Artist Statement
The art installations that I create are about generating fields of connections that expand the possibilities of the things and people we most care about. It is all about collaboration, dialogue and not knowing the outcome. My work generally starts with a question that I wrestle/live with and I see what arises in my everyday life and materials in response to that. Certain people, objects and materials will reach out to me, or I will be drawn to them and I will be incorporated into the piece through dialogue, collaboration, deep listening, and spontaneity. The process of creating a collaborative installation is a way to think collectively about a pressing question or conflict in the heart of our particular time, place and embodied form. The generative field that is created during this process, pulls all involved, including the audience, into a net of intimacy and mutuality. The resulting art object is of less importance than this connecting process. Each contributor, sentient or insentient, is a crucial actor in the entire production. I like to think of the final product as a secretion, like the pearl of an oyster, it is an object created through the process of living, of the daily ‘rub’ of life. My aim is to liberate my own pain, confusion and blindness as well as others, into a greater sense of wisdom, peace and connection - a type of radical inclusivity and intimacy. I am very interested in other ways of knowing and search out people, cultures, and materials that manifest non- standard, forgotten, overlooked, or discarded wisdom that might shed some light on a current conflict in the hearts and minds in our modern life.
I am also very interested in the idea of mundane, overlooked labor, especially of women and the idea of deep time. Much of my work involves labor intensive practices such as sewing. I feel the idea of repeated, everyday ‘touch’ to be important, but not the touch of a stroke of genius, but one of utter ordinariness. Furthermore, repetitive, laborious, mundane, tasks like sewing, hammering or any type of manual labor is ripe for losing one’s mind in a sense of
timelessness. I hope that when one enters the space of my work there is a certain activation of this feeling of deep time, of a voyage asked to be taken, and a question that might be dangerous and liberating all at the same time.
Bio and Exhibition list
Deborah Read was born in 1964 in Cambridge Massachusetts. She grew up in Wellesley, a suburb of Boston, until fourth grade when her family moved to London. During this period Deborah attended the American School of London, travelled extensively with her family, and developed her life-long love of travelling, adventure, different cultures, and art. The family eventually returned to Wellesley where Deborah attended the public High School, interned for her Congresswoman, Margaret Heckler, and graduated with honors from Wellesley Senior High School in 1982. Following graduation, she attended Middlebury College in Vermont for one year before she transferred to Rhode Island School of Design to pursue her passion for the visual arts. During her studies at RISD she spent the summer of 1984 studying, working and exhibiting with the Puerto Rican watercolorist, Jan D’Esopo, at the Galleria San Juan in Puerto Rico. Her time at RISD also allowed her to work as a student teacher at the Wheeler School in Providence Rhode Island, and as an intern at the List Visual Art Center at M.I.T, Cambridge, MA. Deborah’s senior year was spent attending RISD’s European Honors Program in Rome Italy. After graduating from RISD in 1986, she moved to London to attend the curatorial program, Christies’ Fine Arts Course, where she wrote her thesis on the painting techniques of Rembrandt.
Since completing Christie’s Fine Arts Course, Deborah has worked, exhibited, and sold her work in Puerto Rico, Morocco, and the Boston area. Along with her fine art career she has simultaneously worked in various other positions as: interior designer at Decors by Bailey & Read, Boston MA; Vice President/Owner of BKE, a heavy equipment leasing company in Mohammedia Morocco; Director of New Business Development for the Design Group at Hill, Holiday Advertising Agency, Boston MA; Art Instructor, Casablanca Morocco and Concord MA; and a designer and fabricator of a line of fabrics and Moroccan clothing sold at the Renaissance Room, Newbury St, Boston MA. She has been teaching art both privately and in small school settings for over 25 years, including Morocco, where she was the teacher of residence for The Casablanca Art Association for over 5 years. Recently she was the visiting artist at The Tenacre Country Day School in Wellesley Ma and taught and developed the Upper School art program at The Carroll School in Lincoln. Deborah based the Carroll School’s art program on MIT’s Media Lab ethos: creating an atmosphere where “art, science, design, and technology build and play off one another in an environment designed for collaboration and inspiration.” During her tenure at Carroll, she implemented a school wide art installation program, year-end exhibition, and raised money for the purchase and development of a ceramics program. Deborah left the Carroll School in 2019 to attain her Masters in Fine Art from Lesley University and graduated in 2021. During her time there she was awarded a research fellowship to develop the idea of an ‘art space’ at Lesley and has since been awarded a grant from Lesley’s Center for Human Arts Innovation to create the Art + Everywhere program highlighting the work of MFA graduates throughout the campus and is expanding the concept to the rest of the country. The pilot program involved an installation and collaborative exhibition with fellow graduate Tracy Hayes in August of 2021. Recent works have included a collaborative sculpture with the Rose’s Shipyard in Gloucester on her piece, “The Netwrecker,” and a collaborative video and performance work, Procession, with filmmaker, John Eric Steiner. Deborah is also in the process of developing a cross cultural art Project with a school in India, Jhamtse Gatsal, where she serves on the Board of Directors and a Gallery RAG, a new gallery in Gloucester MA. Deborah is an avid sailor and works with her husband Rick to charter their 64-foot sailboat, Artemis. They are planning to sail around the world in three years after her youngest daughter graduates from college. She received her Massachusetts preliminary license to teach visual art for grades 5-12 in 2016. Deborah is a member of Depot Square Artists, Inc, The Concord Art Association, and the Cambridge Art Association.