Deborah Read Studio

Deborah Read Studio Multi disciplinary artist and educator

10/10/2026

Gallery RAG has transformed back into my studio for the off-season! After a summer filled with visiting artists, performances, exhibitions, and collaborations, the space is now a place for my own experiments, messes, and discoveries.

A little studio tour of what’s happening right now…

I’m cutting up an old jacket and reassembling it with painted and sewn fragments, working on textile pieces that hover somewhere between painting, clothing, and sculpture. Other pieces hang from coat hangers on the black wall, while paintings on canvas and even a scarf hang freely, more like textiles than traditional paintings.

Meanwhile, I continue working outdoors, on the beaches and coves around Gloucester, using ink, seawater, seaweed, wind, and whatever else comes along.

All these practices feed one another. A painting might become a piece of clothing. A fragment of an older work might find its way into something entirely new. Something begun on a beach might end up sewn into a jacket.

I’m interested in what happens when the boundaries between painting, textile, sculpture, and performance begin to dissolve. When nothing is quite finished, and everything has the possibility of becoming something else.

It’s good to have the space to play, experiment, and not know where things are going.

Not knowing is most intimate.

TextileArt WearableArt MixedMediaArt ProcessArt ArtAsPractice ExperimentalArt NotKnowingIsMostIntimate

10/07/2026
The other side is here: A happeningSaturday September 12, 11am-9pm 19 Pleasant Street (courtyard) Witness the transforma...
09/05/2026

The other side is here: A happening
Saturday September 12, 11am-9pm
19 Pleasant Street (courtyard)

Witness the transformation of the historic courtyard of Captain Harvey Coffin Mackay into a ship/stage where poetry, sound, visual art, ghosts and seagulls mingle and collaborate. The unfolding is co-created by CoCo Haze of Gallery RAG, K Prevallet of the Underverse, and Loren Doucette of Doucette Studio - featuring poetry&performances by Jim Dunn, Amy Sara Carroll, Joel Iwaskiewicz, M.P. Carver, and Matthew Henry; videoscape by Erin Iwaskiewicz will be posted on galleryrag.com/. The project is funded by the Harbortown Cultural District and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, with support from 1623 Studios.

KPrevallet
poet * assistant director of residencies for the T.S. Eliot House, Gloucester, MA
kprevallet.com
new book! A Varied and Tender Multiplicity: A Materia -medica of plants, poems, and spells (Station Hill Press)

08/05/2026

One of the great gifts of living and working in Gloucester is being surrounded by artists whose lives and practices have shaped this extraordinary creative community. Ruth Mordecai is one of those artists.

I’ve long admired Ruth—not only for the power and beauty of her work, but for the generosity, courage, and spiritual depth she brings to painting. Her newest exhibition, BLESSINGS, at COSMOS Gallery is a moving reflection on heritage, compassion, resilience, and our shared humanity.

In a time when fear and division can feel overwhelming, Ruth responds not with anger, but with paintings that she describes as prayers. They remind us that art can hold grief and hope at the same time, and that symbols can become places of healing rather than separation.

If you’re on Cape Ann this month, I hope you’ll take time to experience this beautiful exhibition.

BLESSINGS: Collages & Paintings
🗓 July 31 – August 30
📍 COSMOS Gallery

Don’t miss Ruth’s Artist Talk on Friday, August 14 at 5 PM.

Congratulations, dear Ruth. Thank you for your lifelong dedication to making work that invites us toward compassion, reflection, and peace. ❤️
COSMOS Gallery Cape Ann COSMOS

ContemporaryArt AbstractPainting SpiritualArt ArtAsPrayer GloucesterArtists

A CoCo Haze event last night featuring an in-process work. Gallery RAG Tracy HayesCoCo is a collaborative art making ide...
07/31/2026

A CoCo Haze event last night featuring an in-process work. Gallery RAG Tracy Hayes
CoCo is a collaborative art making identity that includes myself and the artist Tracy Hayes.

07/22/2026

Just for fun! Paco!❤️❤️😂😂

07/17/2026

CoCo Haze yesterday at Gallery RAG.
CoCo doesn’t make a plan.
CoCo makes an invitation.

Each Thursday in July (4–7 PM), the walls at Gallery RAG become a place where artists, writers, poets, and curious visitors meet without knowing exactly what will happen next.

The installation grows through collaboration. Every mark, every word, every unexpected encounter changes what comes next.

This week, come witness the next transformation during Discover Gloucester’s Culture Splash.

Gallery RAG is proud to be part of the Art+Everywhere Foundation, where we believe in art as a radical act of generosity.

📍Gallery RAG
37 Rocky Neck Ave, Gloucester
🗓 Thursdays in July
⏰ 4–7 PM


Come see what CoCo decides to become.
DiscoverGloucester ProcessArt CollaborativeArt GloucesterMA

07/10/2026

This exhibition made me so happy!! . Mark Cooper and Joel Janowitz. Up until August 16th. I highly recommend it!

07/10/2026

We had the best time last night! CoCo, as always, delivered.

With absolutely no idea where the evening would lead, we stapled giant sheets of rosin paper to the walls, fully expecting to begin making new marks like we did last year.

But CoCo had other plans.

Instead, we pulled down last year’s scrolls, cut them into pieces, and started pinning the fragments back onto the walls. Slowly, a strange and wonderful forest of CoCo Beasts began to emerge.

That’s the thing about CoCo Haze. It never arrives with a plan. It follows curiosity, collaboration, and whatever wants to happen next.

Come watch the installation evolve every Thursday in July during Culture Splash at Gallery RAG. Who knows what CoCo will do next?

InstallationArt CollaborativeArt GloucesterMA

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6 Wonson St
Gloucester, MA
01930

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