LONGYEAR GALLERY: “MARY McFERRAN’S ‘STORM DRESSES’” AND “MEMBERS’ LATE WINTER GROUP EXHIBITION”

Longyear Gallery of Margaretville is pleased to announce the opening of two new concurrent exhibitions: “Mary McFerran’s ‘Storm Dresses’” and “Members’ Late Winter Group Exhibition.” Opening on Friday, February 13th, these exhibitions will run through Sunday, March 15th with the Opening Reception for both on Saturday, February 14th from 3-5 p.m. 

New Longyear Gallery member Mary McFerran challenges conventional notions of sewing and drawing by creating artwork from cloth and paper to tell stories about women, climate change, history and personal memoir. Her style heralds expressive color, collage, and mark-making, alternating stitches with pencil and paint lines. McFerran prefers to incorporate up-cycled fabric remnants and discarded artwork for her hybrid constructions. “Storm Dresses,” her introductory exhibition at Longyear, takes its title from her artwork’s connection to the “Floods, fires, droughts, and hurricanes that have become familiar events as our planet endures the ongoing effects of climate change,” the artist notes. “Storm Dresses” invites viewers to confront these forces of nature on a personal level. Using clothing as her canvas, McFerran draws on its intimate connection to human experience. For McFerran, “Clothing reflects identity, geography, and values across cultures—it defines who we are and where we come from. Whether for comfort, status, or self-expression, what we wear becomes an extension of ourselves.” In “Storm Dresses,” McFerran playfully merges the worlds of fashion and extreme weather. “Fire Blouse and Skirt” shimmer in quilted reds, yellows, and oranges beneath a veil of black netting that evokes rising smoke. “Drought Dress” captures the parched textures and fissures of sun-scorched earth. “Hurricane Dress” combines mismatched, muddied garments to mirror chaos and destruction, while “Flood Dress” hints at survival through the suggestion of a floating device.

Mary McFerran has degrees in fashion, art education, printmaking, expanded arts, and educational technology. She has shown her work in various exhibitions in NYC and the Hudson Valley, most recently at such Catskill Mountains venues as Bushel Collective, Delhi; Roxbury Arts Group, Roxbury; Pine Hill Community Center, Pine Hill; Art Up, Margaretville; Café Marguerite, Margaretville, and the Olive Free Library, Olive.

Longyear Gallery’s “Members’ Late Winter Group Exhibition” offers an opportunity to view a variety of works in different media by Longyear’s current 34 members. The engaging work of member artists varies in style and vision representing a large range of media, including oil paintings, pastels, watercolor, mixed media, photographs, collages, gouaches, pencil drawings, ceramics, acrylics, and monotypes. Member artists include Robert Axelrod, Joanne Barham, Marion Behr, Temma Bell, Robert Buckwalter, Marcia Clark, Ray Curran, Neil Driscoll, Gail Freund, Ann Lee Fuller, Irina Grinevitsky, Robin Halpern, Louise Kalin, Hedi Kyle, Linda Lariar, Margaret Leveson, Helane Levine-Keating, Patrice Lorenz, Ron Macklin, Anthony Margiotta, Mary McFerran, Sheila McManus, Richard Kirk Mills, Bonnie Mitchell, Wayne Morris, Alan Powell, Lesley A. Powell, Deborah Ruggerio, Victoria Scott, Michelle Spark, Sara Stone, Gerda van Leeuwen, Rosamond Welchman, and Lynn Woods. “Cabinet of Curiosities,” “a miniature gallery” curated by Longyear members Hedi Kyle and Louise Kalin, will also be on display in the hallway just outside the gallery.

Future early spring 2026 Longyear Gallery exhibits include a Special Exhibition: “DRAWING – Take a Line for a Walk” accompanied by a Members’ Group Show of Longyear members not participating in the Special Exhibition. These two concurrent exhibitions will open on Friday, March 20th and run through Sunday, April 19th, with the opening reception on Saturday, March 21st from 3-5 p.m. 

Longyear Gallery is located Downstairs in The Commons, 785 Main Street, Margaretville. The gallery will be open from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. For information, please see Longyear Gallery’s website, www.longyeargallery.org, email the gallery at info@longyeargallery.org, or call 845.586.3270 during gallery hours. 

Buckwalter, Robert - The Path Below Linden Terrace

Marcia Clark, Melting Glacier, Norway

McFerran, Fire Skirt

Gerda van Leeuwen, Dispersion ll