Upcoming Events

How To Tell Your Story: An Intimate Talk and Writing Workshop with Doreen Oliver

Thursday, December 8th
7pm – 9pm
Main Gallery @ Gallery Aferro
73 Market Street, Newark, NJ

Free and open to only 10 registered participants!
* Masks are required. Please register for a free ticket here.

2019 Sustainable Arts Fellow Doreen Oliver and Gallery Aferro invite up to 10 participants of all experience levels to consider how to tell their story.

Do you have an idea that you’ve turned over and over again in your head but never put pen to paper? Or have you been writing for a long time but haven’t yet published your work? In this workshop, writer/performer and former film producer Doreen Oliver will share with you her own experiences in taking an idea and turning it into a published or produced piece. We’ll talk about nonfiction/memoir, fiction, theater, and film, and an overview of what the process entails of getting your work out into the world for each genre. Come with one idea or piece and we’ll offer suggestions about how to take it to the next level.

Doreen Oliver is a writer, actor, and speaker whose storytelling illuminates the beauty, heartbreak, and unpredictability of life, often through the lens of parenting. Her critically acclaimed one-woman show about raising a child with autism, Everything Is Fine Until It’s Not, broke the record for the fastest sellout of a run in the 20-year history of the New York International Fringe Festival and won the Backstage/United Solo Audience award the following year.

Oliver’s essays on autism, racism, and the chaos and contradictions of parenting have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post Sunday Magazine, The Root, Kenyon Review, and as an Audible Original, which she recorded. She has performed her pieces at the Yale Repertory Theatre and New York’s Symphony Space, and shared her insights nationally from college classrooms to ideas festivals like The Nantucket Project, where fellow speakers included George W. Bush, Tig Notaro, and Laura Dern.

A former independent film producer and development executive, Oliver helped bring to the big screen such independent films as the Oscar-winning Precious (Mo’Nique), Shadowboxer (Helen Mirren), and The Woodsman (Kevin Bacon). She also honed her storytelling skills working in Original Programming at HBO in Los Angeles. Early in her career, she created and produced the sold-out talent showcase series “Frustrated Artists in Corporate America,” held at the legendary venue The Bitter End in NYC and featured on CBS Evening News.

A recipient of residencies, fellowships, and other support from Yaddo, Hedgebrook, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Tin House Writers Workshop, VONA, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation at Gallery Aferro, Oliver was named a 2022 PEN American Emerging Voices Fellow for fiction. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was a Charles Bonini Fellow. Learn more at www.doreenoliver.com 

Artist Talk: Ancestral Call with Danielle Scott

Free and open to everyone!
* Masks are requested, but not required.

Join exhibiting artist Danielle Scott, co-curators Bryant Small and Anthony E. Boone, and songwriting chanteuse Janétza Miranda on Saturday, December 10th for an evening of communal observation and illuminating conversation as these dynamic voices in the New Jersey arts scene share their collective journey in the creation of the Ancestral Call exhibition.

Darker in tone and emotion than previous exhibition by Scott, Ancestral Call taps into the complex, but inexhaustible need to explore ancestry and lineage within the Black families shaped by the legacy of slavery across generations. With Small, Boone and Miranda by her side, Scott will take us through the process, choices and memories that sparked this magnificent collection of new work and the unparalleled impact it has had on her life. 

Ancestral Call will be on view at Gallery Aferro through Saturday, January 21, 2023.

If you have any questions about the Artist Talk, please contact Gallery Aferro at (973) 353-9533 or info@aferro.org. 

Gallery Aferro Annual Affordable Art Sale

December 8th – 17th, 2022

Memorial Gallery @ Gallery Aferro

Thursday, December 8th: 12 Noon – 8 PM
Friday, December 9th: 12 Noon – 6PM
Saturday, December 10th: 12 Noon – 6PM

Wednesday, December 14th: 12 Noon – 6PM 
Thursday, December 15th: 12 Noon – 7:30 PM
Friday, December 16th: 12 Noon – 6PM
Saturday, December 17th: 12 Noon – 6PM

Gallery Aferro welcomes you to our annual art sale and artisan market starting Thursday, December 8th! This year we are running for two weeks in our 2nd Floor Memorial Gallery. All proceeds from the sales of art and gift items support Gallery Aferro’s award-winning nonprofit art programs. 

Nothing is over $500, and there are wonderful items for every budget. You will find limited edition prints, photographs, paintings, artist multiples, artist books, t-shirts, music, pins, buttons, postcards, and more to take home for yourself or gift to someone you adore. 

If you have any questions, don’t be shy about reaching out via (973) 353-9533 or info@aferro.org to ask about an artwork you see online and on social media, or with any gift-giving or art-buying ideas. Art is for everyone and buying it should be fun and easy!

Gallery Aferro 2022 Artisan Market & Party

December 17th, 2022 – 12-6PM

Main Gallery @ Gallery Aferro 

  • MOVE. SKETCH. MAKE. Workshop by Monifa Kincaid and Zoey Crenshaw – 2-4PM
  • Dance Performance by South 17th Street School Students – 4PM
  • Various vendors 
  • Hot & cold drinks

On December 17th Gallery Aferro is its end-of-year Artisan Market & Party! 

Gallery Aferro is thrilled to welcome you to our annual artisan market & party. Come browse our gallery walls, enjoy shopping the wares of diverse, local vendors and artisans, participate in “MOVE. SKETCH. MAKE” an energetic and collaborative dance/movement & collage workshop presented by visual artist Monifa Kincaid and dancer Zoey Crenshaw. Then stick around and watch dance teacher and choreographer Arthur Thornton present two new works entitled “In The Middle of The World” and “PEACE,” performed by students of South 17th Street School. 

Hot and cold refreshments will be served, and the food and festivities are FREE and all are welcome. Proceeds from the sales of art and art shop items support Gallery Aferro’s award-winning nonprofit art programs, but 100% of the sales from the artisan market go to the brilliant creatives themselves.

As we approach the end of 2022, it’s still a great time to start or expand your friends & family’s or your own art collection. Nothing is over $500, and there are wonderful items for every budget. You will find limited edition prints, photographs, paintings, artist multiples, artist books, t-shirts, music, pins, buttons, postcards, and more to take home for yourself or gift to someone you adore. 

If you’ve never been, join us for the first time! Come out to nosh, browse and spend time with new friends and strangers.

Please reach out via (973) 353-9533 or info@aferro.org to ask any questions about an artwork you see online or about any gifting or art-buying. Art is for everyone and buying it should be fun and easy!