Sunny but Cold Diaries of Farm Women Opens at the Roxbury Arts Center

ROXBURY — Roxbury Arts Center presents "Sunny but Cold: Diaries of Farm Women," a new exhibition by local artist Mary McFerran opening Saturday, January 24, 2026, with artist reception from 3-5 PM. The exhibition remains on view through March 14, 2026, at the Roxbury Arts Center’s Walter Meade Gallery, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY.  For more information, visit roxburyartsgroup.org.

As McFerran writes on this exhibition, “‘Sunny But Cold: Diaries of Farm Women’ illuminates the often-unseen labor of women on New York State farms. Drawing on 19th- and 20th-century diaries, the project reveals daily life recorded in brief notes on weather, chores, family care, and community events—testimony to women’s endurance and quiet optimism.

Working from archival photographs, including WPA images from World War II, I translate these histories into textile collages, embroideries and drawings. Using unbleached or eco-dyed fabrics, antique tools, and a mobile of sewn paper scraps noting the weather, I create a visual narrative that echoes the materials, routines, and voices preserved in the diaries.”

Mary McFerran creates fiber collages and installations that tell stories, often centering on women’s lives and social issues. Since relocating from Westchester County to the Catskills, her practice has been deeply shaped by immersion in the natural world. She now incorporates eco-dyeing, plant matter, and found materials into her work, continuing a long-standing interest in reinterpreting textiles and women’s labor.

McFerran discovered the expressive potential of textiles while living in London in 2010, when an embroidery class revealed stitching as another form of line-making. This revelation opened the door to her enduring passion for fiber arts. Earlier in her career, she worked in video, organizing installations in unexpected urban spaces as part of the NYC downtown art group COLAB. Collaboration and community engagement have remained central throughout her practice: from co-founding the Peekskill-based artivist group In_Question (2017) to curating exhibitions at Croton Free Library (2017–2023) and exhibiting with BAU Gallery in Beacon (2022–2024).

Her work has been shown widely, including at Roxbury Arts Group (NY), ArtUp (NY), Pelham Arts Center (NY), Ceres Gallery (NYC), Silvermine Gallery (CT), The Hammond Museum (NY), and internationally at the Korea Bojagi Forum (South Korea) and St. Pancras Church Crypt Gallery (London). Her videos have screened at The New Museum, MoMA, and Anthology Film Archives (NYC), and her work is held in the collections of MoMA, the Video Data Bank in Chicago, and private collectors.

McFerran holds an A.A.S. in Fashion Merchandising (F.I.T.), a B.S. in Art Education (Empire State College), an M.A. in Printmaking (University at Albany), an M.F.A. in Expanded Arts (Ohio State University), and an M.S. in Educational Technology (N.Y.U.).

Our exhibition programs are generously supported by Roxbury Wine & Spirits. All programs offered by the Roxbury Arts Group are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the NYS Legislature, the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation, The Community Foundation for South Central New York, the Tianaderrah Foundation, The Delaware National Bank of Delhi, and individual supporters.