The Slow Money Conference in Shelburne, Vermont was an enthusiastically attended event with over 600 activists, organizers, investors and farmers participating. The primary focus of the 2 days of talks, sessions, tours and networking was food, food production and investment strategies for food. Organic and local, small scale farms are the major players in this arena.

Organized and inspired by Woody Tasche, author of the book Slow Money, the slow money movement is in keeping with the slow food movement.

Woody Tasche and Martin Ping, executive director of Hawthorne Valley Farm

A rousing talk by Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stoneyfield Farms inspired the group with he called “pathological optimism”.

As an artist and small business owner, I view the slow money movement as growing evidence that a critical mass is being achieved, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but that there are growing numbers of participants in solution driven action. Call me a pathological optimist!

Part of my interest and commitment in the sustainability movement is to continue to emphasize the importance of how and where things are made, by whom and of what. Food is clearly at the center of the movement but stuff is the next tier of importance in bringing economic sustainability into being. Our goods support us in ways we often take for granted. We need to bring our attention to this realm as well.

Lilacs outside the studio door

Spring has fully sprung in upstate New York. It was close to 80*F this past weekend! I spent time in the garden with my assistant, James, a high school student with a passion for art. We finished reclaiming about 30 gallons of fine porcelain slip and then went outside in the glorious warm sunshiny day to prepare garden beds for spring planting after Mother’s Day. I am planning a somewhat better organized entrance to the studio this summer. In years past, I’m afraid the outside has taken a back seat to the endeavors on the inside. Being open for visitors one day a week has been on the agenda for over 6 years now, starting Memorial Day weekend and running through Labor Day. I post open studio hours Saturdays from 12noon  - 4PM. This year I am making it more welcoming.

I have Thomas Hobbs “Shocking Beauty” in my shopping cart at Amazon. Maybe this year will be the one that takes my garden to the next level!

Come visit on Saturdays this summer if you are upstate. I’d love to see you! I will be serving coffee and tea and bite of something delicious.

I’m leaving, on a jet plane…. Tomorrow I pack up and head to Austin, Texas where the craziest tech, music and film conference/festival/all out creative bash takes place. The annual South by Southwest (affectionately called SXSW) begins today. I have the great good fortune to be speaking on a panel Monday, March 15th with Hugh MacLeod, John Unger and Amrita Chandra. Hugh and John are both artists and Amrita is an art dealer and forward thinker re. art and the web. She is also the organizer of the panel.

What the 4 of us have most in common, besides the whole art thing, is the passion to reconcile art and commerce. In an honest and upfront manner. Art and commerce have been uncomfortable bed fellows for many people over the eons. The love of money and all that. We will argue and explain how that is pure rubish and it is the empowered artist, making a living, that will truly change the game.

If you are at the event this year, do stop by. Otherwise, bug me to write more.

Saturday, February 20th, 5:30-9pm

$35, limit 40 guests. BYOB.

For reservations: (413) 442-1622 or info@ferringallery.com

DISH & DINE @ Ferrin Gallery - the first in a series of evening dinners in the gallery pairing local food with local artists.
In conjunction with Jason Houston’s solo show of photography, Family of Mine,the gallery teams up with our new neighbor THE MARKET for a catered dinner featuring a menu from locally grown produce served on dinnerware by MARY ANNE DAVIS.The evening will include a viewing of new work from his farm series, a visual presentation and dinner conversation with JASON HOUSTON based on contemporary photography, documentary, and personal perspectives.
ONVIEW: JASON HOUSTON Photography: Food and Farming

Jason Houston, an independent documentary photographer, focuses on social and environmental issues across the country and around the world. He has photographed the small family farms throughout the Berkshire region for over a decade and traveled to over a dozen countries documenting community-based conservation in the developing world. His environmental portraits, landscapes, and elemental details focus the viewer on the global issues and processes that define how we live on this planet. Houston is a frequent contributor to Berkshire Living Magazine and serves as the photo editor of Orion Magazine.
DISH – Mary Anne Davis out of nearby Chatham, NY makes functional porcelain dishware intended for daily use. She shares thoughts on making and using functional tableware – “Art and life come together at a table. Using handmade dishes to set a table provides the opportunity to express private creativity: ephemeral and memorable. The social fabric, the relationships built one meal at a time becomes the real art and the meal has an energy of a higher order. Conversation is magic, bringing each individual at the table into a personal bond.”
DINE – The Market, a new neighborhood corner store, creates a dinner based on the range of products carried at the store.

MENU:Equinox Farms mixed greens w/ balsamic vinaigrette

Seasonal Root vegetable puree

Woodstock Farms mustard-rubbed roast pork loin

Seasonal grilled local vegetables

Homemade mini-cupcakes, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert

(from the Ferrin Gallery website)

Cyinders and Ovoids, 2010

Here is what I shipped to them today. The tallest piece is 23″ high. I am pleased with this collection : the scale, the whimsy, the color. These shapes inspire me to do more sort of tree like shapes. Thank you  guys!

MAD and Kathryn Scott at work

Interior designer Kathryn Scott spent the day here yesterday working on a project. It is my great pleasure to occasionally work with another artist or designer on a special project. Collaboration is an especially exciting way of working. I approach collaboration from a number of angles. The easiest way to enter into a collaboration with me is to aquire a set of dishes and set the table, prepare incredible food and have friends and family over to share. That is how I collaborate with most people. However, on occasion a designer or artist happens to be interested in entering into a more specific collaborative relationship. Skill and production capacity are rare birds in the US. If they are here in abundance they are shy. Look for them, find them, use them. Artisanal production is the soul of any culture, be it food or art. You must use it to help it flourish.

Kathryn Scott’s interiors are sublime. It is an honor to work with her and I will post outcomes of the project as they develop.

Stack of colorful udon bowls

Last night I finished loading a kiln and today it is cooling. It has the end of a set of dishes, I will post later, and 5 new vases for some designer friends of mine in Philadelphia. Fury Design. Fabulous Jim and Eric who I have known more than 10 years. They have been a catalyst for my dinnerware and have now inspired this latest collection of vases. Yay! Fury Design!!!!

I am working on drawing an hour a day, mostly birds, but also the circulatory system and nervous system. Will start posting soon. Am thinking about SXSW and am sending some work to a show in Austin to be held during the conference. Thinking about sending works on paper. Less fragile than ceramics.

I just love this shot of udon bowls stacked in the sunshine. Feels warm on a cold day. Hope your day is going well. Enjoy as much of it as you can.

When I got my advance copy there was a note inside. It seemed written for me. It suggested I bookmark page 101, the chapter on resistance. Of course, I turned right to it. If you are a long time fan of Godin’s, its message isn’t really new. But it is honed. Steven Pressfield talks about the resistance in his book the “War of Art“, a book Godin references.

Seth’s overarching message is to blaze a trail. Make things happen. Take a risk. Get into trouble. Go out on a limb. All things artists do everyday. His thesis, that we are all artists rings true to the idealist in love with an alternative to current trends. A subterfuge to the sheep mentality. Do not go quietly into the night. Do something. Ship it. Do it again. Don’t follow a map. Explore. Invent. Create something different.

Marina Abramovic is a performance artist with a long history of endurance performance art. She is having a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York In March. Mentioning her in the same article with Seth Godin is not such a stretch. Seth’s premise, that we are all artists, was originally proclaimed by avantguard artist, Joseph Beuys in the 1970’s and his work was among the most influential of any single artist in the 20th century. Abramovic met him early in her career and “Beuys helped me get invitations to perform in Europe because he liked me and thought me crazy”. (Yablonsky, Artnews, Dec 2009) Abramovic says “Going to the studio everyday is a really bad habit-it’s like being an employee,” she says “You have to live life. And from life comes ideas.” (Belcove, W, Jan, 2010)

These two events, Seth’s book and Abramovic’s furtherance upon the road of creation and discovery, point to a direction for making, doing, and thinking which I find very useful. It is basically to have serious courage; don’t be afraid to believe in something and make it happen. Over and over and over again.

A recent trip to New York City came with a cultural treasure trove of exhibitions. A couple I want to share with you here include the New York Ceramics Fair at the National Academy Museum and Art School and the Bauhaus exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

From the New York Ceramics Fair, the work I found particularly interesting and inspiring is that of Clarice Cliff, British artist/designer whose career spanned 1922-1963.

Here are some images of Cliff’s work from Cara Antiques. These pieces were designed by Cliff then decorated by “paintresses”, a term used in the industry. Her designs were so popular that at one time the paintresses numbered upwards of 100.

In September of 2009, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened its ‘New Ceramic Galleries’ and Cilff’s work was chosen to be included.

The Bauhaus show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is a bit overwhelming. I attended a day long symposium in addition to seeing the exhibition. I learned a great deal more about this very famous institution. Mies van der Rohe said the Bauhaus was an idea, not an institution. I love that.

Walter Gropius's "Idea Organization of the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar", 1923

The exhibition is a wonderful expression of student experiments from Weimar, Dessau and Berlin.  Joseph Albers, after enrolling as a student in the Weimar incarnation of the Bauhaus became a professor in 1925 at Dessau. When the school closed in 1933, he and Anni Albers went to North Carolina to teach at the Black Mountain College. Black Mountain College, a direct descendant of the Bauhaus, wanted to send out to the world ethical change agents.

My main take away from both exhibits was that skill is what will make the difference. Technology and industry are tools only. It is the skill of the craftsman that leads us out of the darkness. I might add that no amount of cleverness, posturing or acrobatics replaces the need for skill in the development of human potential. Skill forms the foundation of a truly independent mind that can solve a problem and have the patience and depth of character to surmount any number of obstacles.