Coming Back to SMFA
Lorie Hamermesh, Studio Diploma ‘84, Traveling Scholar ‘85, is in her studio in Boston's Fort Point Channel, leaning her body weight into turning the wheel of the French Tool printmaking press that dominates the room's floor space. Already a painter with a BFA, Hamermesh first came to SMFA in the 1980s for the Studio Diploma program. She took classes part-time across mediums for five years while she parented two young children.
From her first figure drawing class with Bill Flynn and painting class with Gerry Bergstein, Lorie found such a supportive community that she never entirely left–returning again and again for extended ed courses and to support the school as a member of the Board of Governors, with her time and generosity.
With her own practice established, she set up the Lorie Hamermesh Scholarship Fund in 1999. Lorie came up with the idea of giving back to SMFA after seeing the pride her husband, a business school alumni and professor, took in attending reunions and pledging major gifts every five years to his alma mater.
"I thought to myself, I should do the same thing for SMFA," she explains. "Art school is expensive, and that limits some really talented people from attending. I felt that what the school needed most was scholarship funds."
Every year, Lorie takes joy in getting to know the Hamermesh Scholars–and she stays in touch even after they graduate. Twenty-Five SMFA students from the United States, South Africa, Turkey, and other countries have completed their degrees thanks to the scholarship–and gone on to launch remarkable practices and careers in the arts.
"It is deeply gratifying to help young SMFA artists who will lead the way for social change and advocate for the environment with their work," Lorie says.
The week of our studio visit, a collector had downsized spaces and returned, Changing, one of the large-scale mixed media canvases that Lorie completed at SMFA. The piece was originally shown during her fifth-year graduation exhibition, circa 1985. "It's a coincidence that it's recently been returned to me and we are talking about SMFA today,” Lorie says, taking a sip of spiced orange tea and gesturing toward her studio wall where the work has been installed.
At first glance, the piece seems decorative and sentimental–an open closet filled with colorful puff-sleeved floral dresses. . But on closer inspection, a riff on Renoir's Dance at Bougival becomes part of the wallpaper beside forlorn silhouettes of pubescent girls, crumpled handkerchiefs from crying, and a dark-windowed dollhouse diminish the saccharine and add a sinister mood. Is Renoir’s female dancer being held a little too possessively?
"It comes across as too pretty at first," Lorie admits. "Until you take a closer look."
Standing beside the same work at the 1985 Fifth Year Traveling Scholarship opening at Boston's iconic Cyclorama gallery was where Lorie first gained gallery representation straight out of SMFA. The director of Boston's Gallery NAGA introduced himself and invited her to bring three works to the gallery to discuss joining NAGA’s roster of artists. At their follow-up meeting soon after, the works were sold on the spot by the time she was done meeting with the gallery director.
Lorie continues to be represented by Gallery Naga today alongside other SMFA graduates like Dinorá Justice, MFA ‘14, who received a 2023 SMFA Traveling Fellowship. NAGA exhibited solo shows of Lorie's work for years, but the pressure to produce took a toll. "The shows felt like a huge performance, and I just kind of ran away," she confesses. "I didn't want to be under that kind of pressure to produce on deadlines."
Thrown, Lorie retreated from making art for a decade.She began taking printmaking classes at SMFA with part-time lecturer Rhoda Rosenberg, and the new medium was reinvigorating.
When Lorie’s therapist suggested she make prints to inform their work together, the work that emerged surprised and shocked her, revealing themes of desire and shame surrounding it.
She says, "My first show in many years was Desire/Shame in 2021. I was anxious about revealing such personal secrets, but the truth is these themes have always been in my work, just hidden from my consciousness.” From 2021, these themes become bolder and more outspoken—and she did, too.
The technical steps for creating a print lured Lorie out of her creative block and continue to have that effect today. "I never have an idea precisely thought out before I start," she says. "I welcome unplanned accidents and surprises, which often reveal deeper truths.”
The work she's experimenting with in her studio in 2024 plays with ink viscosity, where she picks up an image with the roller and places it down again, each time more faded and ghost-like, mysteriously expressing themes of identity, aging and mortality.
Lorie regularly donates her mono prints to the annual SMFA Art Sale, which she also attends to meet current SMFA students and reconnect with fellow alumni and faculty friends.
She explains, "The Sale is a great place to engage with creative people and discover new artists—many likely to become big one day. Young collectors can go one step further and support the SMFA scholarship fund by purchasing innovative yet affordable student work that just may turn out to be a great investment! Becoming a part of the SMFA community will truly enrich your life.”