Montserrat College of Art

Poets in Your Neighborhood
2025-04-09 - 2025-04-29 | Paul M. Scott Library, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Kevin Carey & JD Debris
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
2:50–3:40pm

Kevin Carey‘s books include the poetry collections: The One Fifteen to Penn Station, Jesus Was a Homeboy, Set in Stone, the co-written Olympus Heights, and the collaboration Revere Beach Stories: Poems and Photographs. He has published three works of fiction: The Beach People, Murder in the Marsh and a new novel Junior Miles and the Junkman (Regal House / Fitzroy Books) which won the Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers and has been chosen tor the Pen Faulkner Writers in the Schools Program in Washington, DC. Kevin is the co-founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. A new co-directed film MFA: The Terminal Degree, a murder mystery comedy, will premiere April 30th at Cinema Salem, Salem, MA. Kevincareywriter.com

JD Debris is a poet, fiction writer, and musician. His debut book of poems, THE SCORPION’S QUESTION MARK, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Donald Justice Prize. He received his MFA from New York University, where he was a Goldwater Fellow. He has received the DISQUIET Luso-American Fellowship, and has been named to several “Best New Writers” lists, including Ploughshares’ Emerging Writers and Narrative’s 30 Below 30. His poetry and fiction appears in outlets such as Kenyon Review and Poetry Daily, as well as in the anthology 9×5 ( Only Human Press, 2022) alongside his friends from Salem State University. He leads the indie-jazz band JD Debris & The Melee, whose single, WHO SHOT ALEXIS ARGUELLO? is available on all streaming platforms.

M.P. Carver & Jack Giaour
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
M.P. Carver is a poet and visual artist from Salem, MA. She is Director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, miCrO-Founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag, and teaches creative and digital writing at Salem State University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, Mantis, Jubilat, and Love’s Executive Order, among others. She has received funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Essex Community Foundation. In 2023 her poem “In Vitro” was named a finalist in the Connecticut River Review’s Experimental Poetry Contest, and in 2022 her poem “You & God & I” was awarded the New England Poetry Club’s E.E. Cummings Prize. Her chapbook, Selachipmorpha, was published by Incessant Pipe in 2015, and a chapbook with Lily Poetry Review Books, Hard Up, was released in 2025. More at mpcarver.com.

Jack Giaour (he/him/his) is a gay, trans male poet and writer. His manuscript hunting the bugs won the 2023/2024 BOOM Chapbook Contest, hosted by Bateau Press, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Happy Little Poetry Comix, theHythe, and Nixes Mate Review, among other journals. He has been a reader tor Abode Press, Uncharted Magazine, and TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, taught workshops for MassPoetry and the Belgrade Art Studio, and is a member of the all-trans poetry collective Relatively Queer. He sunlights as software manager for a steel fabricator just north of Boston. Visit him virtually at jackgiaour.com.

Dawn Paul & Laurie Rosen
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
Dawn Paul is currently at work on a series of poems about North Shore’s Great Salt Marsh. She is the author of the novels The Country of Loneliness and Still River. Her poetry chapbook What We Still Don’t Know examines the contradictions in the life of scientist Carl Linnaeus, originator of the Linnaean biological naming system used worldwide today. Paul has been a recipient of residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Ragdale Foundation, the Spring Creek Project, Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories and Isles of Shoals Marine Labs. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, journals and most recently, Orion Magazine. Also look for it engraved in the sidewalk on Cabot Street in downtown Beverly!

Laurie Rosen divides her time between the Massachusetts coast and a home tucked into a Vermont hollow. Her poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Peregrine, Gyroscope Review, Zig Zag Lit Mag, OddBall magazine, The Inquisitive Eater, a journal of The New School, One Art a journal of poetry and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts. Recently she had three poems published online with The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders, a companion to the First National Nature Assessment (NNAl) that was to be released in a final report in 2026. NNAl has now been discontinued per order of our current administration.

Montserrat Community Poetry Reading
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
2:50–3:40pm
Sign up for the Open Mic, celebrate Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day, or just cheer on the readers!

Senior Thesis: Senior Studio Arts Seminar Group 2
2025-04-02 - 2025-04-05 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
All Galleries
March 31 – April 5, 2025
Opening reception, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 5:00-7:00pm

Montserrat Gallery
disgusting // divine

Spencer Kall
Rebecca Killion
Abigail Phelps
Julia Siegert
Louis Staffieri

Shlosberg Gallery
disgusting//divine

Finnley Lewis

301 Windows Gallery
Autoromanticism

Erin Survilas

Bare Gallery
We Couldn’t Think of a Title

Casper Childs
Domenic Karis

Storage Container
disgusting//divine

Nik Barry

Montserrat Gallery: disgusting//divine
Our work reimagines traditional techniques through a modern lens, utilizing materials as a means of self-reflection and personal expression. By pushing the boundaries of painting and sculpture, we challenge expectations, questioning how material and form can reflect both individual and collective experience.

Shlosberg Gallery: disgusting//divine
My identity is something that has been permanently formed and shaped by everyone I’ve ever interacted with. I make art to reverse that control–I allow people to interact with a part of myself, and leave an impact on them. I am not the rock on the shore, battered and smoothed by the waves; I am the ocean itself–ever-shifting and impossible to contain. Each piece discusses a different aspect of my identity, and the different ways I have been formed into who I am today.
Take the time to get to know me, and maybe you’ll get to know yourself too.
This exhibition is entirely interactive.

301 Windows Gallery: Autoromanticism
I am a feminist oil painter who focuses on painting the figure in a contemporary sense with historical references. With this show in particular I focused on themes of self-care, mental health, womanhood, and body neutrality. I wanted these works to convince the public to view their bodies with romanticism towards themselves, instead of viewing their body as “good” or “bad”. Bodily neutrality expresses a type of satisfaction within themselves instead of making the attempt to live up to the pressure of constant body positivity and allowing ourselves to feel a sense of normality within ourselves and our bodies functions. I also referenced traditionally “female” mediums like fabric and ribbon to frame my works.
Erin Survilas is a feminist oil painter receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montserrat College of Art in Spring 2025. With her concentration in painting, she also holds minors in curatorial studies, art history, and entrepreneurship. She focuses much of her paintings on ideas of womanhood, femininity, and romanticism. Erin has been a member of the Salem Art Association since 2017 and is currently the Student Liaison Board member.
This exhibition is visible from the street at 301 Cabot St. Beverly, MA

Bare Gallery: We Couldn’t Think of a Title
I am continuously terrified of failure. I think this might loop around into the clown infatuation. A clown is meant to fail. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be funny. Even in the case where he fails at failure (i.e. stepping on a rake that fails to rise from the ground) is it now doubly funny for a clown? If it was yourself in your backyard it wouldn’t be particularly funny at all would it? A clown needn’t fear failure, or even failure to fail, as it is his most desirable outcome. A fear of failure is easily linked to fear of the future, and the way my estimated loan payments are shaping up the future definitely seems scary. Maybe this adjacent fear of time passing is what brings me back to the time when I was very young and technology was three-letter acronyms, CRT, VHS, DVD. Maybe that’s why I gravitate toward hours of wrestling outdated wires and wire adaptors to display my work when I could instead live-cast a video from my smartphone to just about any modern television in about 30 seconds. Or maybe I just made all of this up because I needed to write something that sounded smart.
This show portrays the emotions and mental experiences I went through as a child not knowing and discovering I am transgender. Growing up going to all girls camps and doing non-coed sports and activities. I felt like an alien and an outsider. I knew there was something different about me but I could not tell.

Storage Container: disgusting//divine
You might not know it but right now you are attending a funeral. Take this as a chance to explore what she might have been like. This is the funeral of someone who never was but always will be. A lady who is nothing but a disappointment; she can’t clean or cook, let alone take care of herself. She waits for her lover but he never calls. In her fits of madness she creates artwork that feels as crazed and disorganized as she does. Take this chance to get to know her. See her flaws, embarrassing acts. See her love and desperation. See her pain. Let her fail you.

Senior Thesis Show: Senior Studio Arts Seminar Group 1
2025-03-26 - 2025-03-29 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
All Galleries
Reception: Wednesday, March 26th, 6-8pm
The first of Montserrat’s annual Thesis Exhibitions: Inter/Intra, an exhibition by nine of the college’s Studio Arts students, opens on March 24th at 23 Essex Street in Beverly. The show celebrates with an opening reception on March 26.
Inter/Intra
Inter- prefix meaning between : among : in the midst
Intra- prefix meaning within : during : between layers of
Inter/Intra is a collection of work produced in the examination of the self and the connections with natural and urban environments, religion, and others. Using fiber, paint, photography, print, and writing, the artists seek to translate and transpose these examinations into the physical world. Memory, grief, nostalgia, and tenderness are made manifest through each artists’ respective work, seeking innately connect.
FEATURING:
Montserrat Gallery (23 Essex Street, Beverly)

Maggie Burns
Frederic Cafarella
Whitney Farnsworth
Skylar Lafleur
Krystian Lanza
Sam Sorrento

Schlosberg Gallery (23 Essex Street, Beverly)

Aoife Bergeron
Nev Fernandez

Congressional Art Show
2025-03-15 15:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
The 6th District Congressional Art Show, sponsored by Congressman Seth Moulton is hosted annually at Montserrat College of Art.
The exhibition and competition is open to students in grades 10–12 in public and private high schools and students being home-schooled in the Sixth Essex Massachusetts Congressional District. Up to 6 pieces may be permitted per school.
Drop-off dates:
Friday, March 7, 3–5 pm
Saturday, March 8, 11am–3 pm
23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA
Exhibition: March 13–14, 10am–5pm
Reception: March 15, 3:30–5 pm
More information here

Riso Show
2025-03-06 - 2025-03-28 | Library Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Reception March 6, 11am–12pm
First Floor Library
This exhibition brings together artists exploring the possibilities of the risograph printer through books, zines, photographs, and drawings. Known for its bold colors and layered textures, risograph printing blends the tactile qualities of traditional printmaking with the mechanics of mass production.

Faculty in Conversation: Meg Grant and Alicia Gray: 100 Ways of Thinking
2025-03-05 11:00 - 12:00 | MA
Meg and Alicia will share about their experiences in Reggio Emilia Italy. Presenters will discuss ways in which this extraordinary approach to thinking, learning and creating transcends the borders of Italy and can transform education right here at Montserrat.

In Stitches: Fiber Art and Garment Show
2025-03-03 - 2025-03-21 | Bare Gallery, 275 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Come see the Bare Gallery’s newest show, In Stitches, featuring fiber arts from members of the Montserrat community!
A closing reception will be held on March 19th at 11am–12pm.

Faculty in Conversation: Ena Kantardžić
2025-02-20 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Ena Kantardžić will be reading from their Cranbrook Academy of Art Master’s Statement, sharing the book and its design alongside more dynamic documentation of installations from that two year period. Combining research, texted notes, photography, anecdotes, and programming code, the book is an attempt to bridge language and physical space in an intimate and vulnerable way.

Claudia Valenti - The Other Room
2025-02-03 - 2025-03-15 | Carol Schlosberg Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Artist Reception, Tuesday, February 4, 5–7pm
Claudia Valenti’s paintings, drawings, and prints use magical realism to explore memory, loss, comfort, identity, and the psychological contents of home.
The Other Room sets loose real and mythic animals in a nocturnal home whose human occupants may be asleep. The animals move through liminal spaces, turning through hallways, doorways, and hearths as shadows and ghostly hands reach from them and toward them. The animal guides in The Other Room navigate grief, search for and reject comfort, examine archetypal objects of nostalgia, and investigate quiet histories before sunrise.
Claudia Valenti (b. 1994) is a multidisciplinary artist who works in painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramic sculpture, and book arts. She received a BFA in painting and drawing from Montserrat College of Art and an MFA in interdisciplinary arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited across the East Coast and internationally. She has received grants for her work in art and research from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Fine Arts Venture Fund, the San Juan Preservation Trust for a residency in the San Juan Islands, WA, and most recently, from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for her research on the semiotic use of animals in Japanese art and architecture, culminating in a residency in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.
Valenti lives, works, and teaches north of Boston.
Featured Image:
The Hungry Place, 2024
Graphite on paper
14.5” x 21”

Jay Critchley: Democracy of the Land, Inc., FLAGrancy
2025-01-27 - 2025-03-05 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Drawing on his research and work about American symbolism, mythology, history, settler occupation, Native Nations, and ecological concerns, Jay Critchley: Democracy of the Land, Inc., FLAGrancy confronts our torrid and complicated history of what it means to be an American and how control of and access to the Land defines our personal and cultural identities. The project moves beyond “farm to table” to “Land to Land” — challenging the corporate supply chain to return to the Land, uncontaminated, from what’s taken.
The installation will highlight Critchley’s ongoing series of modified and fabricated American flags, recent editions fashioned with embroidered and appliqued corporate logos of the Standard Oil Company (1882–1911).
A central component of the exhibition is Critchley’s iZONE, a refurbished portable restroom that will serve as a space for reflection and action. Each Wednesday, from January 29 to February 26, the gallery will host “iZONE Days”, a series of activities for students and the public to engage with the exhibition’s layered themes.

Featured Image:
“Jay Critchley, The Toxicity of Capitalism—Miss Tampon Liberty, a gown made of 3,000 plastic tampon applicators washed up on beaches. Performance photo at a UK Conference on Menstruation and Sustainability where Critchley gave the keynote. University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2023. Photo: Gayle McIntyre, University of St. Andrews.”

About Jay Critchley
Jay Critchley is a Provincetown-based artist whose work has traversed the globe, showing across the US and in Argentina, Japan, England, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and Columbia. He is an interdisciplinary, conceptual and performance artist, writer and activist.
His movie, Toilet Treatments, won an HBO Award and he gave a TEDx Talk: Portrait of the Artist as a Corporation. He founded the patriotic Old Glory Condom Corporation that won a controversial three-year legal battle for its US Trademark His 2015 survey show at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum traveled to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He has received awards from the Boston Society of Architects and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC for his environmental projects.
His artist residencies include: the Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico; Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojacar, Andalucia, Spain; CAMAC, Marnay-sur-Seine, France; Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, NYC; Milepost 5, Portland, OR; Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry, Ireland; and Harvard University where he also lectured.
Jay recently was the keynote speaker at the UK Conference on Menstruation and Sustainability at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and spoke at the Nuffield Ireland Conference in Dublin, Ireland.
The Massachusetts State Legislature honored Jay as an artist and founder and director of the Provincetown Community Compact, producer of the Swim for Life, which has raised $6M+ for AIDS, women’s health and the community since 1988. The Compact raises funds for the Native Land Conservancy through a volunteer Honor Tax.

Related Exhibition Events:
Opening Reception + Performance: Tuesday, January 28, 6–8pm, Montserrat Gallery
Artists Conversation – Jay Critchley and Ari Montford: Wednesday, January 29th, 3–4pm, Room H101
A Cure for Insomnia: The Films of Jay Critchley: Wednesday, February 12, 6:00pm H101
Film screening followed by a conversation between the artist and curator/scholar Jackson Davidow

Closing Reception + Fundraiser for the Native Land Conservancy (Mashpee, MA):
Wednesday, March 5, 6-8PM

iZone Days: Wednesdays, 11–12pm + 3–4pm, Montserrat Gallery (unless otherwise noted)
Wednesday, January 29:
Artists Conversation with Jay Critchley and Ari Montford, 3–4PM Only, Room H101

Wednesday, February 5:
Earth Body/Human Body: This event is an exploration of the relationship between land and body through community drawing with a live model.

Wednesday, February 12:
Rights of Nature/Rights of the Earth: Jay Critchley leads a hands-on, interactive activity using tactile materials to explore ideas of land and composting as strategy and metaphor.

Wednesday, February 19th:
Land & Lit: Poetry, reading, and writing in collaboration with Montserrat’s Writing Studio, exploring the relationship between text and image, image and land, land and body.

Wednesday, February 26th:
Panel Discussion: Conversation on artistic strategies around immigration in our current political climate including panelists Mabel Covarrubias-Doucette, Founding Attorney, MCD Immigration Law, Salem, MA; Saniego Sánchez, Director, Punto Urban Art Museum, Salem, MA; and Gabriel Sosa, Artist and Deputy Director of the Essex Art Center, Lawrence, MA. This panel will take place in Room H101 from 11-12 followed by a staff-facilitated conversation from 3–4 in the Montserrat Gallery.

Wednesday, March 5th: (This event is cancelled)
PanCarta (Cross Mapping) Workshop with Jay Critchley and Ari Montford.
The image of the American flag is a charged political symbol. In this workshop, facilitated by artists Jay Critchley and Ari Montford, participants will envision and create a personal emblem (symbol, flag, etc.) out of found materials that embodies their own beliefs and identities.
301 Cabot Street Classroom.

Jay Critchley in the Press

Democracy of the Land, Inc., FLAGrancy – Susan Rand Brown via Art New England

Climate activist Jay Critchley, who makes his home in Provincetown, uses the town’s rugged landscape as a source of materials. These include sand, feathers, and Christmas trees upcycled into “re-rooters” for his annual performance staged in the waters of Cape Cod Bay during January. Critchley’s abundant palette also includes recycled plastic shopping bags, architecture and washed-up pink plastic tampon applicators. He regards himself as a conceptual, multidisciplinary and multi-media performance artist and writer. As befits a modern Johnny Appleseed, Critchley has exhibited, lectured and performed internationally as well as nationally…
A Reimagining of Land and Power: Critchley’s FLAGrant Ecological Reckoning – Lee Roscoe via Artscope Magazine
Jay Critchley is a national treasure.
A uniquely original activist and conceptual artist based in Provincetown whose work embodies the rebellious social conscience of the 1960s, Critchley is always voiced with irony and sly wit…
Jay Critchley Flies His Flag(s) – Abraham Storer via The Provincetown Independent
Visitors to Jay Critchley’s Provincetown studio never know what they’ll encounter. In the ground outside his door, there’s a cesspool that he renovated into a whitewashed space complete with a TV and altar…

Wilber Blair: A Peek Inside the Coloring Book
2025-01-23 - 2025-05-31 | MA
Reception Wednesday, February 26, 4–6pm.
Public is welcome.
Blair’s saturated and atmospheric paintings reflect constant change, transformation, and metamorphoses of nature and imagined two-dimensional worlds. Through spatial illusion and surface, representation and abstraction, and the material and the immaterial, Blair’s paintings are an accumulation of formal decisions used to express the complexity and mystery of sight, memory, and dreams.
Wilber Blair was a member of Montserrat’s adjunct painting faculty from 2003 to 2023. He taught classes in painting and drawing as well as Foundation courses such as Life Drawing, Painting I, and Painting Workshop.

Midway: A Senior Studio Arts Exhibition
2024-12-04 - 2025-01-22 | Bare Gallery, 275 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Opening Reception: Dec 4, 11am
Montserrat College of Art presents to you Midway: A Senior Studio Arts Exhibition. Works created by 19 studio artists from the Class of 2025 are on display from December 4 through January 22 in the Bare Gallery at 1A Knowlton Street, Beverly, MA. The opening reception will be celebrated at 11am on December 4 in the Bare Gallery.
The exhibition features 2-dimensional, sculptural, and time-based work that revolves around a variety of themes including (but not limited to): relationships with the self and the world, memory, family, fantasy, mundanity, sexuality, fashion, and clowns. Each artist, having worked tirelessly for months, presents a piece that reflects their effort, their technical ability, and the conceptual journey that comes with intensive studio practice.
Artists Featured:
Aoife Bergeron
Maggie Burns
Frederic Cafarella
Casper Childs
Reagan Davis
Whitney Farnsworth
Nev Fernandez
Spencer Kall
Domenic Karis
Rebecca Killion
Skylar Lafleur
Krystian Lanza
Finnley Lewis
Abigail Monson
Abby Phelps
Julia Siegert
Sam Sorrento
Louis Staffieri
Erin Survilas

Journey's Unfolded: Senior Thesis Exhibition
2024-12-04 - 2024-12-07 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Opening Reception on Wednesday, December 4, 5–7pm
Featuring:

Alexander Cornwell
Mariah Silva
Grecia Murillo
Kamille Ryan
Kenneth Jordan
Jojo Ryan

MOSH Studio: There is No Away
2024-12-02 - 2025-02-01 | Frame 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
MOSH Studio is a collaboration between artists Suzanne Moseley and Adrienne Shishko, each bringing a very different art background to their joint projects. Together they create 3D sculptures using repurposed materials from individual, corporate, or collective waste streams, often fiber-based, to create metaphorical portraits of people, places, or communities. Their goal is to produce vibrant, energetic works that captivate audiences with color and texture, encouraging a discovery of both the materials and their transformation into something new.
Adrienne Shishko is a process-driven, mixed media artist based in Boston. She is known for her innovative ways of engaging communities in art beyond traditional gallery spaces through pop ups, digital murals, and building wraps. In 2017, she was commissioned by JBG Smith to enliven a business district in Crystal City, MD which helped encourage new development in the area. Her work has also been exhibited throughout New England at venues including Beacon Gallery, The Quin House, The Providence Art Club, Mosesian Center for the Arts, Cambridge Art Association among others, and is included in numerous private and corporate collections around the country.
Suzanne Moseley’s creative career has spanned advertising, fashion, craft, graphics, web and restaurant design. This background has led Mosely to explore bold, graphic imagery with a penchant for textile patterns and richly layered compositions. Moseley has exhibited her work in juried group shows around New England including the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Rhode Island Water Color Society, Castle Hill @ Truro Center for the Arts, Gallery Twist and Art Fluent’s online gallery. She studied printmaking at the Decordova Museum School, Maud Morgan, MFA, Castle Hill, Zea Mayes, and Shepherd Maudsleigh. Moseley is also a member of Boston Printmakers, USEA and Concord Art.

Montserrat Art Market
2024-11-23 10:00 - 15:00 | Hardie Building, Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Come one, come all! Check out the Montserrat Art Market, support Montserrat students and their art!

Hardie 1st & 2nd Floor

Faculty in Conversation: Elizabeth Alexander
2024-11-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Associate professor Elizabeth Alexander will address how failure, sickness, and storm damage lead to some of her biggest creative breakthroughs.

iCON Art Convention
2024-11-16 11:00 - 17:00 | The Bower, Cabot Street 248, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
248 Cabot St, Underground level. Open to the public
iCON is a free annual art exhibition and community event located in Beverly, Massachusetts, hosted by Montserrat College of Art.
Highlighting the innovative strength of students, alumni, and local artists and their diverse backgrounds, iCON aims to bring people together to showcase, vend, and celebrate all creative identities in one location. iCON facilitates a range of creative workshops, portfolio reviews, exhibition vendors, and specific on-site community building events such as cosplay contests, and panel discussions.
We are an open, welcoming community and invite everyone to celebrate and participate in our creative space by featuring artisans both local and abroad!
www.iconartfest.com | icon@montserrat.edu | Instagram | Discord

Admissions Open House – Fall 2024
2024-11-16 09:00 - 14:00 | Hardie Building, Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Join us at Montserrat’s Fall 2024 Open House for:

Portfolio reviews with Montserrat faculty and Admissions Counselors
Presentations from academic and campus departments
Campus tour
Digital Fabrication Studio demonstrations
snacks, fun, and more..

Artist Talk: Michelle Samour
2024-11-14 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Please join us for a public talk with artist Michelle Samour, Professor Emerita at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts University, on Thursday, November 14 from 11am-12pm in Hardie 101. Samour is a multi-media artist whose installations, drawings and handmade paperworks explore humankind’s attempt to harness the natural world through science, technology, and the redefinition of socio-political borders. Samour is visiting Montserrat’s campus in conjunction with Professor Nisa Ari’s art history course on Ecocritical Art and will also be hosting a workshop for students on Tinsel Painting, a folk art whose origins date back to the Renaissance.

2024 Massachusetts Art Education Association Conference
2024-11-09 - 2024-11-10 | Hardie Building, Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Featuring Keynote Speakers Melissa Leaym-Fernandez and Jarrett J. Krosocza
Register Here

HERE: Where the Black Designers Are
2024-11-07 17:30 - 20:30 | The Bower, Cabot Street 248, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Please join us on November 7 for a fireside chat with Dr. Miller on her book, “Here, Where the Black Designers Are”, moderated by Dr. Aisha Densmore-Bey, followed by a book signing with an option to purchase the book.
Location: 248 Cabot Street, Beverly
Do you question where the BIPOC designers are in the design canon? Have you wondered why they have been largely absent from design histories?
Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller, a legendary figure in design, has dedicated decades to scholarship and activism, establishing herself as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. Her long-awaited book is finally here, and it documents a critical dialogue she has been championing for years: “Where are the Black designers?” This book is an essential resource for anyone committed to understanding the full landscape of design history and advocating for greater inclusion and representation.
Registration and ticket purchase here.

Alumni Networking: Tree House Brewing
2024-11-03 13:00 - 15:00 | MA
Montserrat is holding the next networking event for our alumni in Western Massachusetts and beyond on Sunday, Nov. 3 from 1–3pm. Hosted by Montserrat alum and faculty member Corinne Reid, join us for drinks and a bite while you catch up with old friends and chat with Montserrat President Brian Pellinen to hear about what’s new and upcoming at Montserrat. The college will provide pizza for all guests. Tree House offers many types of beer and non-alcoholic beverages.
Please register here to attend

Anonymous Art Party
2024-11-02 18:00 - 21:00 | Hardie Building, Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
The Anonymous Art Party is BACK! Join Montserrat as we open our doors to celebrate the arts of the North Shore with a night of festivity, creativity, and a little mystery!
This exciting event will center around an anonymous art sale, with works submitted by local artists in our community as well as Montserrat faculty, staff, and students. To add a secret twist, pieces will be hung without the name of the artist listed, and names will not be revealed until after the sale!
But the party doesn’t stop there! In addition to the art sale, guests will have the opportunity to go behind the scenes of Montserrat, exploring our classrooms and studios while enjoying music, food and drink, and live artmaking by our Montserrat students!
All proceeds will support scholarships for Montserrat College of Art Students!
Click here for tickets.
For more information reach out to: development@montserrat.edu

Sins Invalid: Disability Justice A-Z
2024-10-28 15:00 | Library Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
In the month of October, the Academic Access Studio and Counseling Center facilitated a series of art-making events in preparation for the upcoming exhibit Sins Invalid: Disability Justice from A-Z. This exhibit is a collaboration between our Montserrat community and the artists featured in the book. Learn more about Sins Invalid here
The opening reception is on Monday, 10/28 at 3:00 pm in the Paul M. Scott Library

The Shade
2024-10-28 11:00 - 13:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Deep within us all exists a darkness that must be confronted. What is The Shade to you?
Join Montserrat alum Adam Miller for a spooky comic anthology book launch on Monday, October 28th from 11am–1pm in H101. (Lunch will be provided.)
In support of Red King Cinema’s upcoming feature film THE SHADE, Red King Publishing proudly presents The Shade: Perceptions. Showcasing a diverse roster of established and emerging creators, this exciting collection makes its comic shop debut this halloween season. The forthcoming volume reveals six new short stories, a robust gallery section, and two haunting covers.
Adam Miller (’00, Illustration) is the Creative Director for Red King Publishing, a production company based outside Boston. He is the Creative Director and Cover Illustrator for their Shade-inspired comics anthology.
The event is open to the Montserrat Community and the public.

Montserrat Portfolio Night – Fall 2024
2024-10-24 17:00 - 19:00 | Hardie Building, Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Join us at Montserrat Portfolio Night for:

Portfolio reviews with Montserrat faculty and Admissions Counselors
Presentations from academic and campus departments
Digital Fabrication Studio demonstrations
Campus tour
snacks, fun, and more…

Don’t forget to bring your artwork (physical copies or digital versions). We look forward to meeting you!

The Improbable Places Poetry Tour lands at Beverly Airport
2024-10-22 18:30 | MA
Wheels Up! The Improbable Places Poetry Tour lands at Beverly Airport this October!
The Improbable Places Poetry Tour, hosted by Colleen Michaels of Montserrat College of Art, is seeking poems about flight and travel for a most unique reading opportunity. On October 22, 2024, The Beverly Regional Airport will host a night of poetry. Boarding begins at 6:30 in the main terminal. The reading begins at 7:00 in an airport hangar that is the site of an intervention by artist Liz Nofziger. The event is free and open to the public.
Do you have a travel or airport poem? A poem about flight or wingspan? We want your turbulent tercets from the middle seat and your sonnets skywritten in vapor. We want your red-eyes and your puddle jumpers. Please, someone send a poem as a safety card or a passport. Send the poem that hits like oxygen dropped from the overhead compartment.
Submissions can be sent to colleen.michaels@montserrat.edu no later than Friday, October 17, 2024.
If chosen, you must be available to read your work in person at The Beverly Regional Airport on Tuesday, October 22, 2024.
The Improbable Places Poetry Tour is Montserrat College of Art’s way of bringing together poets and enthusiastic listeners to celebrate the power of poetry and community. At each tour stop a new venue and theme is selected. Started in 2010 by Colleen Michaels, the Improbable Places Poetry Tour has traveled from bike shops to power plants, and from tattoo parlors to Viking ships, with a line-up of poets each reading one poem.
The 2024 Improbable Places Poetry Tour is funded by Montserrat College of Art, Beverly Cultural Council, and Mass Cultural Council.
See highlights from last year in a short video by Elliot Mason ’25
https://www.montserrat.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Improbable-Places-Poetry-Tour-Spring-2024.mp4

Throughline: The Fiber Art of Mary Balzer Buskirk
2024-10-22 - 2024-11-23 | Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Mary Balzer Buskirk (1931-2009) combined a commitment to weaving as an art form with an intense investigation of techniques specific to the medium. Early patterns for rugs set the stage for wall hangings that demonstrate varying degrees of transparency, along with tubular works that establish a sculptural presence. Buskirk began her engagement with textiles as a graduate student at Cranbrook in the mid-1950s. Following a move to California in 1960, Buskirk’s initial attraction to the inherent abstraction of the grid of vertical and horizontal fiber opened onto more sinuous compositions inspired by natural forms. Textiles in the exhibition also showcase Buskirk’s interest in off-loom techniques, along with her willingness, as her career progressed, to harken back to prior training in painting by mounting woven compositions on stretcher bars.
Untitled (long hanging with circles), 1959, 82” x 18”, woolCourtesy of Martha Buskirk
Gallery talk with Prof. Martha Buskirk, Ph.D. daughter of the artist, Nov. 6 at 5pm followed by a reception at 6pm. The public is welcome at both events.
Featured Image:
New Beginning (detail), 1975, 33” x 35”, wool and mixed fibers
Courtesy of Martha Buskirk

I’ll Be Your Mirror
2024-10-21 - 2025-01-25 | Carol Schlosberg Gallery, 23 Essex St, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
Presented in two parts, this exhibition features recent works by five Montserrat alumni. Ranging from objective pieces to abstracted representations, these works are reflections of the self and the world around us.
I’ll Be Your Mirror offers a unique lens in portraying individual experiences and in challenging assumptions that prevent us from seeking truth. As you engage with the work, you are encouraged to confront your own perspectives and embrace the narratives presented before you.
Things look different based on where you’re looking from, take a mirror to further explore the world we share.
Artist Conversation
with Montserrat Alumni Annie Lee-Daly, Shannon Herrick, Cayla Montes, Denali Musgrave, and Zeynep Celik
Friday, December 6, 11–12pm, Hardie Room 101
Part I
Annie Lee-Daly
Shannon Herrick
Part II
Cayla Montes
Denali Musgrave
Zeynep Çelik

Faculty in Conversation: Aly Pierce
2024-09-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Hardie 101, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA, 01915, United States
In If You Give the Brain a Puzzle, Aly Pierce will talk you through her process of exploring the inner world through generative prompts and how they can function as puzzles for the brain. She will give examples of exercises and the poems they created, demonstrating how they aided in the writing of her debut poetry collection The Visible Planets, her self-published collection The Deathwish Catalogue, and her co-written chapbook Cryptids.
