Meet the kalaveshis
SARANDA KALAVESHI
Artist/Actor
SARANDA KALAVESHI
Saranda Kalaveshi is a figurative painter working primarily in oil. Born in Kosovo and raised during the turmoil of war in the 1990s, she discovered an early source of solace and self-expression in drawing. Her relationship with visual art began at an early age, and her work was exhibited throughout her childhood and teenage years in school shows as well as community and youth art exhibitions in her hometown.
Saranda immigrated to the United States in 2010 and initially pursued a career in the performing arts. She attained a BA in Theatre from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Acting from the University of Florida. She subsequently worked in theatre and film while continuing to independently develop her visual art practice.
Following the disruption of the performing arts during the COVID-19 pandemic, Saranda made a deliberate career transition back to painting. Largely self-taught, she developed her painting practice through independent study, workshops, museum and gallery research, and continued study of historical and contemporary painting techniques.
Saranda recently participated in two artist residencies in Albania being the Tirana International Art Residency in Tirana and the Apolo Art Colony Residency in Fier. Her work has been exhibited in juried and group exhibitions throughout Connecticut and New Mexico.
Her professional arts experience includes co-founding and operating Kalaveshi Arts Studio/Gallery in Avon, Connecticut, between 2023 and 2026. This space held exhibitions, workshops, classes and community events providing her with experience in exhibition development, arts programming, publicity, and gallery administration.
Saranda is a member of the West Hartford Art League and the Canton Artists’ Guild, where she currently serves as Co-Publicity Chair. She was the recipient of the 2025 Connecticut Arts Award for Emerging Creatives and the 2022 Second Place of People’s Choice Award at the Ghostwolf Gallery in New Mexico.
Saranda currently lives and works in Connecticut.
NJOMZA KALAVESHI
Artist/Actor
Njomza Kalaveshi was born in 1987 in the beautiful city of Gjakova, Kosovo. As a child, Njomza showed great interest in the arts; she met her first art mentor at the age of five when she moved with her mother and sister to Albania. Njomza began primary school in Albania, only to complete it back in Kosovo in 2000. In high school she pursued art and design studies, and from there she continued her studies in acting and theater. Njomza has a Bachelor's in Acting from the University of Prishtina, Kosovo. In 2008, Njomza was employed by the theater in Gjilan, Kosovo, where she continued to act until 2019, a year which was a crucial year for her life. She and her four-year-old daughter migrated to the United States to join her mother, Drita, and sister, Saranda. Njomza settled in New Mexico; drawing inspiration from her mother and sister, she returned to her love for painting.
Njomza’s art consists of historical characters and ethnic costumes, such as Albanian, created with varying types of media including acrylic, beads, glitter, golden leaves, and threads, to name a few. The end result of her pieces is often in the form of a portrait, wherein the focus is not necessarily on the person or face, but on the shiny, heavily textured costume that they’re wearing, often also coated with epoxy resin. Njomza prides herself in paying great attention to detail in her work, a process which can take months to be fully realized.
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Most recently, Njomza has returned to her formal art education and is pursuing a degree in Fine Arts Studio Practice at Tunxis Community College in Connecticut, continuing to deepen and expand her artistic practice.
DRITA CHOY
Artist
Drita was born in Kosovo in 1965 and raised during the intense political turmoil of former Yugoslavia. From an early age, she showed strong artistic potential, excelling in visual art during middle and high school, studying Albanian folk dance, and performing in local theater productions. Despite her creative talents, she chose to pursue disability studies, specializing in children with speech impairments. She became a certified special educator, graduating from the University of Prishtina in collaboration with the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
As political unrest escalated in the 1990s, just prior to the collapse of Yugoslavia, Drita had little opportunity to develop an artistic career. Instead, she turned to entrepreneurship to support her family, opening a shoe company and later a restaurant, which became the primary source of income while raising her two daughters, Njomza and Saranda.
Following Kosovo’s liberation in 1999, Drita joined the police force of the newly formed state. Her work eventually led her to Iraq, where she was employed by an American company supporting the U.S. Army. In 2012, while visiting her daughter Saranda during her studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Drita quickly found employment on campus and decided to make Albuquerque her home. She went on to work at the University Libraries at UNM for over a decade before relocating to Connecticut.
Drita’s return to art came unexpectedly. Having spent much of her life working across multiple fields, including construction, retail, and the cosmetics industry, she believed her artistic path had been left behind. Art had lived on mainly through her daughters’ pursuits. While working at UNM, she enrolled in a pottery class, unknowingly opening the door to a new chapter. Working with clay felt, in her words, like being “born again”, a rediscovery of a creative ability she had always carried but never had the space to explore. She continued taking ceramics courses and expanded into other disciplines, including printmaking and painting. Drita later earned a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Integrative Studies with concentration in Ceramics for people with special needs from the University of New Mexico.
Today, Drita is excited to reunite her lifelong commitment to education with her renewed artistic practice. By offering ceramics classes for children with special needs, she is finally integrating her background as a certified special educator with her passion for art, creating a space where creativity, healing, and inclusion come together.
