Join the artists in the gallery for an Artist Talk

Saturday April 4, 2026 2-4pm

Free and open to the public

Resilience // Perseverance features work by Hera members Catherine Armistead, Joanne Delmonico, Roberta Richman, Tory Reiff, Carrie Usmar.

Roberta Richman

Tory Reiff

Tory Reiff makes colorful, chaotic things out of clay and paint and whatever else is nearby. Her work has been shown in group shows throughout Rhode Island — at Anyhow Studios and East Manning Projects in Providence, Art Talk Gallery in Newport, and Hera Gallery in Wakefield, where she serves as an artist member and vice president. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and works out of her home studio in Jamestown, RI.

Artist Statement

Shape, color, meditative rhythm — my marks chase fleeting moments of energy and emotion before they slip away. My process mirrors life as I experience it: fluid, imperfect, always adapting. I don't fight the chaos. I fall into it and see what comes out the other side — usually something that feels more like joy than I expected.

Some Assembly Required is a sprawling installation of sculptural assemblages — brightly colored ceramic forms, kiln-fired and slathered in paints and glazes — strung together with cotton rope and knots into modular strands that hang, drape, suspend, and spill throughout the space. The configurations are flexible because they have to be. That tension between structure and spontaneity, between holding together and falling apart — that's the whole thing. That's the practice.

Carrie Usmar

Catherine Armistead

Joanne Delmonico

Joanne Delmonico grew up in Providence, RI and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Art and Art History from Rhode Island College. After graduation, she moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she lived for 40 years. She also earned her Masters of Counseling degree from Webster University. Joanne had a fulfilling career as a trainer and coach with a focus in three main areas: leadership development, diversity awareness, and wellness. She enjoyed her tenure at three different entities in Tampa, Florida: the Tampa Tribune, Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority at Tampa International Airport. Upon early retirement from corporate life in 2016, Joanne turned her attention fully to her artwork and moved back to Rhode Island in 2021. In her work as a trainer and coach, Joanne always held a humanistic view that focused on self-actualization and well-being. Her artwork is a continuation of that philosophy. Joanne has shown her artwork in group exhibitions in Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg; the Dunedin Fines Arts Center in Dunedin, Florida; at the Art Prov Gallery in Providence; the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative in Pawtucket; and at Hera Gallery in Wakefield. Joanne’s first solo exhibition was held at the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative in July 2023. The title of the exhibition was “FACE IT! Recognizing the Need for Social Change.” It included 20 large scale, mixed-media, figurative drawings, 3 oil paintings, and 11 small portraits. The majority of the exhibition focused on four social issues: Black Lives Matter, Climate Change, Immigration, and Women in Crisis.

She is currently working on oil paintings for her next solo exhibition entitled, “The Faces of Survival: Goddesses and Warriors in Our Midst.” The paintings portray women and their children as mythological goddesses and historical women warriors. Joanne is currently a member of the Portrait Society of America, Pawtucket Arts Collaborative in Pawtucket, RI, and Hera Gallery in Wakefield, RI.

The Faces of Survival: Goddesses and Warriors in Our Midst

The United States of America is in crisis and our democracy is at risk. Chaos and disinformation make it hard to know where to focus our attention as people from all walks of life seem to be under attack simultaneously. Since 2020, I have been using my artwork as a tool for social consciousness, focusing on how the social issues of today are impacting people and our planet. With so much happening in the country and around the world, I decided to narrow my scope and shine a spotlight on a specific group of people. Therefore, my newest series is about telling the stories of mothers and children who have survived a traumatic event or experience in their lives.

The Madonna and Child Portrait has been capturing my attention since my first trip to Italy at age 16. The Renaissance masters, Botticelli and Raphael, painted numerous Madonna and Child portraits that I find so beautiful and tender that seeing them in person often brings tears to my eyes. To me, these paintings represent some of the most powerful symbols of the Divine Feminine in art. Paintings and sculptures that depict the stories of the mythological Goddesses from various cultures also play an important role in defining the Divine Feminine archetypes. These archetypes are universal and collective characteristics and behaviors inherent to every woman. Simply put, the Divine Feminine represents qualities such as creativity, intuition and inner wisdom, compassion and empathy, connection to nature and the rhythms of life, adaptability, and balance. Although this series is focusing primarily on women, the Divine Feminine isn’t limited to women only. It is an energy that exists in everyone and balances what is called the Divine Masculine, qualities that are more action- driven and logical. At a point in human history, thousands of years ago, there was a gradual shift away from interdependence, nature, and regeneration (Divine Feminine qualities) and toward dominion, control, and conquest (Divine Masculine qualities). This gradual shift created an imbalance, which could account for the current state of disenfranchisement in our world.

My mother and child portraits depict the women and their children as either goddesses or women warriors. While the goddesses are mythological figures from various cultures, most of the women warriors were real women from history. My goal is to portray the women in an uplifting way to demonstrate the courage, determination, and perseverance they accessed as they overcame huge obstacles and challenges in their lives. Despite the fact that women are slowly losing their rights in this country, my oil paintings tell a different story, a story of women who have struggled and prevailed, with a sense of empowerment, confidence, and ferocity.

When you look back through history, women’s stories are not often told. While researching women warriors for this series, I was amazed that every search I conducted yielded multiple women warriors from a specific region of the world. Why hadn’t I heard of them before? This collection of paintings brings the stories of these women warriors to the forefront. As you view these portraits, please read the stories of the challenges overcome by my models and the historical accounts of each woman warrior being portrayed.