At the Firehouse Art Gallery: Sandy Farrier

Sandy Farrier

January 6 - February 1, 2010
Artist's Reception: Sat, January 9 at 3p-5p

Before one experiences the art of theater one must be drawn in by the theater of art. That is, there must be theater posters and playbills created to announce to the theater-goer what will be on the stage. In this exhibition at the Firehouse the creativity of Sandy Farrier comes alive in a collection of playbill covers that will make you wish you held a ticket to even the productions that have yet to be staged...

Artist's Statement - Having timidly observed and sometimes hung around the fringes of the theater community for years, fascinated by the craft of acting, wondering how a person gets to morph from who he really is into the character the play calls for, I was a classic wannabe.

Then one day I moved to Newburyport. Hailey Klein talked me into attending one of Marc Clopton's Actors Studio classes. That was three years ago, and I've been a theater addict ever since. I even dabbled in play writing, and was privileged to have my play Mating.com accepted into 2008 New Works Festival.

Which brings me to theater posters.

As a designer, I often can't leave well-enough alone. It's a blessing and a curse, but sometimes it leads to creatively serendipitous opportunities.

The more I studied acting and play writing, the more I found a natural connection between the creative processes of theater and design. Both require focus, a commitment of time and energy. Both involve the elements of discovery, of being open to all of the possibilities. And, at some point, both are inherently visual.

To be successful, a poster has several additional requirements:

it has to stop you in your tracks;
it must reward closer scrutiny;
it needs to include the nuts and bolts (who, what, where, when, etc.)
most importantly, it must be a visual distillation of the play it represents.

This exhibition includes posters for plays that don't yet exist and for some that do.

For the yet-to-be-written stories, my goal is to conjure up an idea and a composition that interests me using a combination of images: photos, illustrations, maps, signatures, etc. Sometimes I get a bonus - a clear vision of the full play's characters and plot. Often, however, a poster composition offers only visual clues about a play’s theme or content. Sometimes the idea for the play comes later.

The playhouse and playwright names that appear on these posters are either invented or respectfully borrowed. Including them is my homage to memorable people and unforgettable nights at the theater.

The exhibition also includes posters for a number of existing plays, most of which had at least a short run somewhere in New England. In a few cases, I had the privilege of being a cast member. In every case, I hope the posters helped fill the houses.

I am grateful to all of the gifted writers, actors, directors, stage managers, and producers in greater Newburyport and southern Maine who have been so supportive and fun to play with. I am humbled by their creativity and inspiration.

I'm still a wannabe.

About the artist -Sandy Farrier's design work has appeared in Communication Arts, How Magazine, Print Regional Design Annual, and the AIGA Awards Annual. He completed his BA at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT and his MFA in Communication Design at the University of Washington in Seattle. After 28 years on the West Coast, Sandy returned to New England in 2004, working for three years at MIT, first as the Associate Director of the Publishing Services Bureau and later as an art director for the Center on Global Change Science. Sandy is currently Chair of the Department of Visual Communications at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.

Sandy’s play Mating.com was chosen as a finalist and performed in the 2008 New Works Festival at The Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA. As an actor, in addition to several roles in past Random Acts and New Works festivals, he has appeared as Nick in Anne Nelson's The Guys; as The Good Cop in Ray Cooney's British farce Funny Money; and as Gunter in Michael Frayne's Democracy at the York Readers Theater. Along with actress Bonnie Lake, playwright Ray Arsenault, and director Cynthia Arsenault, he shared the Audience Favorite Award in the 2009 New England Fringe Festival, appearing in The Mediator and Coming Clean.

Sandy studies acting and playwriting, serves a variety of clients through Farrier Design, lives in Newburyport, MA with his sweetie pie, Karen Chandler, and continues to work on posters for plays that don’t exist.