A Greater Utah is on view through January 6—featuring art selected by six curators, each located in a different region. I love this curatorial approach for so many reasons, and the impact is visceral, creating a distinct vibe for each section of the exhibition. My work is included in the Sanpete County (central) region—home to Granary Arts. I first exhibited work at Granary Arts in 2014—then created three artworks in relation to this area in 2018, 2019 and 2021. It is incredibly meaningful to be included in this exhibition—bringing my art back home to its source, and being in conversation with so many other artists living in, or having ties to, this land/region.

July, 2022
As the culmination of last year's Greenwich House Pottery Fellowship, I'm honored to be showing my work alongside Kelly Chang, Meiasha Gray and Heidi Lau in Ceramics Now. The exhibition runs through August 19th. If you're in town, please join me for the in-person reception on Thursday, July 21 from 5-7 (there will be outside spillover space).

If you can't make the reception, you can visit by appointment. Via this link, you can easily self-schedule a time to visit Tues-Thurs, or email to set up another time/day -- Greenwich House Pottery is open most days for classes and staff would be happy to let you in if planned in advance.

June, 2021
Excited and grateful to begin my fellowship at Greenwich House Pottery — a year later than originally planned. I will be working out of a private studio at the Pottery through August 6. Please get in touch if you’d like to visit!

May 29, 2021
Opening today, Our Valley Speaks is a virtual exhibition, traversing Sanpete Valley, Utah, that features commissioned site-specific videos by multiple artists, plus videos by historians and local residents. Content is viewable at select locations through the Popwalk App.

This opportunity challenged me to try something I’ve wanted to do for a long time—collaborate with my mother who was raised on a small family ranch/farm in Southern Idaho. My 6-min. video, Feathers, features an interview with her about the gendered division of labor surrounding the killing and dressing of chickens, bookended by short tales of my grandfather and my great-great-grandmother (who lived in Sanpete Valley from 1856-1865). Visuals include both live-action video and a hand-drawn animation sequence.

November, 2020
Thrilled to announce that my quilted map of the Ephraim area is on view at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, through July 9, in the group exhibition, Material Issues: Strategies in Twenty-First Century Craft. The exhibition features the work of Gina Adams, Thomas Campbell, Elizabeth Clah, Jeffrey Gibson, Raven Halfmoon, Jann Haworth, Patrick Dean Hubbell, Ruben Olguin, Horacio Rodriguez, Amanda Smith, Brian Snapp, Danielle Susi and Rachel Thomander.

July, 2019
During my solo exhibition last summer at Granary Arts – a contemporary art center in Ephraim, Utah – I was invited by Amy Jorgensen (artist, Executive Director and Chief Curator) to envision a related project that could involve the local community. Thus this quilted map of Ephraim was born.

Over the course of a daylong workshop at Granary Arts, I loved becoming acquainted with, and working alongside, around 30 people – sewing individual farm patches and starting the yarn-quilting process. I enjoyed teaching a few participants how to sew for the first time, while others brought their expertise to the endeavor. Everyone marked a location important to them on the map through the addition of a French knot. And a few people donated scraps of clothing, or vintage fabric, to add both color and additional layers of meaning. I spent the winter finishing the quilt in my small Brooklyn apartment, including hours spent embroidering the mountain topography.

My gratitude goes out to all the people in the Ephraim community who helped bring this project to life. Currently on view through September 27.

May, 2018
Join me this Saturday, May 26th, for the opening of my new solo exhibition, Looking Forward, Looking Back, at Granary Arts in Ephraim, Utah. The opening event is from 10-5 and coincides with Ephraim’s Scandinavian Heritage Festival. I’ll be there from 12-3, with a gallery talk at 1pm.

Granary Arts is a contemporary art space housed within two historic buildings. This new work was created specifically for the C.C.A. Christensen Cabin Gallery, featuring 12 new figures within three quilted landscapes.

October 27, 2017
Tonight is the premiere of Martha (The Searchers), a new ballet by Julia K. Gleich, at Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn. Produced by Norte Maar, with decor by artist Elana Herzog, the performance runs Oct. 27th & 28th at 7:30pm and October 29th at 4pm.

“In Gleich’s choreography Martha is a composite of both courageous and tragic women in history. Her struggles and experiences are central to the ballet, offering an alternative narrative to the roles women played in an unsettled West.”

I was honored to meet with Julia this summer as this piece was developing, and very excited that my video, Onward, will screened during these performances as a prelude. I’ll be there both Friday and Sunday — join me!

October, 2017
On view thru November 12th, Beyond the Bed Covers is a group exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn. Curated by Laura Petrovich-Cheney, the show features a range of artists whose work is in conversation with the history of quilting. Artists include Kim Fox, Ariel Jackson, Luke Haynes, Coralina Meyer, Faith Ringgold, Jessica Skultety and images from the 1987 AIDS Memorial Quilt display in Washington, D.C.

My work in the exhibition revisits the installation I made for a 19th C. historic house on Governors Island, turning the piece into a table installation in-the-round, incorporating two new figures.

Opening Reception: Friday, October 13th, 6pm–8pm

Stitch and Bitch with Coralina Meyer: Saturday, October 21st, 2pm–6pm

Screening of The Last One, a 2014 documentary about the AIDS Memorial Quilt: Saturday, November 4th, 4pm–6pm (my work will off view from 3–6)

A.I.R. Gallery — 155 Plymouth St., Brooklyn — open Wednesday thru Sunday from 12–6

July, 2017
Please join me Thursday, July 27th from 6-8PM for the opening reception of my new installation, Ancestors Traversing Quilts at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in Soho (26 Wooster St.). This project has been a long labor of love and I am incredibly excited for it to be on view at last. If you cannot make the opening, it will be up through September 17th.

Here is the text I wrote for the exhibition label:

“My work draws inspiration from a variety of sources: my Mormon pioneer ancestry, childhood play with ceramic figurines, my grandmother’s quilts, historical dioramas, and pop culture’s invented mythologies of the American West.

This installation grew out of poring over my great-great-grandfather’s diary chronicling his immigrant journey from England to Utah Territory in 1853­­­—while confronting the absence of information about my great-great-grandmother who made the same journey, as a single woman without family, in 1855.

I would like to acknowledge that these quilts were made possible by the communal efforts of many. In gratitude.”

-Rachel Farmer

June, 2017
A year ago, during my residency at the Museum of Arts and Design, I started a new solo project that will soon debut at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Comprised of 8 new figures and 7 quilts, the installation follows two women helping each other climb a mountainous quilted terrain. For this last leg of completion, I’ve been holding quilting bees as a way to help with this enormous task, and also as a way to gather in community and share an important part of my upbringing — one of my favorite memories growing up in a Utah, Mormon community was gathering with neighborhood women a few times a year to hand-tie quilts to be gifted.

A.I.R. Gallery hosted my first round of quilting the first weekend in June. My final round of quilting bees will be held this upcoming Friday-Sunday (June 16–18) at another favorite artist-run gallery, Calico, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It is located at 67 West #203, and I’ll be there from 1–6 each day. Please join me!

I’ll be teaching a simple hand stitch (using a yarn and needle), and I welcome any and all help (and company!) to complete two more quilts.

June, 2016
This is my final week in residency at the Museum of Arts & Design. It has been a fantastic experience to share my work and swap stories with folks from NYC, all over the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Please join me on June 2nd for a round of slide talks (6–7) and a closing reception (7–8:30) to celebrate all six outgoing artists. And I’m very excited to meet the next round of artists who start up next week!

February 2016
My residency at the Museum of Arts & Design is in full swing.

You can find me working out of the 6th floor Artist Studios every Sunday from 10–1:30 & 2:30–5.

I’ll also be there the following evenings from 6–8:30:

February 18th & 19th

March 25th

April 21st & 28th

May 19th

And at a closing event on Thursday, June 2nd.

Please come on by and say hello!

July, 2015
On view through August 16th!

OUTLET FINE ART presents Torn and Fired featuring a summer survey of new work in collage and clay. Curated by Jason Andrew, this exciting exhibition brings together the works by local and regional artists.

Conversely, works in clay date back to archaeology of prehistoric cultures. A lot has happen since the Han Dynasty!

Torn and Fired includes new works in clay by:

Nancy Armitage (Plattsburgh), Ali Della Bitta (Peru, NY), Rachel Farmer (Brooklyn), Rebecca Goyette (Brooklyn), Roxanne Jackson (Brooklyn), Kristen Jensen (Brooklyn), Robert Raphael (Brooklyn), Jeff Schwarz (Brooklyn), Jerry Seguin (Plattsburgh), Elisa Soliven (Brooklyn) Sue Burdick Young (Jay), Terry Young (Jay)

One of my sculptures is traveling upstate to be included in the 2nd annual Jay Invitational of Clay, on view from July 17–19. Thanks to Jason Andrew, of Norte Maar, for inviting me to participate!

May, 2015
Incredibly grateful to be one of 14 artists and writers awarded grants by the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

Here is more information about the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

March, 2015
I am excited to share this Hyperallergic article, How We Got Here: Portrait of the Artist as a Queer Feminist.

Clarity Haynes (an amazing artist and writer), brought together the voices/images of five queer feminist artists. I am honored to bring my Mormon feminism to the table, alongside Chitra Ganesh, Karen Heagle, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, and Leah DeVun.

This article comes at an especially meaningful time. I’ve been in hibernation since the end of September, slowly healing from a ruptured appendix. Happy to report my energy is starting to pick up and I’m looking forward to getting my creative work back up and running again.

August, 2014
My 18-month fellowship with A.I.R. Gallery is coming to an end and I’m happy to mark the occasion with the group exhibition, If These Walls…, on Governors Island. Twenty-seven artists affiliated with A.I.R. Gallery have taken over one of the 19th century houses on Governors Island (Number 5B in Nolan Park), filling it with paintings, sculptures, drawings, photos, and site-specific work.

The exhibition is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am – 5pm through September 28. There will be a closing reception on Saturday, September 27, 2014 from 1pm – 4pm. For information about access and ferry service visit www.govisland.com.

You’ll find my installation upstairs in the walk-thru closet.

June, 2014
Having a beautiful time at Brush Creek Arts Residency in Saratoga, WY. It’s located in south central Wyoming on the edge of the Snowy Mountain Range. A perfect place to get some work done.

May, 2014
Monday, May 19th, is the annual Spring Fundraiser, “We Know What We Like,” for Triangle Arts Association at Lori Bookstein Fine Art.

I’m honored to have a few of my ceramic sculptures included, thanks to Hrag Vartanian, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Hyperallergic, who will be presenting my work. And I’ll be in the amazing company of work by Andrea Belag, Chuck Bowdish, Shamus Clisset, Jill Nathanson and Kyle Staver.

April, 2014
Granary Art Center

Land + Place + Performance

Curated by Laura Allred Hurtado

April 4th–June 28th, 2014

Very excited to be part of this inaugural exhibit at the Granary Art Center, a gorgeous new contemporary art space inside the historic Relief Society Granary Building in Ephraim, UT. I have a series of four photos on view and had an amazing time at the opening on April 4th. Please visit their website for more info.

Land+Place+Performance is an exhibition of six contemporary artists—Al Denyer, Rachel Farmer, Levi Jackson, Will Lamson, Jared Steffensen, and Claire White—whose work investigates landscape. Divided into two parts, terra firma and terra incognita, the exhibition explores representations of both known sites and foreign places. Photographs, installations, drawings, sculpture and video are all used to explore how the ways in which a place is rendered can often make the site both familiar and strange simultaneously.

October, 2013
Excited to announce my solo exhibition at A.I.R. Gallery, October 31-November 30. Join me for the reception on Thursday, November 7 from 6-9. This will coincide with DUMBO’s 1st Thursday Gallery Walk.


Ancestors

Rachel Farmer

October 31-November 30, 2013

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 7, 6-9pm

Artist Talk: Thursday, November 7, 6:30pm

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Ancestors by Fellowship Artist, Rachel Farmer. This is Farmer's first solo exhibition in New York City.

Ancestors brings together a body of work created in 2010-13, incorporating hand-built ceramic sculpture, photography, and video. As a child of the American West (and a descendant of Mormon pioneers), Farmer was steeped in regional folklore passed down through family, religion, and mass media. I am captivated by stories of my ancestors -- both my Mormon pioneer ancestors and my pioneering queer ancestors, states Farmer. I often try to collapse the two, creating a new ancestry.

Farmer creates ceramic figurines of pioneer women in action. Small enough to pick up in your hand, these women are engaged in various forms of labor, interspersed with occasional moments of rest and recreation. While they are showcased independently as sculptures, these frozen actors also populate her photos and videos. Farmer traveled out west with her sculptures, retracing the original Oregon Trail in Wyoming, eventually ending up in her home state of Utah. As her pale figures interacted with a contemporary western landscape, her video camera captured the absurdity of the situation: women toiling motionless as modern life moved around and past them.

Through her work, Farmer asks a series of interrelated questions: What gets passed down through generations? What is memorialized and what is left behind, or willfully forgotten? What mythologies guide, or haunt our lives -- both knowingly, or unknowingly? And how does queerness complicate a relationship with these mythologies?

Rachel Farmer is an A.I.R. Gallery Fellow based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She received her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and she teaches at MoMA, the Whitney Museum and Parsons the New School for Design. Recent exhibits include Illegitimate and Herstorical, curated by Emily Roysdon (A.I.R. Gallery, 2012) and #throwbackthursday / #flashbackfriday, juried by Scott Chasse and Hrag Vartanian (Calico, 2013). For more on the artist, visit rachelfarmer.com

A.I.R. Gallery is located at 111 Front Street, #228, in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Gallery hours: Wed.-Sun., 11am to 6pm. The gallery will be closed November 27-29 for Thanksgiving. For directions please visit www.airgallery.org. For additional information please contact the Interim Director, JoAnne McFarland, at 212-255-6651 or info@airgallery.org.

Image: Rachel Farmer, Ancestors Crossing Church Parking Lot, photograph, 2010

September, 2013
Calico presents its first juried group exhibition:
“#throwbackthursday / #flashbackfriday”
September 13 – October 4, 2013
opening reception: Sept 13, 6-9pm
jurors: Scott Chasse, founder/director of Calico
and Hrag Vartanian, editor-in-chief & co-founder of Hyperallergic

This exhibit coincides with Greenpoint Gallery Night.

Throwback Thursday: When you put a picture from a "while" ago on your social media sites. –Urban Dictionary

Instagram and other social medias are flooded at the end of each week with nostalgic images featuring the hashtag notations #throwbackthursday and #flashbackfriday. These pics of our former selves sporting bad hair, tacky prom dresses, sitting on dad's lap, or playing the oboe in high school band used to hide under the bed in an old shoe box. Their weekly resurrection has become money-in-the-bank in our online economy of likes and shares.

With #throwbackthursday / #flashbackfriday, Calico asked artists to consider these questions: As artists, are we as willing to share images from our potentially cringeworthy artistic pasts? Could the older work be a younger, hotter version of its modern counterpart? Perhaps there is an outright cohesiveness in one's work that has withstood the test of time...?

After sorting through over sixty submissions, a group of ten artists were chosen based on the interesting relationship of old work vs. new work. The exhibit will feature both old and new, and invites the viewer to search for similarities, differences, trends, and departures.

Exhibiting artists include:Eric Lee Bowman, Lauren Silberman, Marcia Cooper, Adams Puryear, Samuel Baumel, Stacie Johnson, Rachel Farmer, Thomas Buildmore, Mark Mann, and Charles Wilkin.

Calico 67 West St #206 Greenpoint, Brooklyn 11222

January, 2012
Excited to be part of this upcoming exhibit at A.I.R. Gallery, January 5-28. Opening Reception is Thursday, January 5 from 6-9.

Illegitimate and Herstorical
Curated by Emily Roysdon

Illegitimate and Herstorical presents works by eleven artists that consider alternative economies of labor, love, power, crossings and collectivity.

The exhibition features works by A Feminist Tea Party, Bland Boydston III, Rachel Farmer, Barbara Hammer, Reena Katz, Lucretia Knapp, Barbara Greene Mann, Alice O’Malley, LJ Roberts, Tobaron Waxman and invited artist Chris Vargas. This exhibition is the second in the Currents Exhibition series at A.I.R. Gallery.

Closing Reception with Emily Roysdon:

Saturday, January 28th from 4 to 6pm, including a performance by A Feminist Tea Party from 2 to 4:45pm.

Performance: Equipment Loans by Reena Katz: Friday – Sunday from 12 to 4pm throughout the exhibition and during both receptions.