the gallery and online, we introduce new works by emerging and established artists along with masterworks available from private collections and artist archives.
ON VIEW at Ferrin Contemporary
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA
through Dec 31, 2017
Join us in the gallery at Ferrin Contemporary
Connoisseurship: Buy, Sell, Give on Sunday, July 10, 2016, 3pm
1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA Click here to RSVP.
CLAY IS HOT! — CONNOISSEURSHIP: BUY, SELL, GIVE is a moderated panel discussion among art professionals and collectors presented in the Ferrin Contemporary gallery at 1315 MASS MoCA Way in North Adams, on Sunday, July 10, 2016, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Moderator Leslie Ferrin will lead panelists in a conversation-style discussion and exchange with the audience about issues surrounding changes taking place in and impacts on public and private collections. This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested.
Ferrin explained “We are in the midst of ‘The Great De-accession,’ the result of a generation of baby boomer artists and collectors downsizing simultaneously. Starting with the question of what to do ‘when the kids don’t want it,’ those who are in the midst of this dilemma are leading the way and finding successful approaches to shifting of collections, archives, and libraries. In the process, a by-product is the development of a new generation of collectors, curators, and art professionals who are involved in exploring various strategies to build collections and establish legacies for the artwork of the late 20th and early 21st century.“
The panel will address issues especially relevant to those who wish to sell and give and will discuss the challenges of sharing information about their collections. For many who were born before the computer was a commonly used tool, it is daunting to prepare documentation that establishes provenance and insures their legacy in what is now predominantly a digital world. For those who bought (and sold) at the peak of the market, the results from artwork sold at auctions now can be quite surprising as they create first time public records for living artists and establish new, lower values that are subsequently used in appraisals. While sellers are carefully considering their options, buyers are finding collecting in the 21st century increasingly easy due to the level playing field created by the Internet where access to information and markets are readily found with a Google search.
This conversation about how these trends are impacting each of the panelists and their answers to “what to do when the kids don’t want it” will also be available as a video on YouTube.
THE PANELISTS
The panel will consist of Doug Anderson, art collector; Mark Leach, independent curator and author; Suzanne Ramljak, art historian, author, editor, and independent curator; and Emily Zilber, Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts, MFA Boston.
DOUG ANDERSON
Dale and Doug Anderson began collecting studio glass in the middle of the 1970s. This led to an exploration of the Studio Crafts movement as well as Northwest Coast tribal art and Chinese cultural relics. At the turn of the 21st century, Dale began to collect contemporary photography (primarily Chinese) with an eye attuned to subject matter that both attracts and repels viewers. Dale was the primary collector with Doug playing a supporting role as an activist on behalf of artists through his positions on the boards of Creative Glass Center of America and the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass. As their collection grew and Dale’s interests changed, Doug’s role was to arrange for donations and sales of more than 1,500 works from their collection to 14 museums in the United States and London. Doug and Dale were both members of the Board of Trustees at Pilchuck Glass School for 15 years and co-founded AIDA, the Association of Israel’s Decorative Arts.
MARK LEACH
A native of Pittsfield, Mark Leach is a contemporary arts curator, author, and consultant. He was formerly the Executive Director of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was the Founding Director of the Mint Museum of Craft & Design. Mr. Leach is a former trustee of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass and the American Craft Council and served on the Advisory Board of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). Leach has served as curator, essayist, and editor throughout his career. He has held curatorial posts in contemporary art in Arkansas, Montana, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Ohio. He has authored many articles for arts publications and published numerous texts featuring individual artists and craft genres. His book Michael Lucero: Sculpture 1976–1995, established this artist as a leader in the field of figural sculpture.
SUZANNE RAMLJAK
Suzanne Ramljak, an art historian, writer, and curator, is currently editor of Metalsmith magazine and curator at the American Federation of Arts, New York. Ramljak was formerly editor of Sculpture magazine and of Glass Quarterly, as well as associate editor of American Ceramics. She has authored several books and catalogues, among them Crafting a Legacy: Contemporary American Crafts in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Her new book series, Art à la Carte, will launch next year with the first volume, Busted: Contemporary Sculpture Busts. Ramljak has been a contributor to numerous other publications including Objects and Meaning: Readings that Challenge the Norm; Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft, and Design; and Innovation and Change: Ceramics from Arizona State University. Ramljak has worked in the curatorial departments of the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Among the exhibitions she has curated are: “Elie Nadelman: Classical Folk,” “A Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th-Century Art,” and “Seductive Matter.”
EMILY ZILBER
Emily Zilber is the first Ronald L. and Anita C. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is responsible for the MFA’s contemporary decorative arts program. Prior to joining the MFA, Zilber was Assistant Curator at Cranbrook Art Museum at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She has edited and written for numerous publications; speaks regularly on topics related to 20th and 21st century decorative arts, craft, and design; and is a founding member of the Boston-based consortium The Commonwealth of Craft.
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