Friday, September 30th, 2022
Artists from the Western Massachusetts Present Their Work:
Aston McCullough, Sunny Allis, Sergei Isupov, Becky Waterhouse, and Sarah Stefana Smith.
Cummington Community House
33 Main Street, Cummington
Presentations by the featured artists begin at 6:30 in the Community House
Project Art 01026
54 Main Street
Project Art is open to visitors for the gallery and studio from 5:00-5:30, and the 8 PM reception is also taking place in Project Art.
Project Art is the location for the reception – it is the live / work space for Leslie Ferrin, Sergei Isupov, Kadri Parnamets. The building houses the library, offices for Ferrin Contemporary, a seasonal gallery, teaching studio and offers short term artist residencies for work in ceramics.
5:00 Project Art open for visitors – gallery and studio
5:30 Art Walk – REFLECTIONS on Main Street – Cultural District
6:00 Dance Performance – outside of the Community House
6:30 Art Salon Presentations – 5 artists
8:00 – 9:00 Reception at Project Art – Cider and Donuts Served!
Sunny Allis (they/them) is a trans non-binary multidisciplinary artist. Many of their projects focus on connection through various forms of play and storytelling. Sunny studied directing and design for theater at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and received their MFA from California Institute of the Arts in Integrated Media. At Occidental College, the City of Santa Monica, and Kidspace Children’s Museum, among other organizations, they have created several interactive public art installations that take people through imaginary worlds and kinetic environments. Sunny recently released a gender-inclusive, bilingual children’s book called “Hooray, What A Day!/¡Viva, Qué Día!”, as well as a dance remix album of lesbian anthems from the 90s called LEZ DANCE. https://sunnyallis.com/
Aston McCullough is a contemporary/improvisational dancer and dance maker. He has performed in the United States and abroad (live and on film) for artists including conceptual experimental choreographer, Koosil-ja. McCullough holds Ph.D. and M. Phil. degrees in Kinesiology from Columbia University; an M.S. in Applied Statistics from Columbia University Teachers College; an M.A. in Dance Education from New York University; a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College; a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from Laban Dance Conservatoire. He completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Kinesiology at UMass Amherst in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences.
Becky Waterhouse is a visual artist and community organizer in North Adams, MA. Her work in illustration, painting, and public art are visually minimalist and often collaborative, working closely with others to realize their developing projects. Her creative practice prioritizes collective engagement and centers the reciprocal relationship between public spheres and the self, in an effort to confront systems of oppression and build spaces of liberation. Becky is currently a Co-Director of Common Folk Artist Collective, a group of 40+ emerging creators building an inclusive shared ownership model. beckywaterhouse.com
Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor represented by Ferrin Contemporary, and is internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional painterly narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramic materials using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with traditional paintings using stains and clear glaze. https://sergeiisupov.com/
Sarah Stefana Smith is an artist-scholar based between Massachusetts and D.C. who works predominantly in photography, sculpture and installation. Abstraction, materiality, space and ecology are explored using barrier materials—deer, bird, and safety netting, chicken wire and fishing line—to comment on boundaries between human and species, lines of demarcation around difference—race, gender, sexuality, and how modes of difference are used to constitute and congeal belonging. Smith has exhibited in spaces, including IA&A at Hillyer and DC Art Center (Washington, D.C.), Arlington Art Center (Arlington. VA), Borland Project Space (State College, PA), Waller Gallery and Gallery CA (Baltimore, MD), David Spectrum (Toronto, ON), and Hammond House (Atlanta, GA). Smith was an artist-in-resident at the University of Pittsburgh with The Creativities Project (2020) and has published writing in the Journal of Women & Performance (2018), The Black Scholar (2019) and Handbook on Race in the Arts in Education (2018) among a few. Sarah is currently an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Mount Holyoke College. www.sarahstefanasmith.com