Tag: Exhibition

Deb Read Named Goetemann Artist in Residence at Rocky Neck

Posted on by James Eves

Does Art Have to Be an Object?

Deborah Read Named Goetemann Artist-in-Residence at Rocky Neck, October 2025

Gloucester, MA — This October, Gloucester-based artist Deborah Read joins the Goetemann Artist Residency at Rocky Neck Art Colony with a deceptively simple but urgent inquiry: Does art have to be an object?

For Read, the answer has long been “not necessarily.” Her interdisciplinary practice—spanning installation, performance, writing, and collaborative projects—frames art as an act of generosity. As co-founder of Gallery RAG in Gloucester and the international foundation Art+Everywhere, she has created platforms that dissolve boundaries between artist and audience, centering collaboration, care, and mutual support.

Read’s projects invite participation and dialogue: immersive performances with Coco Haze that turn galleries into collective canvases, hybrid works with poet Joel Iwaskiewicz where language becomes performance, and community-based installations like Tejido Vivo, which weave craft traditions into living art. In each case, connection outweighs the object itself.

Her foundation Art+Everywhere embodies this vision, described by Read as “a global, artist-led ecosystem built on mutual generosity.” Its mission: expand access to funding, programming, and creative opportunities while removing barriers of gatekeeping institutions. “The challenge is not scarcity, but activation,” Read explains. “Compassion already exists—in hundreds of hands and eyes—ready to help.”

At Rocky Neck, her residency continues this ethos—not as a retreat into isolation, but as a public process of listening, generating, and sharing. “The question is never just ‘what did I make,’ but ‘what did we generate together?’ Generosity is generative—it can enrich lives, spaces, and even economies.”

Public Programs:

  • Artist Talk — October 5 from 4-5PM at Rocky Neck Cultural Center
  • Open Studios — October 27 and 29, from 12-2PM at Gallery RAG
  • Culminating Talk — October 30 at 6PM at Gallery RAG

For Rocky Neck—a community shaped by both maritime labor and artistic innovation—Read’s residency is both a philosophical question and a practical experiment: What if art is not possession, but presence? Not scarcity, but abundance?

Cove Gallery presents: Six Ways of Seeing the World July 10- August 3

Posted on by James Eves

Six Ways of Seeing the World July 10-  August 3, 2025

Cove Gallery:  July 10-August 3, 2025

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 10, 5–7 PM
Closing Event & Artist Talks: Thursday, July 31, 5–7 PM

Curated by Gabrielle Rossmer
Featuring: Kathy Archer, Paul Cary Goldberg, Donald Gropman, Sonya Gropman, Gabrielle Rossmer, and Constance Vallis

In a time marked by uncertainty and transformation, six artists come together to explore how art can serve as both personal expression and cultural reflection. Six Ways of Seeing the World, curated by Gabrielle Rossmer, offers a compelling look at how visual art helps us process, respond to, and shape our understanding of the contemporary world.

Through diverse media—painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, and collage—these six artists examine the intersections of inner life and external forces. While their approaches and mediums vary, they share a commitment to introspection, craft, and a meaningful engagement with today’s fractured landscape.

·       Kathleen Gerdon Archer conveys emotional depth and existential searching through paintings of ambiguous, floating figures. Her palette swings from bleak to bright, mirroring the emotional tension between despair and fleeting hope.

·       Paul Cary Goldberg presents black, white, and gray-toned photographs in an installation format for the first time. His long-running exploration of personal and social narrative gains new form, offering a contemplative, immersive experience.

·       Constance Vallis draws from spiritual practice, working in intuitive response to the present moment. Her process-driven artwork reflects a meditative connection to feeling and form.

·       Donald Gropman offers meticulously rendered black-and-white drawings that sharply critique societal absurdities. With wit and precision, his work blends fantasy and commentary.

·       Sonya Gropman transforms urban detritus—found while walking through New York City—into layered, stitched collages. Her work gives new life to discarded materials, turning the overlooked into poignant, abstract reflections of a shifting world.

·       Gabrielle Rossmer, both curator and participant, presents sculpture that ranges from figurative to abstract. Her work examines form, color, and narrative gesture, always grounded in a personal response to the world around her.

Together, these artists demonstrate six unique but interconnected ways of seeing. Their works push the boundaries of their chosen media, reflecting on today’s world with vulnerability, insight, and artistic rigor.

About the Venue
Located in the heart of Gloucester’s historic Rocky Neck Art Colony, the Cove Gallery is a dynamic exhibition space dedicated to showcasing the work of contemporary artists. Surrounded by working studios and a vibrant waterfront community, the gallery provides an inspiring setting for artists and visitors alike, continuing the area’s rich legacy as one of the oldest continuously operating art colonies in the United States.

Admission is free and open to the public.