Collar Works

08/03/2026

Join artists Jahniah K*m and Jess Stapf this Saturday, August 8th for ✨Open Studios✨at 50 4th St in Troy, NY. They will be welcoming guests into their studios from 11am-5pm! See you there!

✨About the Artists✨

Jahniah K*m is an interdisciplinary visual artist from Albany, NY. She creates work that explores the evolving shape of grief through painting, photography, printmaking and more. Rooted in the loss of her mother, her practice asks: what does it mean to be whole when something vital is missing?

K*m spent her formative years between Albany, NY and Montego Bay, Jamaica. Attending primary school and experiencing a childhood in Jamaica that gave her the freedom to be curious as a child. Painting the veranda walls of her home and having time to roam her community of Tower Hill to find land crabs, one of her many hobbies as a child. These foundational years informs her colorful palette and nostalgia within her practice.

She earned an A.S. in Fine Arts from Hudson Valley Community College (2020), a B.A. in Studio Art with a minor in Africana Studies from the University at Albany (2023) and a MFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in a range of group exhibitions, including the annual Mohawk Hudson Regional Show, a solo exhibition at the Spare Room Gallery in Baltimore and the Peale Museum of Art. Her recent exhibitions include her first international shows at Stazlab in Kingston, Jamaica (2026) and Heartbeatink Gallery in Athens, Greece. Between Caregiving and maintaining her practice K*m splits her time between Baltimore, MD and Albany, NY.

Jess Stapf, is an artist from the Capital Region of Upstate New York. She is a sculptor working primarily with craft based mediums. Coming from a multidisciplinary background of making, including printmaking, sculpture, and video works.

Stapf graduated with a BFA in Art & Design and a minor in Art History from Alfred University in 2018 and an MFA in Studio Art from the University at Albany SUNY in 2023. Since graduating, she has been working full-time as an artist assistant. She currently live in Troy, NY with her partner Melissa, their cat Artemis, and dog Koda.

07/31/2026

We are always dreaming of EMAR! Interested in joining us next summer for the tenth anniversary year of the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency? Deadline to with no application fee is tomorrow August 1, after which there will be a $25 application fee. Link in bio for more information!

07/22/2026

Collar Works is pleased to announce ‘Driftwood: Sometimes I Think of Home’ by Jahniah K*m, now on view at Collar Works’ 50 4th Street location through August 15th! Amia K*m

Join us July 23rd for a two-venue Talk + Walk. Jahniah’s artist talk will start at 6pm at 50 4th St, moderated by Jayana Espinoza followed by Kiki Vassilakis at 7:15pm at Context Collective.

Jahniah K*m is an interdisciplinary Caribbean-American artist whose work tends to the evolving shape of grief through self-portraiture, material experimentation, storytelling, and family archive.

Shaped by the loss of K*m’s mother in 2019, and informed by bell hooks’s framework of “re-membering,” K*m’s practice navigates the question: What does it mean to be whole when something vital is missing? Functioning both as a compass and mirror–creating tension that dissects themes of: identity, belonging, loss, memory, and girlhood.

Through self-portraiture and materiality, K*m surveys this question, projecting my fears onto a recurring figure who inhabits psychological landscapes I cannot personally bear. Engaging with the framework of the body as an archive, this figure first emerged as a site of reclamation but has since evolved into a threshold where binaries: figurative and abstract, presence and absence, memory and transformation, folklore and reality can coexist.

07/02/2026

Artists! Parent Artists! The 2027 Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency by Collar Works Application is LIVE! It is FREE to apply until August 1st! Join us next summer as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of EMAR, providing fully-supported, two-week and one-week residencies on a bucolic 77-acre farm in Washington County- the home and studio of the late visionary artist Elizabeth Murray! We are so excited to grow our program next year to include year-round opportunities for alumni and partnered artist collectives!

Founded in 2017, EMAR is designed to provide emerging and underrepresented artists an immersive, supportive, productive, wellness-centered, and communal atmosphere for creative risk taking, art-making and meaningful dialogue. Visit our website for more information and link in bio to apply!

Collar Works Elizabeth Murray

06/18/2026

☀️Collar Works is excited to introduce our 2026 Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency Fellows andiiicastillo Alexis Pye aishah olabisi balogun Kristy Hughes Alise Anderson☀️

It is an honor to share such meaningful time with incredible artists this summer! We will be sharing their stories over the next couple of months and stay tuned for a special announcement about our 2027 Open Call and EMAR’s 10th Anniversary Season next summer!

Collar Works Elizabeth Murray

06/08/2026

✨EMAR at the Tang! Thank you, and Ian Berry-Dayton Director of the Tang and Collar Works Board Member, for giving our Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency fellows an inspiring tour of the museum and collection, including works on paper by Elizabeth Murray ✨

06/02/2026

Join us in giving a warm welcome to Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel as our Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency Coordinator. We are so lucky to have them on our team!



“My time as a resident artist at the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency by Collar Works allowed me to expand the boundaries of my artistic practice. To return to this prestigious program as its Residency Coordinator is not only an absolute gift to uphold the legacy of Elizabeth Murray, but also allows me to contribute to Collar Works’ invaluable investment in artists.” -Jordan

06/01/2026

✨Collar Works’ 9th Year of the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency is here!✨ We are honored to be kicking off the season with this incredible group of artist fellows .makes ❤️

05/10/2026

05/09/2026

🌈💧It may be raining now, but the evening looks clear for the opening of Gracelee Lawrence’s LIGHT EATERS ✨✨✨Join us for the launch of this new public art exhibition at Window Works located in downtown Troy at Vacina on 4th St, near the corner of Congress! Gracelee will give a Walk + Talk of the exhibit at 8PM.

The exhibit comes alive at night! Following, we will hop on over to Sunhees Farm & Kitchen for a celebratory toast!

See you soon!

LIGHT EATERS transforms the Window Works by Collar Works at Vicina in Troy, NY, into a site of vegetal activity within the city’s hard-scaped expanse. One-way mirrored film, holofan videos, and suspended sculptures animate the window, merging digital illusion with organic processes.

Looping imagery expands and contracts in continuous cycles of growth and decay, translating plant time into rhythms perceptible to human experience. Sculptural forms, formally drawn from invasive species like bittersweet and bull thistle, hang in states of reconfiguration: modular, adaptive, resilient. The work frames plant life not as backdrop, but as a force to aspire towards: an intelligence that builds, sustains, and perhaps outlasts us. LIGHT EATERS beckons a shift in attention: toward the constant labor of plants and ways of seeing that extend beyond the human.