SUMMER 2026

FLOATING:north

Water, Change, Transformation

August 13–27, 2026
Gallery RAG + Art+Everywhere Foundation
37 Rocky Neck Avenue, Gloucester, Massachusetts

Featuring Norwegian artists Laurie “Sky” Smith Vestøl and Christine Vik Bratvold
2026 Art+Everywhere International Artist Residency

This August, Gallery RAG and the Art+Everywhere Foundation welcome Norwegian artists Laurie “Sky” Smith Vestøl and Christine Vik Bratvold to Gloucester for FLOATING:north, a three-week international artist residency unfolding between the gallery, the streets of Rocky Neck, Oakes Cove, and the sea.

FLOATING:north explores water, change, transformation, and the “oceanic feeling”—that profound sense of connection in which the boundaries between self, body, landscape, and world begin to dissolve.

Working across porcelain sculpture, photography, movement, dance, performance, sound, light, and public participation, Laurie and Christine invite us to consider what happens when we enter into a more intimate relationship with water and with the more-than-human world around us.

The project began in Norway and continues to evolve here in Gloucester. Rather than arriving as a finished exhibition, FLOATING:north is a living residency: objects move, bodies move, the audience participates, and the work changes through encounters with a new place and community.

Visitors are invited to come more than once and experience the project as it transforms over the three weeks.

All events are free and open to the public.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13 | 5–7 PM

CULTURE SPLASH: OPENING OF FLOATING:NORTH

Gallery RAG → Oakes Cove

Join us for the opening of FLOATING:north and welcome Laurie and Christine to Gloucester.

The evening begins inside Gallery RAG with Laurie’s porcelain forms and an activation of the installation through Christine’s improvised movement and dance.

Then the work leaves the gallery.

Visitors are invited to choose and help carry one of Laurie’s porcelain sea creatures from Gallery RAG through Rocky Neck to Oakes Cove, crossing together from gallery to street to shoreline.

There, the porcelain creatures encounter Gloucester and the Atlantic—a new body of water, landscape, and community.

Come participate, walk with us, carry a creature, or simply follow along.

Thursday, August 13 | 5–7 PM
Gallery RAG, 37 Rocky Neck Avenue
Followed by a walk to Oakes Cove
Free admission

AUGUST 13–16 | 12–5 PM

THE GALLERY BECOMES A WORKING SPACE

During the days following the opening, FLOATING:north continues to evolve inside Gallery RAG.

The artists bring together improvised dance, porcelain forms, water, text, sound, shadow, and light while making and working in the gallery.

Visitors are invited not simply to view the work, but to enter into its development—to make a mark, observe the artists at work, and experience the installation as it changes.

Bring a flashlight!

Gallery RAG
37 Rocky Neck Avenue
12–5 PM
Free admission

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 | 6:30–7:30 PM

CULTURE SPLASH: FLOATING:NORTH AT OAKES COVE

Site-Specific Dance + Performance at the Water’s Edge

For the second Thursday of the residency, FLOATING:north moves fully outside the gallery.

Meet us at Oakes Cove at sunset for a site-specific performance bringing together Christine’s contemporary dance and Laurie’s porcelain forms within the landscape of Gloucester.

Here, water is not simply the subject of the work—it becomes a collaborator.

Movement, porcelain, tide, weather, rocks, light, and the changing shoreline come together in a performance responding to the particular place and moment.

Join us for a poetic evening at the water’s edge celebrating our bodies, our relationship to water, and the creatures of the sea.

Thursday, August 20 | 6:30–7:30 PM
Oakes Cove, Gloucester
Free admission

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27 | 5–7 PM

CULTURE SPLASH: CLOSING CELEBRATION

After three weeks of movement between Norway and Gloucester, gallery and beach, porcelain and body, artist and audience, we gather one final time.

Join Laurie and Christine at Gallery RAG for the closing of FLOATING:north and experience what the residency has become.

What began as objects and ideas brought from Norway will have been changed through encounters with Gloucester—with its water, weather, landscape, artists, visitors, and community.

Come see the final installation, spend time with the artists, and help us celebrate the conclusion of this evolving international collaboration.

Bring a skål and join us for a toast to FLOATING:north!

Thursday, August 27 | 5–7 PM
Gallery RAG
37 Rocky Neck Avenue
Free admission

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Laurie “Sky” Smith Vestøl

Laurie “Sky” Smith Vestøl is a Norwegian artist whose interdisciplinary practice grows from a deep relationship with water and the island landscapes of southeastern Norway. With a background in landscape architecture and city planning, she works across porcelain sculpture, photography, installation, performance, and participatory practice.

Swimming, kayaking, underwater photography, and sustained observation of marine environments inform a practice in which art becomes a way of listening and attending to place. Her porcelain forms often operate as talismans or sea creatures—objects that move between the human body, landscape, and water.

Laurie runs Red Moon Studio and co-creates Floating Conversations at the Boathouse on Sandøya, Norway. She describes aspects of her practice as a form of “silent activism”—creating conditions for attention, connection, and changed relationships with the natural world.

Christine Vik Bratvold

Christine Vik Bratvold is a Norwegian dancer and performance artist working with movement, improvisation, place, and embodied experience.

For FLOATING:north, Christine’s body becomes part of an evolving conversation among Laurie’s porcelain forms, the gallery, the audience, and the coastal landscape of Gloucester.

Rather than placing dance on a traditional stage, the residency allows movement to emerge in direct relationship with objects, water, weather, architecture, and the unexpected conditions of each site.

AN INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE

FLOATING:north is presented through the Art+Everywhere Foundation International Artist Residency Program, an initiative connecting artists and communities across geographic and cultural boundaries.

The project has developed through an ongoing exchange between Norway and Gloucester, creating opportunities for artists not simply to travel and exhibit work, but to enter deeply into another place, work alongside other people, and allow that encounter to transform their practice.

At the heart of Art+Everywhere is the belief that art can be a radical act of generosity—a way of creating relationships, opening possibilities, sharing resources, and making spaces in which something unexpected can happen.

Gallery RAG is a project of the Art+Everywhere Foundation.

VISIT

FLOATING:north
August 13–27, 2026

Gallery RAG
37 Rocky Neck Avenue
Gloucester, MA

FREE + OPEN TO EVERYONE

Come once. Come back. Watch the work change.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

JUNE

FRIDAY JUNE 12, 5-8PM

OPENING NIGHT AND STREET PARTY!

Please join us!! If you have never been to our fabulous street party, we would love to see you and share smiles, laughter, art, barbecue, drinks, live music, and lots of dancing (Deb's favorite part - she even made some wearable art for dancing). All are welcome - bring your friends, family, children, and pets! Gallery RAG is dedicated to supporting our whole community, not just the arts. As usual, Rick will be running his popular barbecue stand and drumming up bidders for our amazing selection of silent auction items. There will be a tent for shade or rainy weather and inside the gallery there will be an exhibition of Deb's work made during her sailing travels in the Caribbean and Gloucester MA (the wearable art will be for sale too). Proceeds of the silent auction and all art sales will go to support Gallery RAG's artist residency program, the Art+Everywhere Foundation, and will help keep the arts alive on Rocky Neck!

There is plenty to see and do in Gloucester - make a weekend of it! Check out our links below for best place to stay and also make sure you visit: The Cape Anne Museum, The Cove Gallery, Imagine Gallery, Jane Deering Gallery, Cosmos Gallery, The Gloucester Maritime Museum, The Salted Cod, Schooner sailing on the Ardelle, Sail on our boat - ArtemisSails.com, Restaurant 51, Good Harbor Beach, Bass River Golf Club, All the wonderful restaurants in Gloucester and Rockport, and of course, Whale Watching!!!

JULY

EVERY THURSDAY FROM 4-7PM CULTURE SPLASH EVENTS

JULY 9TH- JULY 30TH

(On any day other than Thursdays, we may be there.

Come on in if the door is open, or make an appointment by emailing Deb at debreadmiles@gmail.com)

COCO HAZE RESIDENCY

IMPROVISATIONAL, IMMERSIVE INSTALLATIONs

Join us for the beginning of the CoCo Haze Residency during the month of July.

Opening Night: The First Activation of CoCo Haze
Gallery RAG

CoCo Haze is not a single person but a collective identity—an experiment in dissolving the boundaries of authorship. Initiated by Deborah Read and Tracy Haze, CoCo expands to include other artists, writers, and participants as the work unfolds. CoCo is porous, flexible, and alive.

On opening night, Tracy and Deb will begin the first iteration of CoCo for the month, working live in the gallery—installing, improvising, and making art in real time. The audience is invited to witness the process as it happens.

This is not an unveiling but an activation.

The environment created that evening becomes the stage for the rest of the month—a living installation where artists, poets, writers, and visitors are invited to enter, respond, and participate. Nothing is fixed in advance. The work grows through encounter.

CoCo Haze is less a name than a field of relations—
an ongoing practice of making and unmaking the self together.

AUGUST

AUGUST 3-10

GOETTEMAN DISTINGUISHED ARTIST/TEACHER

KAT MASALA

AUGUST 13-27

EVENTS EVERY THURSDAY FROM 4-7PM

VISITING ART+EVERYWHERE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

LAURIE VESTOL FROM NORWAY

You may also like