2025 visual and performing arts calendar

Exhibit Dates:  March 26th - April 26th

Meet & Greet Reception - Saturday, March 29th, from 1 PM to 4 PM

The Clifton Arts Center is excited to present “Visions by 5 Artists,” an exhibition showcasing the dynamic works of five talented artists. 

The featured artists - Robyn Burns, Loretta D’Agnolo, Gloria Marino, Richard Toglia, and

Michael Zaccheo - bring their unique perspectives and artistic voices to this collaborative

display. Their works reflect an ongoing exploration and evolution of style, ranging from highly realistic depictions to pieces that incorporate abstract elements. Many of the artworks are inspired by the natural beauty of the surrounding environment.

The exhibition will feature a diverse mix of mediums, including watercolor, acrylics, markers, and oil paints. Together, these pieces offer a captivating kaleidoscope of creativity, imagination, and visual delight.  The Arts Center invites the public to join a special Meet & Greet Reception on Saturday, March 29th, from 1 PM to 4 PM. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with the artists and experience their creative visions firsthand.

Exhibit Dates:  November 6 - December 14, 2024

Opening Reception - Saturday, November 16th from 1pm to 4pm

The Clifton Arts Center presents Clifton’s Quarantine Station, this captivating showcase offers a glimpse into the rich history of the Clifton Quarantine Station and its vital role in U.S. agriculture. As part of the exhibition, the Arts Center will host a Meet & Greet Reception on Saturday, November 16th, from 1 PM to 4 PM. Visitors will have the unique opportunity to meet talented sculptors whose animal-themed works are featured in the exhibition. 

In addition, a Clifton Coffee House fundraiser will be held on Sunday, November 10th,  guests can visit the exhibit while enjoying coffee from Campfire Coffee, music from Jamestown Duo and light bites sponsored by JK Realty and the Allwood Diner. Read more and get tickets here: https://cliftonartscenter.org/fundraisers

This unique visual exhibition highlights the historical significance of the United States Department of Agriculture’s operations at the Clifton Quarantine Station. For more than 75 years, this station played a pivotal role in protecting the nation's animal health, serving as the primary entry point for hoofed animals, prized livestock, exotic species, and racehorses arriving from overseas. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore rare photographs and stories that showcase the station’s contributions to preventing the spread of animal diseases and supporting U.S. agriculture. 

The exhibition reveals a fascinating aspect of agricultural history: between 1900 and 1979, over 95% of the cloven-footed animals entering the U.S. from abroad passed through this quarantine station, located in Clifton, NJ. While serving primarily the Port of New York, the station safeguarded not only regional interests but also the nation’s welfare. From antelopes and giraffes to camels, sheep, and musk oxen, countless animals made their way through the Clifton Station, including an Arabian stallion gifted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower by Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba for his Gettysburg, PA farm.

This exhibition is made possible by funding from the Passaic County Cultural & Heritage Council, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. As 2024 comes to a close, this showcase also marks the beginning of the Clifton Arts Center’s celebration of its 25th anniversary in 2025.

Don't miss this opportunity to delve into the remarkable history of Clifton’s Quarantine Station and its role in shaping American agriculture!

Exhibit Dates:  July 10th - August 10th

Opening Reception - Saturday, July 13th from 1pm-4pm

This year’s theme by the Clifton Association of Artists showcases artistic endeavors with a variety of art media such as oil, acrylic, pastels, photography, watercolor, and sculpture from amateur and professional artists. Someone who is “artistic” is good at a skill in art such as drawing, painting or arranging things in a beautiful or pleasing way. To endeavor in an artistic way is to creatively pursue art and ways of doing art in a better or exploratory way. The artists are using “Artistic Endeavors” to show us how we can appreciate art through skills and process.

The Clifton Association of Artists was established in 1963 by a group of twelve Clifton artists. The mission of the Association is to promote the advancement of art and culture in Clifton by creating an environment for the expression of the visual arts. Presently, the Association has artists that are uniquely talented in their own art styles and media. Since 1964, the Clifton Association of Artists is sponsored by the City of Clifton Recreation Department.

Exhibit Dates:  May 8 - June 29th

Opening Reception - Saturday, May 18th from 1pm-4pm

 “Artists’ Perspectives” is an exhibition by the Community Arts Association about how artists use perspective techniques to create realistic and non-realistic impressions. The artist’s perspective values process, communication, and understanding. It embraces emotion and encourages connection. When artists communicate information, in this case through paintings, their perspectives can help make that visual information accessible, comprehensible, and approachable. The artist’s perspective can also shape how we think about and act with each other as a community at large. 

The Community Arts Association originated in Allendale, NJ in 1965. Meetings were originally held in the Highlands Presbyterian Church before relocating to Northern Highlands Regional School, Archer United Methodist Church, and finally to Trinity Episcopal Church. Community Arts Association sponsors workshops, hosts demonstrations, lectures, day trips, and art scholarships for graduating high schoolers.

Exhibit Dates:  March 6th– March 30th

Special Exhibit for Women’s History Month

Opening Reception - Saturday, March 9th from 1pm-4pm.

“Women’s Work: Unique Visions by Women,”.  is a special exhibit for Women’s History Month by Springboard Artists and sculptor, Lannie Hart. 

Springboard Artists is a unique group of seven women artists with varied art backgrounds from Bergen County, NJ and beyond. They are oil painters, illustrators, watercolorists, collagists, and digital artists with art ranging from realistically rendered watercolors to expressive oil paintings, from handcrafted collages to compelling abstract compositions.  The art group was formed in 2018.

Their work can be found in children’s publishing, on home products, in local exhibitions, and in private collections. While some members are devoted to full-time art practice, others combine their artmaking with demanding careers in textiles, dentistry, or education.  Mostly, all are brought together by a desire to propel themselves to greater skills and accomplishments, and by a passion to share their art with others.

Lannie Hart is a sculptor, painter, and installation artist from Sleepy Hollow, New York. She is a member of the Sculptors Guild. She had her first solo show in 1982 at Julie Artisan’s Gallery, NYC and was published in Art to Wear and is in Julie Schaffler Dale’s permanent collection. Other solo shows were in SOHO 20 NYC, Azarian McCullough Sparkill, NY Gallery Broadfoot & Broadfoot Booton, NJ.  Lannie has also shown at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Katonah Museum in NY, AIR Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, Jim Kempner Gallery NYC, Westbeth Gallery NYC, and many others. In 2012 she won first purchase prize at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn, NY.  In 2015, she received a $10,000 grant from Historic Hudson Valley for a sculpture in Van Courtlandt Manor, Croton-On-Hudson, NY.

Exhibit Dates:  January 24 to February 24, 2024

The Clifton Arts Center presents “History, Heritage & Tradition, " two collaborative and unique art exhibit partnerships in one exhibition.  The two exhibits are:

From Farmer to Founding Father: The Life of George Washington 

by County of Passaic: Department of Cultural & Historic Affairs. 

This exhibit consists of a series of twenty-seven (27) prints dating from 1857 to 1925 commemorating the life of General George Washington from his time leading the American Revolution well into his presidency.  The George Washington Print Collection was donated by Crum & Forester to the County of Passaic in 2017.  This project was funded in part by Passaic County Board of County Commissioners, through the Department of Cultural & Historic Affairs.

The Artist as Historian: Gaetano Federici 

by Cultural Affairs Department: Passaic Council Cultural & Heritage Council. 

This exhibit consists of selected sculpture art pieces courtesy of The Federici Studio Collection at the Hamilton Club at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ. Gaetano Federici was a gifted sculptor artist.  He emigrated to the U.S. in 1887 and settled in Paterson, NJ.   His  life, works, and legacy have been depicted with historical realism showcasing many leading athletic, civic, and religious leaders of the City of Paterson between 1904 and 1957.  Many of his works have often been larger-than life statues, lunettes, pediments, or plaques in bronze or cast stone, studio pieces in plaster or clay. 

Both these two leading historic figures, George Washington, and Gaetano Federici at different times and at different places throughout the American centuries, provides us with the connection of history, heritage, and tradition.  Future generations of all backgrounds can learn and explore. 

To tie the exhibit together, a handmade quilt of “God Bless America” will also be showcased by quilter/artist, Mari Garcia who is a member of the Brownstone Quilters Guild. 

Wednesday, September 20th to Saturday, October 14th 

Meet & Greet Opening:  Saturday, September 23rd from 1pm-4pm 

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is an award-winning, nationally known poet with more than twenty books to her credit, the latest being When the Stars Were Still Visible, published by the Stephen F. Austin University Press.  She is the founder and executive director of the nationally acclaimed Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ and editor of the well- respected Paterson Literary Review, which has published such literary luminaries as Allen Ginsburg, William Stafford, and Marge Piercy. She is Professor Emerita in Creative Writing at Binghamton University, SUNY. Mazziotti Gillan is a self-taught painter and collagist who says of her work, “My art comes from an instinctive place. In my watercolors and collages I try to do what I do in poetry—that is to let go, to allow the old wise woman who lives in my belly to take over. Allowing my imagination to take over gives me the freedom to paint people, interiors, or the external world as they exist in my mind rather than in reality.” She has exhibited her work at various venues on both the east and west coast. 

Linda Hillringhouse is a self-taught painter and poet. She has exhibited her work at the Newark Museum, Yale School of Art, Ben Shan Center for the Visual Arts at William Paterson University, among other venues. She is included in the 20th Century Self-Taught Artists Archive at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York. Hillringhouse says of her work that the figures she paints “seem stunned by the miraculous visible world but somehow know they are bound to the invisible world. My paintings seem to occur on the border between these realms.” Hillringhouse was a first-place winner of the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and second-place winner of the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Her book of poetry, The Things I Didn’t Know to Wish For was published by the New York Quarterly Press, May 2020 and was shortlisted for The Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize in 2021.

Wednesday, May 10th to Saturday, July 29th from 1pm-4pm.  

Meet & Greet Opening:  Saturday, May 13th from 1pm-4pm 

Sculpture Affiliates of Northern New Jersey was founded in 1972.  Since then, the group has functioned as an umbrella organization under the Art Center of Northern New Jersey.  The Art Center of Northern New Jersey is a fine arts school and gallery offering art classes to the general public. It was founded in 1956 and is located on the premises of the old Lutheran Church in New Milford, New Jersey.  

For details about the Sculpture Affiliates of the Art Center of Northern New Jersey visit: www.artcenter-sculpture.com. 

The Sculpture Affiliates of Northern New Jersey’s group's mission has been to educate and inform the public about three-dimensional art. New Jersey sculptors from all corners of the world exhibit together throughout New Jersey working in a wide range of materials from traditional stone & bronze to fiber, paper, and recycled products.  

The exhibit entitled “Sculptural Journeys” also examines how our cultural diversities can affect differences in choice and application of materials. Throughout the exhibit, artworks will reflect the detailed craftmanship and skill of each artist.  Visitors to the gallery are also encouraged to view each sculpture as a journey, as they navigate throughout the exhibition and see a broad range of materials and ideas.