Workshops
Enjoy a variety of free workshops including painting, making, playing music and more. Workshops will be located on Republic St. between the blocks of Vandallia St and Alabama St.
All workshops are first come first served and may have limited supplies. If supplies are exhausted prior to the scheduled ending the workshop may close early.
CEPA Gallery
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Mobile Darkroom
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Friday 5-7pm
The Mobile Darkroom initiative brings hands-on photography education directly to the Greater Buffalo community.
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A mobile, light-safe darkroom introduces Buffalo youth
and community members to the science and magic of light, water, and chemical reaction, the natural phenomena that make photography work. Utilizing traditional photography, the Mobile Darkroom teaches patience and problem-solving while rewarding experimentation.
Saira Siddiqui
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Peace Dots
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Friday 5-7pm
The Peace Dots Project. The project collects random acts of kindness from people and maps them, creating a statement about narrative and identity of place. Instead of focusing on the traditional 'crime dots' of a location, participants will be prompted to consider 'peace dots' they would like to submit to the project. For this workshop, participants will be asked to share a moment of kindness, the place it happened, an emotion, and a color they associate with the project. Taking this all one step further, participants will have a chance to draw with paint pens on canvas. They will be asked to share anything that relates to/interprets their peace dot. This could be a colorful dot, a word or phrase, images, etc. I will also be creating on the canvas during this time, connecting all the participants' moments of peace in a visual way. These canvases (if it ends up being more than 1) will be used in the body of work that I'm currently developing for the project.
AKG Art Truck
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Friday 5-7pm
The Art Truck is a mobile center for hands-on artmaking that brings art activities, classes, and workshops for individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of ability into the communities of Western New York.
Locust St Art Tent
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Friday 5-7:30pm
Botanical Printmaking Workshop
B.flo-Girls
Friday
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6pm - 7pm
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B.flo-Girls is a DJ and Bgirl collective dedicated to uplifting Women in Hip Hop. Cofounders DJ Lisa Lux and Bgirl Resolve are proud to offer programming in DJing and Breakdancing to local youth and adults, sharing history, teaching foundations, and engaging in discussions about identity, self-expression, and wellbeing. Both women have a passion for supporting the youth in our community though hip-hop music and dance.
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Stop by and visit the collective's workshop where they will share foundational knowledge and ways for participants to express themselves through the elements of Hip Hop culture.
WNY IMPROV
Improv
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Friday & Saturday
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Stop by the WNY IMPROV tent and have some fun while learning basic Improv skills. WNY IMPROV will also be performing improv and you can join!
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They have performed short form Improv and original dinner theater murder mysteries for over a dozen years throughout WNY among the many venues have performed at David's in Toronto, the Orlando (FLA.) Comedy Festival and Seneca Niagara Casino.
Vinny Alejandro
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Live Mural Painting
Friday & Saturday
Vinny is a street artist who paints using aerosols. He is always creating in a graffiti-minded way and see how something can be twisted and changed. His goal is to figure out how he can translate something that's real into something that can be painted with a can. You can see his mural on Republic St. when attending the festival. Vinny grew up in the Old First Ward and is excited to be painting at the first Old First Ward Art Festival.
Ashley Fidler
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Braided Rig Making
Friday 5-7pm
Saturday
12-4:30pm
Ashley Fidler is a fiber artist who combines traditional textile methods with unique expression using recycled materials. Join Ashley and learn how to make no sew braided rugs. You can make a small or go as big as your heart desires !
Devin Zimmer
Instrument Making
Friday & Saturday
Join Devin in making single and double string piano-wire monochord instruments of his own design.
Andrew Biggie
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Gesture Drawing
Friday & Saturday
5-7pm
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Pop in for a Gesture Drawing workshop with Andrew from 5-7pm both nights !
Charlie Coughlin
What Makes it Irish?
A Beginners Music and Fiddle Class"
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Friday
5:30pm - 7pm
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Saturday
12-12:45pm
Have you ever wanted to learn the style and feel of Irish traditional tunes? In this class you will learn some of the basic form, rhythm, and ornamentation of traditional Irish Music. We will start with vocal rhythms to get the feel of traditional Jigs and Reels and learn what is called "The Pulse" of the music, then we will learn other common variations of those rhythms, then those who have a fiddle or instrument will learn the A and B sections of a simple Irish Polka (Cork and Buffalo's Favorite form of Irish Trad Tunes), and one traditional ornamentation (the cut). We will be learning the tune "Britches Full of Stitches", a simple fun tune in A major.
Buffalo Creative Music Group
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Saturday
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Buffalo Creative Music Group is a group dedicated to exploring improvised music as a form of self expression, and creating community through music. Come and join them in exploring & creating rhythms, melody and simple accompaniments with voice and basic instruments such as hand drums, boom whackers, thumb pianos and shakers. The exercises and games are simple, fun and accessible to musicians of all abilities.You can learn more information
on Creative Music Group Gatherings as well as information on other creative music workshops through Music for People (https://www.musicforpeople.org/wp/).
Hannah Quaintance
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Natural Dye Workshop
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Friday 3 -7pm
Participants will be invited to learn about working with natural dyes: indigo, onion skins, and/or black walnuts. Natural dyes are pigments that are extracted from plants, minerals, and insects and can be used to dye natural fibers (cellulose fibers - plant based materials like cotton and linen; protein fibers - fibers that come from animals or insects like wool or silk). Indigo dye is one of the best known natural dyes and uses the leaves of the indigo plant to achieve a vibrant blue. Onion skins and black walnuts are two natural dyes that are easy to gather in the Western New York region and produce rich yellows and browns. Participants will get a cotton bandana to use in the available dye baths and experiment with different resist/tie dye techniques.
Matthew Sperber
An Introduction to Irish Guitar
Saturday
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12-12:45pm
"An Introduction to Irish Guitar" - Course designed for guitarists of all levels interested in learning to play Irish tunes and songs. The workshop will cover techniques and concepts of the Irish guitar including flatpicking melodies, accompanying tunes, DADGAD guitar method, Irish tune styles and rhythms. Bring your guitar!
Poetry Stop
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Saturday
1- 7pm
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Poets
1:00-2:00pm
Noah Falck is the author of Exclusions (Finalist for the 2020 Believer Book Award) and Snowmen Losing Weight as well as several chapbook collections including normal normal, You Are In Nearly Every Future, and the collaboration, Prerecorded Weather (Winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize). In 2013, he started the Silo City Reading Series, a multimedia poetry event series inside a 120-foot-high, 100-year-old grain elevator. He lives on Buffalo’s Lower West Side.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nofalck
IG: https://instagram.com/noahfalck/
2:00-3:00pm
Jess Star is the inventor of football (patent pending) and lives in Buffalo, NY. In her free time, she is a small business owner. She cannot make all your dreams come true.
IG: https://www.instagram.com/jecstar/
3:00-4:00pm
Julio Montalvo Valentin is a Latinx poet and writer with severe bouts of neuropathic wanderlust. Julio spends their time pillow fighting their family when they are not writing about the loss that is to come. You can find him knee-deep in assignments at a local college or in a bookstore, looking for the next story or rice dish recipe.
IG: https://www.instagram.com/julio.m.valentin/
4:00-5:00pm
Joe Hall is a Buffalo-based writer and reading series curator. His five books of poetry include Fugue & Strike (2023) and Someone’s Utopia (2018). Hall has performed and delivered talks nationally at universities, bars, squats, and rivers. Postcolonial Studies, Poetry Daily, Fence Digital, Best Buds! Collective, terrain.org, PEN America Blog, dollar bills, and an NFTA bus shelter have all featured his work. He has taught poetry workshops for teachers, teens, and workers through Just Buffalo and the WNYCOSH Worker Center.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoeHallJoeHall
IG: https://www.instagram.com/joe_hall_joe_hall/
5:00-6:00pm
Rachelle Toarmino is a poet from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection That Ex and the chapbooks Comeback, Feel Royal, and Personal & Generic. Her poems and essays on poetry have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Electric Literature, Iterant, Literary Hub, Salt Hill Journal, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize. She is also the founding editor in chief of the literary journal Peach Mag, as well as the founder and lead instructor of the independent poetry school Beauty School. She lives in Buffalo.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rchlltrmn
IG: https://www.instagram.com/rchlltrmn/
6:00-7:00pm
Albert Abonado is a poet and essayist based in Rochester, NY. He is the author of JAW (Sundress Publications 2020). He holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. He has received fellowships for poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlbertAbonado
Aitina Fareed-Cooke
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Saturday
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Date: Saturday, September 23rd
Time: 12-12:45 & 1-1:45
Workshop Title: Smartphone Photography for The Creative Soul: Level 1
Teaching Artist: Aitina Fareed-Cooke
Workshop Description: For those who don’t have a budget for a fancy camera, guess what? One of the most powerful capturing tools could be right in your purse or your back pocket! Through a variety of hands-on activities, explore how to capture, enhance and share images and become a better smartphone photographer!
One of the common photography misconceptions about using a phone’s camera is that the phone can’t be used for serious photography. While cameras are technically superior, the quality of any photo mostly depends on the photographer’s intent and creative vision. No camera can take a good photo without the photographer’s ideas. That’s because your phone – just like any other camera – is a tool. And it’s a tool that can be used to take both poor and outstanding photos. But with the right knowledge and the right techniques you can use your phone to take photos that are so great that nobody would even believe they were taken with your phone! By the end of the program, you will be better able to enjoy your camera’s phone to have fun capturing playful and serious aspects of your world.
*Please note that this class is intended for iPhone users but all phones are welcome!
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Date: Saturday, September 23rd
Time(s): 5-5:45 & 6-6:45
Workshop Title: The Art of Lyricism: Crafting Emotive Stories Through Song
Teaching Artist: Aitina Fareed-Cooke
Workshop Description: This workshop is designed to unlock your lyrical potential. This workshop is perfect for emerging songwriters, poets, and storytellers who want to dive into the art of writing captivating, evocative lyrics that resonate with listeners. Through a combination of theoretical insight, practical exercises, and interactive discussions, attendees will learn the fundamentals of lyric writing, from crafting beautiful imagery and narratives to developing rhythm and rhyme.
*Participants will explore the lyrical work of A.I. The Anomaly