The Daily Newarker — Press Wire

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Emma Wilcox

Ph. (646) 220-3772

ewilcox@aferro.org

ALL OF IT: Dahlia Elsayed

Midcareer NJ artist re-arranges over 100 paintings for “humorous, anxious, lusty poem.”

Gallery Aferro 73 Market St Newark NJ 07102 aferro.org
Main Gallery 9/11/10-10/2/10
Opening Reception September 11, 2010, 7-10 PM

Gallery Aferro is pleased to announce the opening of All Of It, an ambitious floor to ceiling exhibition of the work of New Jersey artist Dahlia Elsayed. Ms. Elsayed worked for a month in the 2000 sq. ft space to arrange and rearrange over 100 paintings from the last decade alongside new work to create an experience of “being bombarded by text” and physically walking through a “humorous, anxious and lusty epic poem.” Ms. Elsayed is the inaugural recipient of the 18-month Aferro Studio residency for midcareer New Jersey-based artists.

Ms. Elsayed’s painting process is closely linked with writing and in this show the artist performs a kind of editing and revision to selected works to create new and altered meanings. The exhibition will include new site-specific pieces and will be accompanied by an exhibition catalog with essay by short story writer and novelist Alice Elliott Dark.

The impetus for the exhibition comes from a flood that damaged the artist’s studio where she had been working for 14 years. In the frantic effort to remove work, Ms. Elsayed had the realization that “all the work is really just one big piece” and that work from years ago formed a connected narrative to the most recent paintings. Materiality, scale and language have all been choreographed here to function together as a massive meta-narrative.

Ms. Elsayed combines text and imagery to create visually narrative paintings that document internal and external geographies. Her work, influenced by conceptual art, comics, and landscape painting, is informed by autobiography and environment, to create illustrated documents of places and memories.  Her paintings, prints and artist books have been shown widely at galleries and art institutions throughout the United States and internationally, and is in numerous public collections. Ms. Elsayed has received awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop, Women’s Studio Workshop, Headlands Center for the Arts, and The NJ State Council on the Arts. She received her MFA from Columbia University.

Gallery Aferro is located at 73 Market St, Newark, NJ.

Gallery hours are Thurs – Sat, 12– 6 PM and by appt

Gallery Aferro 73 Market St Newark NJ 07102 www.aferro.org

Contact: Tom Sims, Cape May Film Society, 267-626-3688, capemayfilm@hotmail.com
Contact: Emma Wilcox, Gallery Aferro, 646-220-3772 info@aferro.org

Unstrung for Smithsonian Jazz Appreciation Month
Screening and Panel Discussion 4/24

For Immediate Release

(Newark, NJ) As part of Smithsonian’s Jazz Appreciation Month, Gallery
Aferro will be screening Unstrung, a documentary about the life of
legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino, followed by a panel discussion
with subject Pat Martino, director Ian Knox, and special guests. The
screening and panel will take place in the New Media Room at 6:30.

In 1980 Pat Martino moved his belongings from California to
Philadelphia to live with two complete strangers: his parents. As a
young jazz guitar virtuoso he had achieved near legendary status
during the 60s and 70s, before being diagnosed with a life-threatening
brain condition. Surgery had saved his life but wiped his memory. Back
in his childhood home, surrounded by the relics of his former life,
his father played him his old recordings at full volume and friends
rallied to try to coax him back to being the great artist he had been.
He could not dispute the evidence; the face in the mirror was the same
as the one on the record sleeves but it meant nothing to him.

In the following months. Martino made a remarkable recovery. Through
intensive study of his own historic recordings, and with the help of
computer technology, Pat managed to reverse his memory loss and return
to form on his instrument. His past recordings eventually became “an
old friend, a spiritual experience which remained beautiful and
honest.”

The film explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the
mysterious brain mechanisms underlying the construction of personal
identity. What is the self? How much change can it survive? Today,
Martino lives in Philadelphia again and continues to grow as a
musician.

Visit the retro concession stand for popcorn, organic, fair-trade hot
chocolate and other classics. Vintage images of Pat Martino by
photographer Len DeLessio will be on exhibit, with Mr. DeLessio
presenting a portfolio set to Mr. Martino.  Hosted in conjunction with
the Cape May Film Festival

$15 suggested donation

Up goes the wall section for the first floor of Women Build III House in Newark. Guiding it into place are (Left to right) Lisa Kelly, Virginia Petrucci, Sheila Wolfensohn, Rosie Jaworski and Jane James.

NEWARK, NJ – Habitat for Humanity Newark recently held a wall-raising ceremony for the Women Build III House, a single family home in Newark’s West Ward.

The ceremony was attended by approximately 65 Habitat Newark supporters, including a large contingent from Women Build, a group of Habitat Newark volunteers who raised funds for the home and raised the walls of the home to the cheers of those who gathered to watch.

“We’re thrilled to be putting up the latest Women Build house,” said Lynne Blaesser, co-chairperson of the Women Build program. “We want to thank everyone who contributed and we invite all the women out there to join us in finishing the work on this home.”

According to Blaesser, Women Build helps women learn construction skills in an atmosphere where they won’t feel uncomfortable if they don’t have building experience. Beginners are welcome to develop abilities that may be useful in their own homes and to join with other women to create affordable housing for hard-working, low income families, she said.

In addition, 70 percent of Habitat families consist of single women and their children and more than 300 women have participated in the Women Build initiative of Habitat Newark since it began in 2003.

The ceremony was also attended by Newark Councilman-at-Large Donald Payne,Jr. and West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice. Christina Vazquez, from the City of Newark’s Department of Economic & Housing Development complimented Habitat Newark volunteers on the progress of the building and their work ethic.

Art Shop is on the ground floor of Gallery Aferro in the main gallery, and offers seasonally curated artist multiples and one of kind items from around the world. Here are some new items, some Newark-centric.

"EWR"

A portion of proceeds from sales of this Necklace go to the Susan G. Komen fund for women, to support breast cancer research.

The selections of record bowls is always changing. All genres are represented, and “musical requests” can be made to artshop@aferro.org

"Panther Mix" signed

Sold out, now restocked!

"Newark Rings"

"NJ"

And finally, the onesie:

"Heart and Tools"

is in this case, 73 Market Street, between Washington and University. Please join us this Saturday 3/13 for the spring opening reception  for three new exhibitions, “Tek’tanic,” curated by Evonne M. Davis, “The Identity Project” by ’08 Aferro Studio Resident Beatrice Coron, and “Nothing to See/Hear” by ’08 Aferro Studio Resident Ryan Schroeder.

From 7-10, have a glass of wine, check out the waterfall cascading down the front platform of the gallery, built by Kai Vierstra or rearrange the city built by Lisa di Donato. Lisa Elmaleh’s wet plate images are made in a mobile car-trunk darkroom on long trips on back roads throughout the US. Stephen Mishol’s exquisite large scale prints depict the “Jersey Barrier.”

Beatrice Coron has recently given several papercutting workshops in the Essex county area, and her public art can be seen currently in NYC subway cars.  She has filled the Liminal Space with large tyvek sheets from floor to ceiling, cut into thousands of tiny figures depicting a dense, busy world inspired in part by contemporary literature, but recognizable and engaging to even the youngest of visitors.  This is a great show to take kids to!

Ryan Schroeder spent much of his residency working with experimental casein and beeswax sculptures, but his culminating exhibition in the Project Room is all new work. Come to discover what he brought back from his most recent residency in Virginia.

Contact: info@aferro.org

175 Jobs for Youth Planned for Summer 2009

The All Stars Project of New Jersey is launching in partnership with the New Jersey business community including Dun & Bradstreet, PSEG, Investors Savings Bank, Hollister Construction, Ernst & Young, and Latham & Watkins an economic job stimulus program providing summer jobs for Newark youth worth $500,000.

The All Stars Project of New Jersey, Development School for Youth, created nine years ago, in partnership with the New Jersey business community, acts as a bridge for inner city youth from Newark, helping them to acquire skills to professionally develop, and placing them in summer paid jobs. “We believe in economic stimulus and development stimulus, and we are thrilled to be partnering with private sector New Jersey businesses which are sponsoring our youth to the tune of $500,000 in summer internships for 2009. This gives young people of Newark business and professional opportunities otherwise not afforded to them and enables them to enrich their communities,” said Gloria Strickland, Director of All Stars Project of New Jersey.

One hundred eighty-five young people from Newark will be participating in the program receiving much needed professional skills and summer jobs in 2009. “By sponsoring internships over the last few years, we learned that this program is working and that our investment of time and energy benefits not only these young people, but also our team members and our workplace environment.” said Steve Alesio, Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet. D&B sponsors internships at its Short Hills corporate headquarters and other New Jersey facilities.

The All Stars Project, Development School for Youth, one of the country’s leading outside-of-school programs, was featured in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s documentary America: Beyond the Color Line. This year, the All Stars Project, Development School for Youth is partnering with over 85 corporations nationwide reaching inner city youth in Chicago, New York City and Newark, NJ. Summer jobs will be provided for 300 young people in 2009 who graduate from the program in the three cities. The program will expand to four cities and place 500 youth in summer jobs in 2010.

The All Stars Project, www.allstars.org, now in its 28th year is 100% privately-funded and builds partnerships with the private sector to produce outside-of-school development programs for inner-city youth using an innovative performance-based approach.