I can hold my own, of course: I can name all five Robins and give respectable arguments for my favorites. If you name a Marvel hero I could probably name which side of the Registration Act issue he or she fell on. Maybe the most convincing proof I can offer that I’m a True Believer is the fact that I actually envy the people who know more than me.

One might wonder why anyone would envy such a dubious accomplishment. The answer is simple: because Marvel and DC are comic books and comic books are Marvel and DC. No matter what my relationship is with the medium, no matter how long it’s been a part of my life, no matter how much I can tell you about indie authors like Craig Thompson or Marjane Satrapi, there is a certain and very odd kind of street cred carried by the people who know the chemical difference between adamantium and vibranium.

It’s telling that the spandex-clad cliches of the old guard still define the medium of the graphic novel to the extent they do. Mention the term ‘comic books’ and what comes to peoples’ minds are tights-wearing superheroes, campy dialogue and the casual use of that questionable term, ‘multiverse’. Assumptions like these are certainly less true than ever these days; more and more, titles that were avant-garde obscurities twenty years ago are being recognized as works of popular literature now, perhaps even as classics.

Still, it’s hard to see what made these works so avant-garde in the first place. Read Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and its sequels (together composing an autobiographical epic history of a fictional row of tenement buildings in Depression era New York) and it’s hard to tell what made this story so revolutionary. For all its brilliance, it doesn’t drift that far away from the conventions of traditional artwork or storytelling.

Alan Moore’s Watchmen seems a little closer to revolutionary, but even two decades has been enough to dull its edge substantially. Movies like “The Dark Knight” have made it easy for us to believe that a superhero story can be real art. Twenty years ago, this wasn’t a fact to be taken for granted.

We can, of course, ask ourselves the mostly-rhetorical question of what exactly made these books so unconventional and world-shaking back in their own day. But we know, don’t we? What made them so remarkable was their suggestion that a comic book can tell a story for grown ups. That the medium might produce storytellers who could, a hundred years from now, be mentioned in the same breath as Woolf and Ibsen and Dickens and Dumas.

But I digress. All of this is just a really roundabout way of segueing into my main point:

Scott McCloud is a motherfracking genius who can destroy you with his mind. Bow before him, for you live only because he continues to permit it.

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I’ve had a relationship with comic books as long as I can remember. I’ve read plenty of prose adaptations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata- the great Indian epics- but as odd as it is to admit, most of what I know about the oldest stories of my culture (and the world) originally comes from the Amar Chitra Katha line of comic books: a series that retells Indian myths, folk tales, scriptural stories and historical anecdotes. Then, after coming to the States, I was constantly reading the Big Two as well as a wide variety of indie titles. But I always read them as a distraction- as a break from the all-important work of stuffing my brain with prose fiction. As much as I would defend to the death, even in my early teens, such masterpieces as Craig Thompson’s Blankets or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, I always thought of comic books as a sort of poor man’s cinema, a way of combining narrative storytelling with visual art and doing so without a multimillion dollar budget.

Scott McCloud completely changed my mind.

Understanding Comics, somewhat self-referentially, is itself a comic book- an incredible literary feat in its own right. Imagine taking the most complicated paper you wrote as an undergrad on literary theory or any other appropriately abstract subject, then expanding it to a couple hundred pages. Now try taking half of the text you wrote, and drawing it. The man wrote a book-length essay about literary theory in comic book form. And he made it fun to read. That’s all I need to know to be convinced I don’t want to run into him in a dark alley. The being that can communicate a complex literary theory using pictures is not one whom I want to look upon lightly, lest his pandimensional Lovecraftian visage drive me mad.

McCloud divides the book into history, technique and theory. While the sections on history and technique are a fascinating read (not to mention mandatory for anyone with aspirations in the medium) it’s the ideas that really make this book shine. If Understanding Comics is standard material in nearly every college class about sequential graphic narrative, it’s because of McCloud’s dazzling exposition of the fundamental building blocks of comic books. These are the sort of ideas, like Copernicus’ heliocentric solar system or Whitman’s use of unrhymed verse, that are brilliant mainly because they seem obvious when you look back. I don’t want to give too much away, especially since you can’t do the ideas justice without the art, but here is a broad sweep of two of the most important ideas in the book:

1) One of McCloud’s most interesting arguments is that there’s no sharp division between words and pictures, since it’s impossible to pinpoint when pictures turn into symbols and iconography, and where symbols in turn become written language. The book illustrates the point with an impressive diagram containing sample illustrations from great comic books of the past century, with one end of the continuum containing the relatively realistic illustrations of Jack Kirby or Bob Kane, and the other end containing… well, words, but also the more representational and non-realistic artwork of Charles Schulz’ Peanuts or Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes.

2) Another argument McCloud makes is that comic books have about as much in common with the prose novel as they do with film and television, since audience participation is an essential part of the experience. Unlike film, where the events of the story are conveyed to the viewer almost entirely through external stimuli (since the viewer is given a window into the story as it unfolds on the movie screen) and the prose novel, where the portrayal of the events happen in the reader’s mind and depend entirely on his or her imagination, the graphic novel gives us a type of work that falls between the two. With comic books, the reader sees the events happen a panel at a time, but it’s entirely up to him to connect the dots and form a cohesive image of the fictional world being presented. McCloud refers to the process of filling the gap between panels as ‘closure’, and provides a list of different kinds of panel transitions, such as the moment-to-moment transition (where two adjacent panels are connected by a progression in time) or the aspect-to-aspect transition (where panels show the reader different parts of the same scene). More than any of the other chapters, this one convinced me that comic books are a unique medium with a more than incidental place in the culture.

Understanding Comics is almost twenty years old and quite a classic in its own right by now. Scott McCloud’s ideas have made me drastically re-evaluate the way I perceive comic books as a narrative form. I have a deeper respect now, both for the so-called commercial schlock of Lee, Kirby, Siegel, Shuster and the like- who had more of true art in their work than conventional wisdom gives them credit for- as well as the creators who dared to explore the limits and boundaries of an ostracized medium back when so few would, people like Will Eisner, Osamu Tezuka and Alan Moore. Understanding Comics has taken me from thinking of comics as a niche medium to leaving me with the suspicion that they may well be for the 21st century what the prose novel was for the 19th.

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Photo courtesy of www.4.bp.blogspot.com

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The Alamo has all the typical college basement trimmings – washing machines, water pipes dangling from the ceiling, spray painted mattresses leaning against the walls – but the small space brings the band and audience closer together. Erin, the singer/drummer/guitarist in Sun Puddles catches the eye of someone two feet in front of her and beams a smile as she digs into a 70s punk beat at hyperspeed. When the reverb-soaked wall-of-sound guitars start chugging, the smiles become contagious and the crowd instantly turns into a collection of life-sized bobble head dolls.

Given the poor quality of the PA systems at most DIY shows, singing is usually left by the wayside. But for Sun Puddles, Erin’s voice is their trump card. Songs like “Coffee Cup” make me think of indie pop bands like Velocity Girl or Best Coast where the vocals are pretty and melodious but with an emotional perspective that’s hard to place. At other times, her atonal howling brings to mind the raw emotive power of the Screaming Females, making you feel the frustration of unrequited love rather than think about what it means. When she trades places with the guitar player, the lyrics become sparser to make room for more intricate song structure and a heavier hitting drum sound. Even when she does very little singing on songs like “Congratulations . . . Sorry”, Erin’s stage presence is such that when the mic stand starts to collapse mid-song, people rush the stage to fix it in fear of missing a single word.

When the next band, Real Good, is ready to start all the lights go out except for a single red bulb in the corner shining on the drummer. As he sparks a cigarette and nods toward the emaciated shirtless bass player, I make some earplugs out of pieces of a paper towel in anticipation of demonic hard rock. What I get instead is closer to a mix between the twisted pop hooks of the Velvet Underground and Pavement’s artfully dissonant vocal style.

Though the bass player jumps around like Flea at an early 90s Chili Peppers concert, Real Good makes you feel like singing along more than headbanging. At the end of the song “Three Points”, front man John Terry repeats the chorus line “there is no wisdom without risk” but it’s done with the appropriate amount of Lo-Fi shamble to come off as playfully ironic instead of pretentiously nagging. Other songs like “May 21st” show the band’s strength at manipulating tension-and-release. The familiar feeling you get hearing dreamy psychedelic guitar tones at the beginning of the song is later betrayed when the beat gets turned around and the vocals strain to belt out a daft, unsettling sense of helplessness.

Toward the end of Real Good’s set, someone trips on an extension cord somewhere and the whole basement goes pitch black. Suddenly, people in the front row start shining their cell phones on the hands of the guitarist and bass player like pilgrims who bring candles to a vigil. It’s moments like these that make basement shows feel more like a spiritual community than a concert. But with bands like Sun Puddles and Real Good residing at the pulpit, the only Good News anyone is trying to lay on you is a flyer telling you about the next show.

Original songs like “Summer Vacation” are what the band does best – a mixture of compelling chords and grungy breakdowns that’s reminiscent of garage rock revival bands like Cage the Elephant. But despite Harpoon Forever’s tendency to keep songs under 3 minutes, the quartet also has enough classic rock influence to dig into longer jams. Case in point: the epic show closer, “Paddle to the Sea”, which starts out with bouncy alt-country strumming but then dissolves into building repetitions of krautrock drumbeats structuring Sonic Youth-style guitar mayhem. Sure, you can’t hear the lyrics over the P.A. but the sweaty exuberance of the singer and his hipster cowboy style say enough.

After the show, I walk a few blocks to another house, Titan’s Rest, where southern Connecticut band Fugue is making a stop on their 2-week tour. Outside, people are sitting on the driveway peering into the basement windows like stray cats. It’s not a packed house but it’s so hot inside that the girl drummer Alexa remarks, “I’m gonna pass out” with a look like she means it.

After a short break and some water, Alexa nods her head and kicks off the next song with an aggressive prog rock beat that sounds like early The Mars Volta. When the three guitars begin to fade in with lyrical melodies and the singer triggers a sample of birdcalls, it’s only to lure the audience into a false sense of security. Songs like “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” prove that this band is all about contrast: clean tones are juxtaposed with distorted ones, soft sections suddenly burst into raucous thrashing, and the lead lines play tug-of-war with the rhythm section. With a name like Fugue it’s no surprise that most of the band’s catalogue is instrumental, but some songs feature vocals that provide emotional context and sound like tribal yells laced with Portishead-style effects.

When the band finishes their set and I walk back out into the sultry night of late July, it feels like air conditioning compared to the sauna I was just in. Summer basement shows in New Brunswick are not for the faint hearted, but with bands like Fugue and Harpoon Forever on the scene it seems like things are only going to get hotter.

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To listen to these bands, check out the links below:

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – coLAB Arts is pleased to present Waving to Solidarity, a one-month exhibition featuring the work of the emerging artists, Dave Peters and John Leschak, curated by Theresa Francisco. Our Opening and Second-Look Reception will take place on Thursday August 18th and September 15th from 7-10 PM at coLAB Arts (49 Bayard Street, 3rd Floor, New Brunswick, NJ 08901). These free receptions will feature complimentary wine, food, and live music. Custom made, interior design elements added by kliasi style.

Waving to Solidarity offers the viewer a glance at both meditative solitude and painful alienation through the artists’ formal conflicts with and emotional connections to, their environment and community. Dave Peters and John Leschak both work in a similar vein but their individual messages are quite opposite.

Dave Peters focuses on serene, biomorphic forms and quiet landscapes that are cerebral, captivating, and dream-like. Peters opens his subconscious and paints what comes naturally. This method often conjures up the repetition of imagery, creating both common, visual elements and narratives in many of his paintings. Even though Peters is very detail oriented, he wishes to keep his paintings ambiguous and open for personal interpretations. Dave Peters graduated from Rutgers University with a B.A. in Spanish Literature. Though colorblind, Peters is a self-taught painter and is working towards a full-time career in the arts.

John Leschak uses heavy symbolism to make a direct commentary on modern society. He contextualizes human passions, vices, and fears to illustrate their effects on relationships and the community at large. Though often depicting scenes of individual despair and powerlessness, Leschak believes his images can bring about a need for action and empowerment. John Leschak is a practicing labor law attorney at Weissman & Mintz and immigrant rights activist.

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CoLAB Arts is a non-profit organization located in New Brunswick, NJ, dedicated to the development and presentation of emerging local artists. coLAB Arts’ mission is to cultivate a hip, mindful, and inclusive Hub City community of artists, audiences, and critics, empowered to create inspired and inspiring art.

CoLAB is representative of the kind of organization that is so valuable to the promotion of the arts in an area that to many would seem bereft of cultural pursuits. They are a beacon of hope that enables otherwise unknown or unheard artists to connect with a wide audience. Like the Johnsonville Press, the people who are involved in the organization do it because they want to, because they are passionate about the arts, and because they want to give local artists the chance to be known and to promote themselves. They are making an incredibly valuable contribution to the growing cultural scene in New Brunswick.

I am proud of what they are doing for this community. It is my hope that they continue to gain support so that they, in turn, can continue to promote the arts with the same vigor and enthusiasm that I have already witnessed from them. I encourage the reader to visit their website to learn more about the organization and their mission. And please continue to check in with the Johnsonville Press for announcements of upcoming events. To the folks over at coLAB: keep up the good work! Cheers to you guys!

Exhibition duration: June 3 –24, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, June 10 @ 6:30-10:30pm
Open Studio: Thursday, June 16 @ 7 pm
Curator: Jewel Lim
Multiciplinary Event: TBA

The Alfa Art Gallery is proud to present “Abstraction and the Creative Unconscious,” the joint exhibition of Peter Arakawa and Rita Herzfeld. The works of Arakawa and Herzfeld create a world of the nonrepresentational, often conceived in moments of instinct and uncertainty. Each piece in this exhibition began as a mystery with the first brushstroke and stresses the artist’s journey to reach a conclusion. The title of this show “Abstraction and the Creative Unconscious” highlights the process in which creativity fosters and is fostered by artists from all walks of life. For Arakawa and Herzfeld, the end results of these processes are phenomenal. Arakawa, who paints from his observations of daily life, successfully combines patterns and shapes that are unlikely together. In her work, Herzfeld’s brushstrokes are dominant players, suspended in a state of movement in a stationary painting. The works in this exhibition present themselves as if conceived in the midst of fresh inspiration, whether from the moving strokes or the busy arrangements within them. What this exhibition states is that there is ultimately no conclusion to the artist’s journey: the paintings, with theiruncontained “moving strokes” and busy environments, exhibit that solutions only create new mysteries so that new works can be given birth to.

About the Artists

Peter Arakawa obtained his MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He became an artist through the influences of creative family members. Arakawa has been a professional artist for over twenty-five years. His works are held in many institutions and museums, including the Zimmerli Art Museum, Newark Public Library, Jersey City Museum, the State Museum, Hunterdon Art Museum and Johnson & Johnson Corporation.

Rita Herzfeld attended the School of Visual Arts and City College of N.Y. and obtained her BA from Rutgers University. Inspired by her artistic mother, Herzfeld became an artist who grew up believing in the power that comes with creation and its processes from simple tools such as pencil and paper. Her works are held in the Hunterdon Museum of Art, the Zimmerli Art Museum and various private collections.

(click here to learn more about this event)

This program is sponsored in part by:

New Brunswick City Market

NJ State Council on the Arts

Big Fat Marker is an indie rock band from South Jersey who operate out of the greater Philadelphia area. While “indie rock” may be the easiest classification for their sound, it is not entirely accurate. They describe themselves as a folk rock band and I am inclined to agree. The combination of great vocal harmonies, well composed lyrics, and gripping melodies makes me want to hear more and more. The songs “Morning Man,” “N’After” and “Sun Salutation” particularly exemplify those characteristics which makes this band so much fun to listen to.

I encourage, no–I implore the Johnsonville readers to listen to this band. If you like what you hear, then download their EP! I would also urge you, the reader, to go see a live performance. Based on my own experience seeing them play, I can confidently say that they put on a great show. On that note, in the coming weeks be sure to check back with the Johnsonville Press to watch our video with an interview with the band and a JVP exclusive performance!

To check out and download their music, please visit their website:
Big Fat Marker

Also find them on Facebook to stay up-to-date on upcoming performances!

Happy Listening!

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Photo taken by Mr. Jonathan Schoonover. All rights reserved.

I recently read Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader and watched the film adaptation directed by Stephen Daldry, and I found myself as conflicted as the main character and narrator, Michael Berg. The book offers more insight than the film because, since the story is told in first person narrative, it allows direct access to Michael’s thoughts. The movie certainly provokes the viewer to sympathize with Hanna when she is on trial and throughout the duration of her prison sentence. It does an excellent job of convincing the viewer that Hanna is the victim of uncontrollable circumstances that forced her into her position as an SS guard of a satellite camp of Auschwitz, but, unlike the novel, I think the film fails to properly convey the struggle Michael has in trying to understand her crime, while simultaneously having to condemn it. Hanna and a group of women stand trial for allowing three-hundred Jewish women to burn to death in a locked church that was bombed during the camp’s evacuation, even though these Jewish women were placed under their care and protection. In the novel, Michael clearly states that in trying to understand Hanna’s crime he is humanizing her actions, and making it impossible to condemn her crime. Perhaps Hanna does not deserve Michael’s understanding. Maybe condemning a crime leaves no room for understanding.

The courtroom scene has the most emphasis in both the novel and film, as it spotlights the question Hanna asks the judge during the trial, “What would you have done?” Hanna wants to know what she could have done differently. This question is very important when discussing the Holocaust and convicting those guilty of Nazi War Crimes. “What would you have done?” It’s easy to blame Hanna without considering the context of her situation, “Hanna had not decided in favor of crime. She had decided against a promotion at Siemens, and fell into a job as a guard.” Hanna does not wake up one morning and decide to work in a Nazi concentration camp, containing women like animals as they await transport to their deaths. She only decides against a promotion and finds another job to support herself. Hanna’s decisions are all made for her own sake.

Most of our decisions are made for us, our families, and for the good of the people we know and love without thinking about how they affect other people. Humans are not capable of looking beyond their immediate relationships, unless they have a position that requires them to make decisions to benefit more people than themselves and the people they know directly. I recently watched a repeat episode of Law and Order: SVU that is an interesting example of how a decision a single member of a community makes, takes a heavy toll on the lives of other people in the area.

A little girl dies from contracting the measles because she is too young to receive the vaccination to protect her from the disease, which forces the SVU to search for the source of a possible measles epidemic. The source of the measles chain is a little boy old enough to receive the vaccination, but does not because his mother believes his natural immune system is strong enough to fight off the infection, which it does. The boy’s mother does not think her decision concerns anyone outside of her own family. Her research on vaccinations and the power the body has against fighting disease are the only things that inform her decision. Since her son’s immune system is able to fight the disease, she does not consider herself responsible for the death of the little girl; she is just trying to be a “good” mother to her son. The woman is arrested for the murder of the little girl. The episode shows that while the woman’s decision was best for her family, it was detrimental to society at large. We have privacy and freedom of choice, but there are certain rules that help society function, and if these rules are disobeyed, society will crumble. Her decision would be applicable in a small, sprawling area where the lives of people are more private, but not a densely populated area like New York City.

The Reader is concerned with whether one person knows what is best for another person. Is the law or the community at large able to define what is good for its individuals? Michael has information that can serve to give Hanna a lesser sentence, and disprove accusations the other women on trial blame her for. Michael knows Hanna is illiterate, and that to reveal this would be exposing a life-long secret she goes to great lengths to hide. Hanna simply accepts the accusations the other women make, because defending herself would force her to face the humiliation of her secret. Hanna’s illiteracy affects her entire life. She refuses the offer of a promotion at Siemens because she cannot read, and accepts a position as a guard where she chose prisoners to read to her “because she wanted to make their last month bearable before their inevitable dispatch to Auschwitz.” At the trial, Hanna is too concerned with keeping her illiteracy secret that she does not consider what it means to be exposed as a criminal.

Since Michael knows Hanna’s secret, he wonders if he has a responsibility to share this information with the judge.  Hanna does not try to defend herself, and she says things that constantly infuriate the judge, which compels Michael to want to help her; he wants to help the judge understand Hanna’s behavior, and, also, justify her behavior for himself.

In the novel, Michael’s father, who is a philosopher and lawyer, tells him that Hanna’s freedom and dignity must be considered in the situation, and he poses this question, “don’t you remember how furious you would get as a little boy when mamma knew better what was good for you? Even how far one can act like this with children is a real problem.” The movie does not emphasize this point as much as the book, but this question is important to keep in mind when considering Michael’s inner conflict. A person cannot place what other people say is good for them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves because, as the father puts it, “it was no comfort to you [Michael] that your mother was always right.” In order for Michael to help Hanna, he has to address her about the matter and allow her to decide what she believes is best. Hanna needs to have “the last word;” doing it any other way would deprive her of her freedom and dignity, without giving her some promise of a future.

The movie focuses on Michael’s need to understand Hanna’s actions, and his struggle to come to terms with her crime because he loves her. The novel weaves Michael’s inner conflict into the struggle of subsequent generations trying to make peace with Germany’s Nazi past and the Holocaust.  Michael’s generation is exposed to films and literature about the concentration camps to the point that it is no longer a subject beyond imagination. Michael and other young people cannot rely on past generations to provide them with answers about Nazi atrocities, because their parents either committed Nazi crimes or watched them happen.

Coming to grips with a Nazi past was not just a generational conflict, because the children of the second generation, portrayed in The Reade,r did not know whether condemning their parents was enough. They would punish the guilty, but would continue to be “silenced by revulsion, shame and guilt.”

This generation needed to know how man could practice such cruelty toward other men, and, most importantly, how any group of people could choose to become victims without fighting back. In the novel, Michael ventures to the site of a concentration camp to experience it firsthand. He meets a man while hitchhiking, who explains that executioners do not hate the people they execute; execution just happens to be their line of work. The people that hated the Jews never directly killed them, but devised a plan that distanced them from the mass execution of the people they despised. The people who carried out the physical part of the extermination were indifferent toward the Jews, which made murdering them easier; it’s easy to discard something you have no emotional attachment to. The Jews, to the executioners, were a matter of such indifference that they could “kill them as easily as not.” It is numbness. Literature I have read about the perpetrators of Nazi crimes describes how difficult killing was at first, but after doing it over and over again, mass execution was all in a day’s work. This “numbness” is somewhat akin to the numbness that pervades the literature and other accounts of concentration camp survivors. A prisoner in Auschwitz who manages to survive for several months becomes accustomed to seeing death, and to doing whatever it takes to survive. Prisoners of the concentration camps began to exhibit selfish and indifferent behavior to the other inmates. However, prisoners of Nazi concentration camps were stripped of their humanity, and so their actions and behaviors became animalistic; morals cannot be applied to the victims of Nazi atrocities.

Perhaps we cannot judge people’s actions without considering their circumstances, but should a person’s circumstances make a difference in how we judge her behavior? It does not make a person’s actions any better or worse. Behavior is an independent faculty. It is influenced by circumstance and other social factors, but in the end, it needs to be judged separately. The law is designed to punish actions. The novel states that behavior has its own sources and is a person’s own, just as a person’s thoughts and decisions are her own.

The novel and film adaptation of The Reader, both question whether “law” is something that is actually written and obeyed, or whether it is something that “must be” obeyed – written or not – in order for society to function. So, what is law?

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/The_Reader_cover.jpg

Featuring: Carlos Frias, Dara Alter, Darren McManus, Michael Bransfield and Sam Ralston

The Alfa Art Gallery invites you to join us for an evening with the exhibiting artists of the New Brunswick Art Salon, Spring’11. If you missed the opening receptions on April 22^nd and May 13^th, this is not only the perfect chance to see some amazing works but is also the opportunity to get an inside look on the creative process of each artist. The artists will work on their respective art pieces at the Alfa Art Gallery as well as give informative talks on their inspirations.

About the Artists

Carlos Frias received his BFA in Painting from the Parsons School of Design. His recent works aims to highlight our humanity , creativity, relationships and  urges to grow and self-destruct while, at the same time, strip us of our spirituality and culture, representing humans as organic forms bound to decompose and regenerate. Additionally, his work visually demonstrates the parallel between what art is able to represent of the evolution of humankind and how much we want to preserve and manipulate art to represent the history of our species. He has exhibited in Japan, the Dominican Republic, Spain, and the United States.

Dara Alter obtained her degree in Studio Art from the University of Guelph. Heavily influenced by her cultural ties, she paints her memories of Israel in order to examine the North American Jewish nostalgia for an idealized nation. In the last five years, she travelled to South America, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, which additionally influenced her works. Alter is most interested exploring location and place as it relates to her personal experiences and uses a specific palette that corresponds to the scenery in a particular region. She has exhibited in Minnesota, New York and New Jersey in the United States as well as in Toronto, Ontario in Canada.

Darren McManus obtained his BFA in Drawing and Illustration from the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, BFA in Experimental Studio and Illustration from the Hartford Art School and his MFA in Painting from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and won many awards, including a fellowship from the New Jersey Council State of the Arts, from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Michael Bransfield graduated with a B.A. in Humanities from Providence College. He later studied painting from the Massachusetts College of Art as well as at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. He was also awarded a fellowship to the Yale-Norfolk Summer School of Art.  Bransfield has exhibited in many exhibitions in New York and New Jersey.  He has also served as director of the Metuchen Gallery.
Sam Ralston started painting in his early 20’s. He attended classes at the DuCret Art School and later enrolled at Kean College with an intention of becoming an art teacher but changed his major to graphic design. Throughout his career, he displayed his work in different venues and won a number of awards. He currently works as a graphic designer and paints in his spare time. He has participated in several shows in New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Connecticut.

This program is sponsored in part by:

The NJ State Council on the Arts

The New Brunswick City Market

Please note: Alfa will be open on Saturdays only by appointment and will be closed during August for summer vacation.