The 20th Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour This Weekend in Cummington

July 25–26, 10am–5pm | Cummington, MA | Free

The Hilltown 6 Pottery Tour celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend. Ferrin Contemporary and Project Art, at 1315 Main Street in Cummington, are marking the occasion with an Open House, a public talk, and the launch of a new digital resource documenting two decades of ceramic practice in the region.

The location is a little west of our usual coverage area but well worth the trip.

The tour event began modestly in 2005, when six ceramic artists in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts opened their studios to the public for a weekend. It has since grown into a regional destination that draws collectors, curators, and visitors specifically for the access it offers to working studios. Over 20 years, the area has developed an identity as a center for independent potters and ceramic artists, sustained by artist collaboration and long-term relationships between the people who live and work here.

That history is the subject of the public talk on Saturday, July 25 from 1:30 to 2:30pm: "A Field Guide to Ceramics in Western Massachusetts." Since 2006, Project Art has hosted interns and residencies for international clay artists in Cummington, a town with its own long history as a haven for artists and writers. Drawing on more than 20 in-person interviews with multiple generations of potters and sculptors who settled in the region, Alfred University scholar Shay Ye—Project Art's first experiential learning intern through a partnership with Alfred's Museum Studies Program—traced the connections between artists, their apprenticeships, shared studios, and overlapping communities, building a timeline, a "family tree," a map, and an index. Ferrin Contemporary web designer Isabel Twanmo built a digital guide from that research. It's now live on the Project Art website and will continue to grow through community submissions. RSVP for the talk is recommended.

Both galleries stay open 10am to 5pm both days of the tour, with a substantial rotation of work on view. Ferrin Contemporary is showing new 2026 sculptures by Kadri Pärnamets, work spanning Sergei Isupov's 2022, 2025, and ongoing exhibitions, plates and platters from Paul Scott's "New American Scenery" series, selections from the gallery's "Our America/Whose America?" exhibitions alongside new work by Russell Biles, and pieces from Mara Superior's 2025 solo show at the Shelburne Museum. Print-on-ceramic work by Connor Czora, Courtney M. Leonard, and Jacqueline Bishop is also on view, along with pieces from private collections including Karen Karnes, Anne Kraus, Akio Takamori, and Beatrice Wood—a substantial cross-section of contemporary and historical studio ceramics under one roof.

Outdoors, a new Sergei Isupov animal sculpture has been installed in the gardens, alongside his existing public works "Miss Comet" and "Everything is Upside Down," visible from Main Street.

For anyone making a full day of it, Cummington's Art Walk runs along Main Street the same weekend, and the William Cullen Bryant Homestead and Kingman Tavern Historical Museum are both nearby. The broader Hilltown History Trail: Museums & Culture Tour runs the following Saturday, August 1.

Project Art & Ferrin Contemporary, 1315 Main St., Cummington, MA. More at ferrincontemporary.com.