photos courtesy of Laura Bonas-Palmer

written by Shanida Carter

Trinidadian native and gallery owner Laura Bonas-Palmer has a vision. She sees an arts district surrounding the area of Newark where her Akwaaba Gallery is located. Bonas-Palmer and her husband, who is Jamaican, are leading the renaissance with a rare commercial art gallery. 

An arts space in New Jersey’s largest city is not unique in that the city is simmering on the national art scene in more ways than one. However, Akwaaba Gallery is located in an outer ward, miles away from the downtown hub of that simmer. Add to the pot that the number of Black-women-owned and Caribbean-American-owned galleries in the United States is low. (The Art Dealers Association of America for example, only has one African American gallerist on its 150 member-list). The challenges have actually served up success for Akwaaba Gallery. And it hasn’t just survived COVID. It’s thriving.

The gallery opened in February 2019. Bonas-Palmer estimates that more than 3,000 people have visited to see approximately 13 exhibitions. More than 80 artists have had their creations viewed, sold, or both. I spoke with Bonas-Palmer after a recent day-long, art sale she held online. She spoke about her humble upbringing on Trinidad’s southern coast, her jump from the courtroom to the gallery, and why ownership of anything is vital, especially art. 

Tell me about your Trinidadian roots and where your people are from.

“I’ve been in the U.S. now for 32 years. Came to the U.S. when I was 19 from Trinidad. Originally, I was born in South Oropouche, and then spent a couple of years in Fyzabad in Trinidad, and then came to the U.S. when I was 19. By the time I got here, I finished high school and everything in Trinidad and went to college here.” 

[Shanida Carter] “I’ve never heard of those towns.” 

“South Oropouche is in the southern part of Trinidad, closer to the ocean I guess, and then Fyzabad, if you look it up, it has a lot of history because a lot of labor union history in Trinidad is in Fyzabad.”

What was it like growing up near the water and in those areas?

“I don’t know how to swim! All my brothers know how to swim. All the boys in the family know how to swim. The girls don’t but I spent a lot of time by the beach but still don’t know how to swim. But we grew up, I would say in American terms, it would be poverty. I am one of nine siblings. I have four brothers and four sisters. My mom passed away when I was 10 years old.” 

[Shanida Carter] “I’m sorry.”

“When I look back at my path and I look back even at my siblings, in American terms, we’d be considered the kids who would not make it. But we did. We survived my mom passing away, us being separated and coming to America and putting myself through school. All of that stuff. “

Are all your siblings here in the U.S. or in Trinidad or separated?

“Most of them are in Trinidad. My sister is here in Connecticut and everybody else is in Trinidad. My siblings and nieces and nephews are all in Trinidad.”  

What do your siblings think about what you do?

“What part of what I do? [laughs] From what I know, I know you own a gallery so that’s what I meant in regard to founding, owning, and operating a gallery.” 

“I think everybody is really proud of what I’m doing. They all know that I am, that I’ve always been, an extremely hard worker. I’m always determined. My brother will tell you there’s no such thing as ‘no’ with me. Once I put in my mind that this is something I’m going to do, I’m going to do it. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to do it but I’m going to do it. I don’t know if you are aware but I’m also a lawyer by trade.” 

[Shanida Carter] “I didn’t know.”

[laughs] “That’s why I said, ‘What part of what I do?’ “

[Shanida Carter] “Wow.” 

“So, I’m a lawyer by trade. I graduated law school in 2001. I practiced up until the last time I was in court was 2018 in December. I did medical malpractice for almost a little over 14 years; worked for the city, corporation counsel, as an assistant corporation counsel, then I worked for Health and Hospital Corporation as an associate counsel. I defended doctors against medical malpractice lawsuits for a long time and I got into doing that where I was predominantly, for the most part, anytime I went to court I was the only Black attorney in court.” 

Let me back up for a little bit because this is so interesting. I do want to talk about the jump from the courtroom to the gallery. 

“I know! I’m sorry!”

[Shanida Carter] “It’s so fascinating! It’s okay! What brought you to the United States?”

“I wanted to go to college. I wanted to go to college here. I wanted to be a lawyer. I knew that coming here that’s what I wanted to do so I put myself through college. I did an associate’s degree initially in legal studies, worked as a paralegal for a while, a couple of years, went back, did my bachelor’s degree. After I did my bachelor’s degree, I went on to Albany Law School in upstate New York.” 

How did you get from Albany Law and New York to Newark? I remember reading that you and your husband were in Brooklyn before.

“I’ve always lived in Brooklyn. When I came to the U.S., I lived in Brooklyn. Other than when I went up to Albany for law school, I lived in Brooklyn. I came to Newark 17 years ago. We were looking to purchase property in New York at the time and we priced out. We looked around and, at that time, everything was beyond what we could afford”. 

[Shanida Carter] “I know.”

“And I happened to be in Newark with a family member. I was driving around. We were driving in the Society Hill area. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God. Where is this place? It’s really nice.’ And my cousin’s like, ‘Oh, this is Newark.’ I’m like, ‘No! This is not Newark,’ because when I graduated law school, I came to Newark to see an apartment at the Colonnades and I didn’t like it, so I was like, ‘No, this is not Newark.’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, this is Newark.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s not.’ I looked into it and, sure enough, it was Newark. We ended up coming out here and looking at a couple of properties and I purchased a condo in Society Hill, so that’s how we ended up in Newark. The plan initially was that we were going to be here for five years, then we were gonna move. I got to Newark and I think, almost immediately, and my husband felt the same way as well, we were in love with this city. And despite everything negative that people were saying about Newark at that time, we did not care. All we saw was potential. We were in love with the city. We wanted to be a part of revitalizing the city, you know, and we knew we were staying.”

Okay, so how did you go from medical malpractice to being a gallery owner?

[laughs] “Oh my God! I think, for me, I’ve always been…I’m not an artist but I’ve always been a creative to a certain extent. I’m a visionary. I see things all the time. I’m always seeing it in my head first before I can see it out there in person. I think, when I worked as a paralegal, I worked for an attorney in Brooklyn who represented a lot of, at that time, African American artists and she would host these shows at her house. She had a brownstone in Brooklyn, in Clinton Hill, and she would host these shows at her house, and I would help out and every time I did, I loved it. I loved being in that environment. I loved working with the artist and helping her to set up and getting everything ready. I had so much fun and I remember thinking at that time, ‘Man, I wish I could do this.’ Over the years, I kept coming back to that, remembering that and remembering how it made me feel and wishing I could do that. So, when we came to Newark initially, we were in Society Hill. About a year and a half later, we moved into the West Ward where we are now. We bought a brownstone from the city that we renovated and moved into it, and I hosted for a local artist in Newark. I remember talking to her. She painted something for me, and I said, “Have you ever had a show? Has anyone ever done a show for you?” She’s like, ‘No.’ And I’m like, ‘I’d like to do a show for you at my house.’ She’s like, ‘Really?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ So, I did it and I had a ball. I loved it. I enjoyed it and I kept thinking again, after I did that, ‘Man, I would love to do this. I would love to do this.’ So, the idea for a gallery probably came to mind probably about 10 years ago. I was looking at a property downtown; didn’t work out because I thought the taxes were too high. Nothing came of it, but I still had in the back of my mind, ‘Yeah, I think I want to do this.’ When we found this property and I saw the space, I came in and I saw the space, I’m like, ‘This is the gallery.’ From day one, it has always been the gallery. Everything when we did the plans for the building, this is the gallery, and we kinda did a lot of this stuff on the down low. No one knew we were doing it. We didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t go to the city because I did all of my stuff. I did all the research, was able to get all the financing, all of that stuff in order without the help of anyone so no one knew we were doing this. We were already into the renovations when Jersey Digs did a story on it, and then the next time people heard about it is when we were getting ready to open.”

You found the building. You and your husband fell in love with it, said you were going to open an art gallery and you have. It’s been wonderfully received. Has it hurt or helped not being downtown? How has it been leading this art renaissance in an outer ward?

“I will say this: If at this very moment, someone said to me, ‘I will give you a space downtown,’ I would say, ‘No.’”

[Shanida Carter] “Really?” 

“Yes. This location works extremely well for me. I have parking outside the gallery on both sides of the street. Whenever we have an event here, I have not had anyone complain and say, “I have a problem finding parking space.” A lot of times, I decide not to go to things downtown or I get down there with the intent of going to something and I leave because I can’t find parking and I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s it. I’m going back home.’ I have absolutely no regrets being here. I love being here. My vision for South Orange Avenue has always been, and part of why we wanted to do this here, has always been to see this become an arts district. I am determined to see this. When I look at South Orange Avenue, all I see is potential. I think this can really, really become a dynamic arts district and I’m determined to see it happen.”

That’s wonderful. How do you decide which artist is featured at the gallery?

“I’m getting artists either from referrals and also, when I go to shows, I see people’s work. I follow a lot of people online. I have a lot of artists reaching out to me. It all depends on what I’m planning. Sometimes, I’ll reach out to an artist and say, ‘Okay, I’m planning this show. I think your work will suit this show. Do you have work that would fit into what we’re doing?’ If they do, then I include them in the show. I haven’t done an open call. Everybody’s like, ‘Have you done an open call?’ I haven’t because I have so many artists either coming to me or people who I see when I go to shows or who I’m following. I haven’t done an open call yet. Some of the shows that we did, three or four shows we had, were curated by other curators and they came with the artists. I had a Caribbean show at the gallery last summer and that was curated by Anderson Pilgrim from Barbados. He lives in Harlem, so he curated that show and brought all the artists in for that particular show. I think I asked him to include a couple of people from the Caribbean and here in Newark but, for the most part, he brought in the artists. At this point, without COVID happening, I’m scheduled out until January of 2022.”

[Shanida Carter] “Oh wow.”

“I’m expecting that that’s going to get pushed back with everything that’s happening but that’s where I’m at in terms of schedule.” 

I’m glad you brought that up. Your gallery has survived COVID and many other businesses have not, so how did you pivot when you had to close?

“The main reason why we survived COVID, I have to say, is because we own the building. I think if we did not own this space, we would not have survived COVID because we were just getting started when all of this hit. I think if we didn’t own the building, we would not be here. For us, ownership in terms of doing this, I knew even before I did it, it had to be ownership because I also understood the dynamics with a lot of galleries, for example, in New York. The issue has always been an issue of space, a lot of times, you find a gallery comes in the neighborhood. They help to build the neighborhood and they create an arts community and, suddenly, the owner of the property comes back in and says, ‘I’m ready to develop this property. Now you have to move.’ And they don’t have a choice. They have to go. So, I knew a lot about that going in. I knew there was no way I would do this without trying to own the property. I also had to pivot and change the way we did things here. Art is more conducive to actually seeing it in person so that whole gallery experience, I think for a lot of galleries, are trying to navigate going from a live experience to going to a virtual experience. We started over the summer, when we opened back up, our first show was a virtual show. Even that, I think I did something that was sorta different than what everyone else was doing. A lot of people were doing the virtual shows, but they were doing these online virtual rooms and then they’ll put the art in the online virtual rooms and display it that way. I was trying to figure out how do I make people feel like they’re still coming to the gallery even though they are not in the gallery. What we did was we hung the work in the gallery and then I had a photographer come in and shoot it virtually with this Matterport program and then we put in all the labels so when you went into the program, you felt like you were in the gallery. It wasn’t like, ‘Okay, we’re going into a virtual room.’ You felt like you were in the gallery and then you can navigate around the gallery in the program.’

What has the response been in the virtual space?

“People loved it. The photographer had done a sample of it for me back in November prior to COVID and I had it on my computer, looking at it, trying to decide is this something I want to do. When COVID happened, I was like, ‘Okay, we’re back to this. This is the way to go.’ When I put it out there, the response to it was people were really excited. They loved it. They were excited. No one else was doing anything like that. The response was great because the Matterport program is a program that’s used by a lot of realtors for doing virtual tours of properties, so it was meant to be used in a different way. We were using it now for the gallery setting.”

What advice would you give to others who want to do what you do and own a gallery or run a gallery? 

“If it’s something that you’re really passionate about, I say don’t give it up. I say do it. I also say look into the possibility of ownership. A lot of times, what I find is a lot of people are intimidated by the whole process of owning a property or just the lack of knowledge of not knowing how to navigate the process. People are dissuaded from even getting into it. I say do the research. There’s a lot of information online. There’s a lot of information out there, period. Do the research. I knew nothing. When we first started and we bought our first property, I knew nothing about buying property. I knew nothing about any of that stuff, but I did a lot of research. I’m always researching. There’s also a lot of alternative means of funding for a project like this. We attempted initially to go through a traditional bank. It did not work. Everything we agreed to was changed and, on the day of closing, I did not go to the closing. I canceled the deal, walked away from it. I went to an alternative funder, a non-profit group that funds projects that have a significant impact on the community, New Jersey Community Capital. The experience was absolutely awesome. They were excited to work with us. They were excited to work on a project where we were going to be bringing art to the community. If you can’t do it through the traditional means, look into alternative funding. If you can’t do it alone and you have a friend or a family member who’s willing to go in with you, I say do that as well because looking at what’s happening right now with COVID, where you see a lot of art galleries closing, and they’re closing mainly because they can’t afford to pay the rent anymore. You have no income coming in and you can’t afford to pay the rent so my biggest thing would be to try to own the property that you’re in. Even if you start off with something very small and work your way up, try to own the property that you’re in.”

So you’re running the gallery and running the building which has lofts above the gallery.

“Yes.” 

Did I miss anything?

“Hmm…what else? I am still admitted to practice law so I haven’t given that up, and what I’m finding actually is that it’s an advantage to have a law degree and to be doing this as well because any legal issues that come up related to the art world, I can easily look it up myself. I don’t have to call a lawyer to say, “Hey, can you do this for me?” I can do it myself. And the other thing is a lot of stuff that’s related to the art world is federal law and I’m admitted to practice in New York so I can easily put in an admissions practice in federal court and cover anything I need to cover in the art world.” 

Obviously, being a lawyer has helped in the venture. What about being a West Indian woman? How has that shaped your choices as a gallery owner? 

“When I think about my life growing up, I’ve always felt like there’s nothing that you can’t do. When people think, ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe you went from being a lawyer to now being a gallery owner, like, how do you do this? You don’t have an art degree. I’m like, ‘No, I don’t,’ but I taught myself medical malpractice and I’ll teach myself this. When I think about being from the Caribbean, there’s no, ‘You can’t.’ The only thing I see it, ‘You can do it and how can you do it. How can you navigate the process?’”

What’s next for Akwaaba Gallery? What are you planning for?

“The biggest focus right now is to really build that collectors database, which is significant in owning a gallery. A lot of people own galleries, but they own non-profit galleries. We own a commercial gallery. Any income you make is based on the sales in the gallery, so you really have to focus on building that collector base and continue to educate people on why it’s important to own art. Ownership period. Owning art, owning real estate, historically, it’s not something that we do. It’s not something that we’re trained to do. A lot of times people try to persuade us that that’s not for us. We should not be doing that. Part of it is changing the dynamics, changing the mindset of people that this is something that we should be doing. This is something that it’s okay for us to do. In fact, it’s important that we do it. Buying art isn’t just buying art. It’s preserving culture. It’s preserving history. With every piece of art that you buy, you’re preserving culture. You’re preserving history. There’s also the potential of it increasing in value as time goes by…I feel like, in doing what I do, that I’m an advocate for the artists. I treat my artists the same way I treated my law clients. I feel like I’m their voice. I truly believe that an artist should be able to make a sustainable living from what they do, and the way you help them to do that is to create the environment where they can sell their work and make a living off of it.”

Is there anything you want to add or anything I might have missed?

“I forgot one thing. In terms of us navigating COVID, the other thing we did was we finished up the outdoor space over the summer, which was a huge deal given everything that’s happening, because the last show that we had was in October and that was the only reception I had since COVID. We were able to have an almost-normal reception, with the exception of everyone wearing masks. I did it over a five-hour period instead of doing three or four hours. We opened up the back. I set up everything outside in terms of refreshments and everything was done outside. People came in. They were able to look at the art and for people who wanted to hang around and socialize, they were able to go out to the outdoor space and be out there. That was a huge deal, I think, given what was happening.”

Right. So, hopefully, when the weather gets warmer, you’ll be able to use the outdoor space again. 

“Right. There is one thing else I wanted to say because I think this is really important with respect to opening a business because I don’t see it happening as often as I’d like to see it happening in Newark. When you think about opening a business in your community, you should always remember to serve the people in the community with honor. By that I mean, when I look around here for example, you go to some restaurants and you see garbage on the street. It’s filthy. It’s dirty and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, you’re coming into this community. You’re taking money from people. You’re selling food. You don’t care about what it looks like on the outside. You don’t care about what it looks like on the inside. For us, it’s a huge deal. People ask, ‘How come you spend so much time making outside look so pretty?’ For us, it’s about treating the community with respect. I feel that if you’re opening a business in any community, you think about the people that you’re going to serve. I don’t care what background they come from. I don’t care what kind of income they have. I don’t care about any of that stuff. You treat them with respect, and the way you do that is the product that you put out there. You put something out there that when someone in the community walks in, they feel proud to be there. They feel honored to be there. They feel like you actually thought about them and considered them and appreciate them in what you put out there in the community and how you treat the space on the inside and the outside. Okay, I’m done.” 

I thought of one more question. How did you choose the name Akwaaba [a common expression of the people of Ghana]? 

“Oh! The whole vision with the space is I wanted a space that felt welcoming to the community, welcoming to anyone who walked in the door. Like, that’s my big thing. I want people to walk in here and feel like, ‘Wow, this is like my home.’ ‘Welcome’ is always a part of what we wanted. We wanted people to come in and feel welcome in this place. I played around with a lot of names and I kept coming back to Akwaaba because Akwaaba means ‘welcome.’”

Newark’s art scene continues to flourish with a growing number of artists, some of whose works are featured in Akwaaba Gallery. The gallery notes it features a variety of “diverse and eclectic contemporary works of art in various mediums.” To learn more about Akwaaba Gallery visit www.akwaabagallery.com.

Akwaaba Gallery is located at 509 South Orange Avenue, Newark, New Jersey 07103. Contact: akwaabagallery@gmail.com, or 1 (917) 260-9122 for more information.