Meet Amira Rogers

We recently connected with Amira Rogers and have shared our conversation below.

Amira, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I would say my resilience comes from living in Newark, NJ, my whole life.
Coming from a place like Newark, NJ, no one wants to see you in the same room as them. They don’t even expect it.
When the world has already made up its mind about who you are, you can either lean into it or fight against it.
I honestly never chose either.
I love being from Newark, NJ. Newark has taught me to keep moving forward because things can change in the blink of an eye.

When I was 5 years old, Pocahontas had just come out in theaters, and my mom took my sister and me to see it at Burgan Street Theaters, now known as City Plex. At the time, across the street was a large abandoned field with very tall weeds. We left the movie and began to walk to the bus stop when a man came from the abandoned field and charged at my mom in front of my sister and me. My sister, who was 7, and I, who was 5, did not just sit back and watch this man attack our mom; we fought him off as well. In the end, he made off with my mom’s gold necklace. We all made it out with our lives.

I’ve never been the person who just sits and watches when I see things aren’t right. Just as we did for my mom, I fight for the things that I love. I love art, working with children, and helping others. As one of maybe three Black glass artists in the city of Newark, I am living history, and I hope to spark change to bring more people of color into the glass arts. You learn when working with glass that even when something seems broken, something beautiful can come from it.
I don’t have time to sit and wait for help to come when the odds are already stacked against me to fail. Everything in my spirit wants me to make something beautiful.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Amira Rogers is a contemporary artist with a life-long passion for creating art in multiple mediums, who began exploring art at a very young age. Amira formerly studied art for the first time at the acclaimed Art’s High School in Newark, NJ, then went on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Art degree, with a minor in graphic design, from Seton Hall University. Amira considers herself an interactive artist working in various mediums (photography, glass, acrylic paint, pencil and marker to name a few). To Amira, art is incomplete without the engagement of the viewer. To add to the traditional art skills Amira has also ( Flameworking, Kiln forming/Mosaic and Glass Blowing skills). She creates glass mosaics as works of art that often double as functional items. Her art is influenced by music, nature and her everyday experiences. Amira was granted the opportunity to work with 3 different glass demos at the museum of glass in Tacoma Washington for the national Glass Art Society Conference in 2022. She was also one of the speakers for the community panel at the conference, speaking about her time teaching and making glass art in Newark NJ as a woman of color. She shared her voice again Speaking to the young women of Sadie Nash Leadership Project 2023.

Amira has started 2025 off strong with accepting a scholarship for 2025 Pentaculum Residency at Arrowmont school of art and crafts. Amira will be teaching the art of mosaic making at Urban Glass in Brooklyn NYC and is partnering with “Crafting the Future” this spring at Pittsburgh Glass Center to lead a group mosaic activity.

Awards: Received a 2023 Finalist award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Noted Artist in : 2022-2023: Cultural Connections 2023 the gallery space Rahw.ay.
Newark Arts Festival at the Newark Museum of Art 2022 and 2023, Art in the Atrium “Black Art in the Sun “ 2023, The Gallery Space Rahway “Cultural Connections 5th Annual Celebration of African American Artists, 2024: Newark School of the arts “Women’s Wonder”,
Art in the Atrium’s 32nd Annual Signature Exhibit Women’s Outstanding Works 2024.

This year Amira will be welcoming her first Child and cant wait to see how motherhood will impact her art and teaching skills.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I would say my compassion for others, my view on imagination and my continuous curiosity is what drives my journey.

For anyone seeking to improve these areas for themselves I would advise them to put them all together in to one ideal.

Be curious to think of others in a way that puts yourself in there shoes.

Ask your self what if that was me?

How would I want to be helped or how would I seek help or guidance, because its always a possibility that someone circumstances can become yours.

Then imagine the endless possibilities of ways you can help or make a difference. Get creative with it so the impact is memorable.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

The most impactful thing my parents have done for me has been to see my love and passion for art and always let me explore it.

If there was a program I was interested in we talked about it to and see how I could get in to it and then they would let me try it out.

That installed for me to try new things even if it wasn’t cool to anyone else.

From this idea I was an art intern at a local gallery, worked after school at a garden teaching kids younger then me about the importance of growing your own food and in my first art show by the age of 14.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @amiramediums