Herb Ferris, who was a painter showing in New York for thirty years, began making sculpture with his work for dance in the nineties. The Japanese style pieces for a large installation at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth were used by choreographers in Northampton, at M.I.T. and at Middlebury College where Ferris then made pieces for the Dance Department over the next five years. Beginning in 1998, he began working in stone and wood, mostly outdoor pieces that are now in gardens in thirteen states and Canada.

They have been used in private and public gardens and fall roughly into three groups: intimate space pieces in stone and wood, large pieces that reflect and invoke the landscape features of mountains and bodies of water and smaller pieces in stone as fountains or still water basins.

The wood has been treated with a variety of preservatives including boron implants. The pieces are joined with pins and epoxies. Many of the stone pieces are made with schist and beach granite.

An 18 minute video made by Wendy Conquest is available.

Born
Montclair, New Jersey 1944

B.A. Yale University 1966
M.F.A. Indiana University 1970

Public Collections
Montclair Art Museum
National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian)
Chase Bank, New York
Courtyard Garden, Mount Ascutney Hospital
Children's Museum, Seminole, Oklahoma
Center for the Arts, Middlebury College
Gamelon Room, Cornell University
Sculpture Tour, Western Michigan University
Arbor School, Tualatin, OR
Five Rivers Metro Parks, Dayton, OH
Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, Boothbay, ME
Vermont Institute of Natural Science, Quechee, VT
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ
Path of Life Garden, Windsor, VT
Karme Choling, Barnet, VT

Selected Publications
Chaet, Bernard. "The Art of Drawing" Hold, Rinehart & Winston, 1978
Olsen, Andrea. "Body Stories" Station Hill Press, 1991
Olsen, Andrea. "Body and Earth", University Press of New England, 2002
Mosko, Martin. "Landscape as Spirit" Weatherhill, Inc, 2003

Sculpture in gardens
Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, Cape Breton Nova Scotia, Maine, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina