Mills Pond House, St. James, New York • 16 August–21 September 2003
In 2003, shortly after completing his MFA at SUNY Stony Brook, Jeffrey Allen Price transformed the historic Mills Pond House in St. James, New York into POTATO HOUSE, an immersive potato-themed environment combining original artworks, collection displays, educational exhibits, performances, lectures, readings, games, and a living potato garden. Building upon ideas first explored in POTATOLAB, the project introduced Think Potato programming to a broader public audience and marked an important transition from the artist’s earlier festivals in Springfield, Missouri to larger community-based initiatives on Long Island.
Occupying multiple rooms throughout the house, POTATO HOUSE featured potato sculptures, drawings, paintings, books, toys, films, music, historical materials, and artifacts from Price’s growing Potato Collection. Visitors were encouraged to interact directly with the exhibition through scheduled events, discussions, performances, and hands-on activities. The exhibition blurred the boundaries between artwork, archive, classroom, community center, and festival site.
The project culminated in THINK POTATO IV, a large public potato festival featuring games, performances, readings, music, and community participation activities. Among the participants were Dutch potato enthusiasts Michiel Brink and Gerard Immerzeel of De Aardappeleters (“The Potato Eaters”), whose visit marked the beginning of a decades-long international friendship and collaboration that would later influence numerous Think Potato Institute projects.
POTATO HOUSE also generated some of the earliest sustained media attention for Price’s potato-based work. Building upon the national exposure received through the Food Network’s Unwrapped in 2002, the exhibition was featured in local and regional newspapers, helping introduce the project to a broader public audience and demonstrating that the potato had become a subject capable of attracting genuine cultural interest beyond the art world.
Historically, POTATO HOUSE represented a major milestone in the evolution of the Think Potato Institute. If POTATOLAB established the educational and research framework of the project, POTATO HOUSE demonstrated how those ideas could function within a public cultural setting. Looking back, the exhibition can be understood as an early prototype for the Think Potato Institute itself. Long before TPI existed as a formal organization, POTATO HOUSE brought together many of the elements that would later define the Institute: collections, research, education, performance, community participation, international exchange, and a belief that even the humble potato could serve as a catalyst for creativity, conversation, and cultural connection.
Exhibition Coverage:
2003 — Art: A Grand Passion for a Simple Potato — The New York Times [Article] [PDF]
2003 — A Spud Lover’s Exhibit: That’s No Small Potatoes— Newsday [PDF]
2003 — Jeffrey Allen Price’s “Potato House” Opens at the Mills Pond House — Times Beacon Record Newspapers, Long Island, New York [PDF]
2003 — Eyes On Potatoes: Exhibit Celebrates Agriculture, History — The Smithtown News, Smithtown, New York [PDF]
Related Exhibitions:
→ The Potato Revolution Café (2011)
→ Unpacking My Potato Collection (2012)
Related Timeline Entry:
→ The Potato Revolution Café (2011)
→ Unpacking My Potato Collection (2012)