Those who make political hay by promoting the fiction that liberals "hate America" would have been discomfited to hear the art photographer Susan Mikula and the art potter Frances Palmer sing the praises of American industry on Saturday night, July 10, at the Ferrin Gallery's Dish and Dine event.
After Mikula's longtime domestic partner, Rachel Maddow of MSNC News, toasted the honorees, Mikula spoke with nothing but regret (PCBs notwithstanding) about the diminished presence of the General Electric Corporation in Pittsfield, the subject of her elegiac show, American Vale. She then told of her own experience with the positive impact manufacturing once had on American life: "It got me an eduction."
Frances Palmer was already a distinguished art potter—her exquisite flower-filled, hand-thrown pieces dotted the center of the long banquet table—when she asked century-old Buffalo Pottery, makers of diner dishes, to produce from her handmade clay molds a line of high quality dinnerware. Her interactions with the workers at the factory have been life-enhancing for her, she says, and the workers seem to enjoy making something so refined. There was nothing corporate about the "dine" portion of the evening, catered by Mezze of Williamstown. Everyone raved about how beautiful the food looked on Frances Palmer plates and how un-mass-produced Mezze's locavore cuisine tasted.
Artist Douglass Truth and gallery co-owner Leslie Ferrin; Patrick Hanavan and attorney Paul Rapp
RI Cultural Correspondant Bess Hochstein and Pittfield's Culture Minister Megan Whilden; photographer Monika Sosnowski and sculptor Peter Dudek
Jerry Smith and MASS MoCA's Katherine Myers; Jane Newberg and Donna Centracchio
Debbie Melamed, Vicki Passman, Marla Gayle and Melanie Scheider
Michael Boroniec and Leslie Ferrin; Hannah Wohl, Rachel Maddow and Charles Wohl
Kipp Lynch and Berkshire Museum director Stuart Chase; Jim Nejaime and Ferrin gallery co-owner Donald Clark
Ruth Hanavan and Heidi Nejaime; Sasha Yanow and Maris Yanow
Susan Mikula, Frances Palmer and Diane White
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
