Hudson County Poetry Festival
March 29 | 4-9p
SMUSH Poets 4:45p
Washington Park, Under the Gazebo
FREE!

We are excited to be part of the FIRST EVER Hudson County Poetry Festival, happening at Washington Park between Jersey City & Union City. Can’t wait for y’all to hear the stunning work of Gold Carson Sanchez and Katelyn Halpern.

Info: @wpahudsoncounty @thepoetryunfold

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
March 18 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Feb 6 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Winter Community BRUNCH Potluck
Jan 25 | 12p
$10 suggested

Hey, can you make something for our potluck?! Join in on our Winter Community Potluck — bring your best BRUNCH dishes, baked goods, and secret family recipes for a midday soiree of camaraderie and good times. Coffee is on us!

This season presenting Parker Cheek duo (music), John Trigonis (spoken word), and the JC Food Not Bombs crew!

Want to perform or present at a potluck? Email hello@smushgallery.com for more info!

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Jan 21 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Dec 10 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

SMUSH Winter Market
Dec 6 | 6:30-9:30p

It’s the SMUSH Winter Market! Holiday shop for your friends and family while supporting local, small businesses right here in JC!

Shop plants, candles, jewelry, local designers, vintage & more from Present Day Candles, Last Place Winners, Small House Plants, Peony Pieces, Journey Through the Dreamscape, and UNISEX PIZZA while viewing the art of Etudes: The Artist In Practice! Sweet treats and hot chocolate or coffee available for purchase while you shop, provided by CREMA! Join us for a joyous JC Fridays at SMUSH!

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Nov 12 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Cold Weather Free Store + Swap
Nov 3 | 1-6p

Shop & swap at the Cold Weather Free Store + Swap! Give and get clean, gently used sweaters, coats, jackets, gloves, hats, scarves, and socks. Participate however you like — drop off contributions, shop for free, and/or swap. Absolutely free. Bring your own bag!

Early Drop Off: Sat. Nov 2, 3-6p

Fall Community Potluck
Oct. 29 | 6:30p
$10 suggested

Hey, can you make something for the potluck?! Join in on our Fall Community Potluck — bring your best hot dish, savory baked goods, and secret family recipes for an evening of camaraderie and good times. As always, dessert is on us. Costumes & spooky season dishes encouraged!

This season’s presenting Wilfredo Coriano (music), Murdock (music), and Dawn Giambalvo of Canco Park & the Native Plant Society!

Want to perform or present at a potluck? Email hello@smushgallery.com for more info!

Metroscapes, Presented by FBC.JC
Oct. 25 | Doors 6:30p, Presentations 7p
Free!
Guests are encouraged to bring snacks to share!

The Feminist Bird Club of Jersey City and SMUSH Gallery are excited to invite you to 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐬 - an evening of presentation and performance based on Jersey City’s wild spaces featuring Talita do Nascimento Cabral, Shelly Ma & Anamika Pandey, Kevin C. Pyle and Jill Sigman, with art by Rowan Kuminski, Ally Shwed, and Nicolette Tsamos.
Join us as we consider:

• What novel ecologies form in the human-built environment?

• What should our priorities be for managing these evolving ecosystems?

• What are non-humans’ perceptions of human environments?

• How do we welcome non-humans into the human habitat?

Learn more about FBC.JC

Happening @ SMUSH: Weaving Workshop, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Oct 24 | 6:30-8:30pm
Sliding Scale | SOLD OUT
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Learn beginner tapestry techniques with Lauren Puchowski of @boomloomstudio! You'll get to take home your very own handheld loom.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Oct 17 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Happening @ SMUSH: Monthly Crafting Circle, hosted by JC Crafting Circle
Sept 19 | 6:30-9pm
Free!
Website | JC Crafting Circle IG

Bring your crafts and join the JC Crafting Circle for a night of crafting, tunes, snacks, and nice people. Extra supplies provided.
Email jccraftingcircle@gmail.com for accessibility needs.

Bergen Square Day Street Festival
12-6p | Around the corner at Bergen & Academy

Come see us at Bergen Square Day! Meet SMUSH, find out about upcoming events, and shop our art & merch. Back by popular demand, participate in our FREE community activity Letters To a Stranger.
More About Bergen Square Day

Summer *BRUNCH* Community Potluck
June 1 | 12p
$10 suggested

IT’S BRUNCH!! Hey, can you make something for the potluck?! Join in on our Summer Community Potluck — bring your best egg dish, savory baked goods, and secret family recipes for an afternoon of camaraderie and good times!

This season, we are joined by presenter Hudson Pride Center and performers Vanity LaVain, and Scud Missel. Coffee is on us!

Spring Community Potluck
April 11 | 6:30p
$10 suggested

Hey, can you make something for the potluck?! Join in on our Spring Community Potluck — bring your best hot dish, savory baked goods, and secret family recipes for an evening of camaraderie and good times!

Presentations this season by Raul Garcia, Alison H. LeBrun, and the Community Compost Co. As always, dessert is on us!

Spring Dance Series: Open Rehearsal with Friends Who Dance
March 26 | 4-6p
Free with RSVP

Attend an open, feedback-focused rehearsal with Friends Who Dance! You’ll see an excerpt of MOLD and then share reflections, thoughts, and feelings.

This program is made possible by a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a division of the Department of State, and administered by the Hudson County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs/Tourism Development, Craig Guy, Hudson County Executive & the Hudson County Board of County Commissioners.

SMUSH Gallery’s 666th Birthday Party
February 24 | 6:66p
Tickets

Did hell freeze over or did we really make it 6 whole years?! Celebrate a 6th irreverent year of art and community with your favorite, SMUSH Gallery. Enjoy fun & friendship, the fallen angels of our better nature, food & drink, games, and a silent auction - a markedly beastly good time.

Recommended Dress: Pink, Black, & Devilish

Black History Month Open Mic: Sunday Service
February 18 | 3-6p
$7 Early Bird
$10-20 Day Of, Sliding Scale | Available at the door only

In celebration of February and Black History Month, join us as we center and amplify the voices of black creatives in the community and honor their ancestors at the 2nd annual Black History Month Open Mic: Sunday Service, curated & hosted by Golden Light Poetry!

Sunday Service is a non-denominational program that will allow performers and guests to honor their blackness and that of the ones who came before them through various methods of storytelling and altar building. For our community altar, please bring photos of those who inspire you that have transitioned, whether family, friends, or civil rights leaders, etc. and offerings like favorite foods, flowers, incense, coins or whatever your heart desires.

There will be a visual art pop-up from artist Eleven, and art will be available for sale and ready to take home the same day!
We will have 15 Open Mic slots available to artists of all creative mediums. Please feel free to sign up the day of or ahead of timevia email at agoldenlightpoetry@aol.com. Day of sign ups will open up promptly at 3pm! Priority will be given to Black voices!

Backstitch Gathering #7: A Quilt that takes Flight- putting the backing on the community quilt
February 10 | 2:30-4:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

Our final gathering will center around retracing as we chalk over the pathwork we’ve sewn in order to map out hand stitching pathways that will bind the top of the quilt to the back. A circle of stitchers will work together to put the finishing touches on this durational community project that will be featured in the SMUSH Gallery’s spring fiber show, as one project (re)cycles into the next. 

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Backing a quilt

• Hand sewing

• Machine sewing

• Celebrating a project’s completion

Backstitch Gathering #6: Like it’s made for you- altering your our garments so they fit you just so
Febuary 8 | 6:30-8:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

The theme of this week is reimaging. Bring in a piece of clothing that you don’t wear because it just doesn't fit quite right. Lori Woods (textile artist and mom to the creator of this project!) joins us for a session that is all about holding what you already have and finding how to restitch it anew, often with the support of a circle that the one you may find in our Backstitch Gatherings. 

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Unpicking

• Hand Sewing

• Machine Sewing

• Altering

Backstitch Gathering #5: Specialty folds- backward action in patchwork quilting
January 31 | 6:30-8:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

This session will focus on folds. Multi-disciplinary artist Heather Warfel Sandler guides us in creating specialty folds- pleats, pockets, and geometric flaps- that will be incorporated into the community quilt. By reversing the direction of fabric the cloth takes on a dimensional form, emphasizing that backwards action must be folded in for something dynamic to emerge.

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Origami fabric folds

• Sewing pleats

• 3D quilting

Backstitch Gathering #4: Reverse, Repair- healing garments through vibrant mending
January 25 | 6:30-8:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

This session will center around reversal as a method of repairing. Textile artist Kate Eggleston invites participants to bring in their own worn or torn clothing, and then lead everyone through her practice of visible mending. Restitching over a garment’s wounds grants it fresh life- think pops of colorful thread atop garments that celebrate tended and mended scars. No sewing experience necessary. Please bring one fabric item in need of a small repair (tear, new button, etc).

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Hand sewing

• Blending in repairs vs making them stand out

• Upcycling textiles

Backstitch Gathering #3: Backstitch your biggest wish- hand sewing messages into unsuspecting surfaces
January 20 | 2:30-4:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

Backstitching forms the focus of this gathering, co-led by Katelyn Halpern. We will particularly focus on the hand sewn backstitch that reverses course with each stitch, creating a very secure seam. Participants will be invited to stitch on upcycled materials they bring in or ones that the artists provide for them- styrofoam, plastics, paper, fabric, clothing, etc.- and create a phrase with the premise of a mantra or message they wish to engrain given the hand sewn backstitch’s sturdiness. Each participant will take their backstitched wishes home. While all events will be open to a wide range of ages, we will enthusiastically invite youth and families to this gathering to reflect on reversing and rooting in their lives through the use of language and craft.

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Threading a needle

• Making an easy knot

• Backstitching by hand

• Tying off your work

Backstitch Gathering #2: Looping and unraveling history
January 17 | 6:30-8:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

This session, co-led with Jo Bell, will focus on unraveling. Joanna will share her knowledge of knitting and consider the rich metaphors within this practice of tension and release. Just as yarn might be pulled and quickly unraveled from its knitted form, we’ll share ways as artists we can look back on the past (tension) to go forward into the future (release) while learning to sit in the gratitude of the present. This practice can exercise which knots we hope to hold fast and which knots we wish to let go of.  Joanna will teach how careful knotting and knitting of yarn can secure beautiful, intricate forms that serve as a gesture towards care across interwoven societal and environmental threads. 

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Looping

• Knotting

• Braiding

• Hand sewing

Backstitch Gathering #1: Reverse the death of your pants: upcycling fabric into a community made quilt
January 11 | 6:30-8:30pm
$10-20 suggested | More Info & Event Calendar

The theme of this first gathering is unmaking. Unpicking- either with a seam ripper or by tugging seams apart by hand- is a critical form of sewing in reverse and will be the central activity of this session. Participants are invited to bring unwanted pants, shirts, or any garments that they are no longer wearing to be reversed, remade, and reimagined as a quilt. The circle will unpick seams together in order to prepare flat pieces of cloth, and then learn how to create a straight stitch either by hand or on a sewing machine as we prepare the patchwork for our community quilt. 

Sewing + fiber art skills you’ll learn:

• Unpicking seams

• Quilt pattern cutting

• Hand sewing

• Machine sewing

• Appliqué work

Winter Community Potluck
December 7 | 6:30p
$10 suggested

Hey, can you make something for the potluck?! Join in on our cheer-filled Winter Community Potluck — bring your best hot dish, savory baked goods, and secret family recipes for an evening of camaraderie and good times!

This season we welcome dancers Jeff and J*La-Roc from Caribbean Soul Dancers, poet Pierce Logan, and community group Repair Cafe, delivering bite-sized presentations. Dessert is on us!