Montclair Art: From Frames to Fine Art, Dance Icons, Tiny Galleries and More

Written by:

Farnoosh Torabi

July 24, 2025

Montclair is a town renowned for its culture, boasting a celebrated film festival, historic theaters, and a vibrant community of creators. In this episode of The Montclair Pod, we delve deeper into the town’s artistic core, spotlighting four individuals and organizations that are shaping Montclair’s creative future through dance, visual art, and innovative public spaces. Co-host Alex Pavljuk of the Montclair Art Museum and host of Maybe, Actually, Museums Are For Me, joins with stories from inside the museum, including a new ghost sighting, summer discounts, and a fall preview of Tom Nussbaum: But Wait, There’s More.

Also in this episode:

Sharron Miller: A Life in Dance, Rooted in Montclair

We begin with a local legend: Sharron Miller, a former principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a Juilliard-trained performer whose journey has taken her from Broadway to her hometown of Montclair, where she founded Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts.

In her candid and heartfelt interview, Miller recounts how a doctor’s prescription for ballet to help her flat feet ignited a lifelong passion. That passion took her across continents and eventually back to Montclair, where she has spent the last 30 years mentoring new generations of dancers. Her academy, now in a newly renovated space on Erie Street, is a nonprofit institution offering accessible, high-quality training in the performing arts.

“I wanted to build something that could outlast me,” Miller says. “Dance gave me my life—my whole, healthy, and alive self—and I want others to feel that too.”

The Montclair Dance Festival: A New Tradition Begins

The spirit of movement continues with Donna Scro Samori, founder and artistic director of the newly launched Montclair Dance Festival. A professional dancer and educator with deep roots at Montclair State University, Scro Samori shared the origin story of the festival, which debuted this past spring to massive community support.

With over 100 performers and hundreds of attendees, the inaugural festival proved there’s a hunger for large-scale dance in Montclair. From high school students to professional companies, the day-long event showcased the full spectrum of New Jersey dance.

The vision? To grow the festival into something akin to the Montclair Film or Jazz Festival, a multi-day, multi-venue, and deeply embedded in the town’s cultural fabric. “This is a dance town. We’re just giving it a stage,” she says.

Francesca Castagnoli and David Moore launched Tiny Gallery, a growing network of front-lawn exhibition boxes around town.
Photo Credit: The Montclair Pod

Ria Mulvey: Where Art Meets Business on Bellevue Avenue

While performance arts thrive in studios and on stage, Montclair’s gallery scene is quietly flourishing too—thanks to entrepreneurs like Ria Mulvey, founder of Ria Frame x Gallery in Upper Montclair. A self-taught artist and framer, Mulvey opened her combined gallery and custom framing business as a way to support artists while keeping her doors open.

“The gallery is a labor of love,” Mulvey tells us. “The framing business sustains it.”

During the pandemic, framing boomed, thanks in part to the surge in Zoom-era home upgrades, and the shop hasn’t slowed down since. Mulvey’s clients range from everyday collectors to those bringing in original Warhols and Keith Harings. Still, she maintains a deep commitment to showcasing emerging and underrepresented artists in her gallery space.

“You’ll see more graffiti, more modern, more Black art on our walls,” she says. “That’s where Montclair is going. And I love that.”

Tiny Gallery: Big Feelings in Small Spaces

Perhaps the most surprising artistic innovation in Montclair is also the smallest. Tiny Gallery, founded by former magazine editor and art history buff Francesca Castagnoli and her husband, technologist David Moore, is a growing network of front-lawn exhibition boxes around town.

Inspired by Little Free Libraries and born out of a moment of post-pandemic reflection, Tiny Gallery invites artists of all backgrounds to submit wallet-sized works of art, collages, photographs, sculptures, and paintings, which are then displayed in handcrafted wooden boxes throughout Montclair, Glen Ridge, and Bloomfield.

“It’s about wonder,” says Castagnoli. “You’re walking your dog, and suddenly you stumble across something tiny and exquisite. It stops you in your tracks.”

This summer, Tiny Gallery is hosting its biggest show yet, with open submissions and new collaborations with local schools and organizations. And the idea is spreading: the couple has received inquiries from across the country, asking how to replicate the model.

“It’s intimate, approachable, and deeply personal,” says Moore. “It removes the intimidation from art and just lets you feel.”

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