Stitching Stolen Lives: Book Talk With Author and Founder of SJSA, Sara Trail
Saturday, March 4, 1pm-2:30pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA
FREE
Join us for a talk and book signing with Sara Trail, founder of Social Justice Sewing Academy and co-author of Stitching Stolen Lives, a book that chronicles the work of SJSA and the Remembrance Project. With forewords by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr, the book includes personal stories of individuals and their families whose lives have been cut short due to social injustices.
This event is free, open to all and no rsvp is necessary.
The Richmond Art Center has overcome much in recent years, including the closure forced on all during the pandemic and more recently, a significant loss in donations over the summer.
As 2023 looms, Executive Director José Rivera says that despite bouncing back from the major revenue losses of 2020, the RAC is still in need of additional funding to return to its pre-pandemic level of operation.
When Rivera was appointed in 2020, the RAC was just over $110,000 in the red, causing him to cut staff by about half in his first six months. And though he was able to keep the organization in the black through 2021, the challenges kept coming.
In January, the center learned that it could no longer expect to receive about 23% of its annual funding past July, with three major donors either dropping out or cutting back. The loss was upwards of $300,000, with the city itself making up the largest portion at around $150,000.
Richmond Art Center hosts the annual Holiday Arts Festival on Dec. 4. (Sasha Schell)
Citing a changed economic landscape, the city’s Department of Arts and Culture Manager Winifred Day explained the cuts as an attempt to fund all local art organizations equitably, without picking favorites. Though the city still provides around $55,000 to the RAC’s annual budget, it no longer matches donations that Rivera and his team raise. Day emphasized that the city encourages all organizations to fundraise to fill any gaps.
That is precisely what Rivera and his team have done since January, winning upwards of $150,000 in grants in a matter of months. But that comes with its own complications.
The problem of grant funding, explains Rivera, is that it is often program-specific and cannot be used for operational costs. And without money for more staff, the center is hard-pressed to make good use of new-found grant dollars through classes and other programs.
This “Catch-22” gets at the core of how the RAC raises a large portion of its operational budget, through registration fees for classes. From July 2020 through the end of June 2021, the RAC saw class fees drop nearly 75%, from almost $500,000 to barely $122,000. And though numbers are not yet publicly available for this past year, limited staff has meant a severely diminished schedule.
“So that’s why you see these appeals asking people to be generous, because what we really need is money to run the place,” Rivera said. “We certainly got enough money to run programs.”
Daniel Camacho (wearing hat) leads a calaverita workshop for Dia de los Muertos at the Richmond Art Center in October. (Sasha Schell)
The center has been actively campaigning this fall, with a call for donations circulating in a newsletter last month. In it, board President Michael Dear cites another 18 months as the timeline for the center’s full recovery, given the funding and staffing shortages.
The center is on a good trend, with roughly $68,000 raised through November. That’s a promising start, considering the center has historically been able to raise three times that amount between November and January.
With the day-to-day running of the center returning to some semblance of normality, albeit a masked normality, Rivera remains highly optimistic and hopes to hire another staff member to run classes in January, especially during high demand times like evenings and weekends.
Currently, the center’s budget sits at $1.2 million. For Rivera, the goal is to get back to where the center was before the pandemic, on the way toward $2 million. That, however, will depend on demand for classes and generosity from the community.
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA
FREE
A group of Richmond artists is meeting to discuss creating an online artist directory. If you are a visual artist living or working in Richmond and would like to attend this meeting, please RSVP at richmondartistsunite@gmail.com to help plan for food and enough chairs.
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Richmond Art Center is proud to be a resource for hosting community meetings and events. Richmond Art Center is not the organizer of this event. Contact richmondartistsunite@gmail.com for more event information.
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA
Join Wanda Gonzalez in celebrating the release of her very first EP, “Bittersweet!”
Live performances by Richmond Police Activities League/Empowering Youth Through Music students, Ronnie Mills, LaDy-Sn3AK and Bay Area based Christian music group Bay Worship Collective. A night of live music and celebration. Light refreshments will be provided.
Radical Monarchs’ Black Lives Matter Public Action Event
Saturday, February 25, 1pm-2pm
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA
Radical Monarchs, Richmond Troop 2, is organizing a Public Action surrounding Black Lives Matter Sat., Feb. 25 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. near the Richmond Art Center (RAC) between 25th and 27th Streets on Barrett Ave. in Richmond.
Then, from 1-2 p.m., the group will move inside the RAC to take in the Art of the African Diaspora exhibit at 2540 Barrett Ave.
The Radical Monarchs creates opportunities for young girls and gender expansive youth of color to form fierce friendships, celebrate their identities and contribute radically to their communities.
For more info contact Richmond Troop Leader Arnita at arnita2@aol.com
After stepping through the Richmond Art Center’s entrance, visitors immediately begin celebrating Black excellence, as laid bare in the “Art of the African Diaspora.” Gracing the center’s main gallery in every medium imaginable, the exhibition in its entirety unveils how Black identity shifts, evolves and culminates uniquely through the lens of each artist.
Originally a salon for Black artists, first titled “Colors of Black” and then “The Art of Living Black,” the exhibition has supported Black visibility, representation and community in the arts since 1989. Annually, the series develops a new creative collective through the main exhibition and its Bay Area satellites, as artists display their recent work.
132 artists are part of the 2023 exhibition, displaying a diverse set of backgrounds, mediums and inspirations. The expanse of talent is embodied by the three 2022 Artistic Achievement Award Winners, Pryce Jones, Cynthia Brannvall and Derrick Bell.
Jones’ abstract yet sharp paintings greet visitors to the exhibition. These portraits are cutting — a slash of warm yellow acrylic marks a woman’s cheekbone, while bright green accentuates the shadows of her face.
In “Night Rider,” a large acrylic painting on canvas, a man’s proud face is outlined in dark blacks and grays, yet is offset by the warm red and yellow textures of his facial features. The painting evokes solitude in a chaotically colorful canvas: Two images of a person on horseback ride beside a block of text about a man riding at night, in contrast to the sunflower yellows and purples that occupy much of the painting.
Brannvall’s six displays are mixed-media collages. Political maps of Africa and the United States are overlaid by physical maps and photographs of people — some staring into the camera, inviting attention, while others look away sinking into their collages.
Occasionally, Brannvall’s use of space is blocky, such as in “Fulfillment,” where a man is collaged to sit above a cutout of the Earth, a slice of the ocean and two political maps. His posture is satisfied and comfortable, with legs and arms folded.
Contrastingly, “Descendants” brings to mind Pangea, with a physical map reaching upwards from the left corner towards three overlaid political maps spanning the top third of the canvas. A woman in a white dress contemplatively sits in the center; through her, Brannvall creates historical and modern perspectives on the woman’s journey.
Bell similarly turns to history and his roots for inspiration in his acrylic paintings. His three works appear like stylized stainless glass panes, sections of bright paint set starkly apart through their black boundaries.
In “Ancestral Contributions,” the painted panes are not glassily inflexible or flat; textures of clothing are apparent through Bell’s variation in shading and coloration. The folds of three women’s cream dresses look soft to the touch, and the group is swankily dressed for a celebration. One man holds a woman above his head; with only her skirt visible, she is unseen yet appears to be the focal point of the piece, alongside another woman in a blouse adorned with shells, proffering an empty plate.
A thousand gorgeous details clamor for attention in the exhibition’s main gallery.
There, stunning handmade necklaces of green and brown stone, titled “Spirit Quest” by Donna Gatson. Here, a collage-giclee print on canvas in tribute to Jimi Hendrix, “Taste of Purple Haze” by Frederick S. Franklin. Everything on the canvas looks to be made of fruits and vegetables; a Hendrix composed of peppers strums a cantaloupe guitar, eyes closed in musical ecstasy, as cherries rain around him. Exuberance and celebration leap from the work, leaving one wishing for a mouthful of purple haze.
Wooden carvings, photographs, sculptures and a spray-painted piece all individually mark aspects of the Black experience. By drawing from as many artistic talents as possible, as indiscriminately as possible, the exhibition honors the cultural wealth of the diaspora. Appreciation and reflection on Black identity through emotion, spirituality and history are vulnerably on display, leaving visitors awed by the exhibition’s collective and individual strength.
“Art of the African Diaspora” will be exhibited at the Richmond Art Center until March 18th.
Interested in joining Richmond Art Center’s teaching community? Let’s meet up on Zoom and get better acquainted! In this informal online session RAC’s Education Team share information about our hiring process and teaching opportunities.
Richmond Art Center offers visual arts education programs for the community year round, on-site at RAC, off-site in the community and online via Zoom. We work collaboratively with Teaching Artists to develop dynamic and inclusive arts education programs that cultivate, support and build our creative community here in Richmond. RAC currently offers visual arts programs and media under the following disciplines: Ceramic Arts & Sculpture, Digital Arts & Sculpture, Drawing & Painting, Glass Arts & Sculpture, Jewelry & Metal Arts, Printmaking Arts, Textiles & Fiber Arts, Mixed Media Arts & Sculpture. TEACHING ARTIST JOB DESCRIPTION
CLICK HERE to register for this Prospective Teaching Artist Information Session.
Top Image: Daniel Camacho leads a Calaveritas Workshop at Richmond Art Center. Photo by Sasha Schell
Interested in joining Richmond Art Center’s teaching community? Let’s meet up on Zoom and get better acquainted! In this informal online session RAC’s Education Team will share information about our hiring process and teaching opportunities.
Richmond Art Center offers visual arts education programs for the community year round, on-site at RAC, off-site in the community and online via Zoom. We work collaboratively with Teaching Artists to develop dynamic and inclusive arts education programs that cultivate, support and build our creative community here in Richmond. RAC currently offers visual arts programs and media under the following disciplines: Ceramic Arts & Sculpture, Digital Arts & Sculpture, Drawing & Painting, Glass Arts & Sculpture, Jewelry & Metal Arts, Printmaking Arts, Textiles & Fiber Arts, Mixed Media Arts & Sculpture. TEACHING ARTIST JOB DESCRIPTION
CLICK HERE to register for this Prospective Teaching Artist Information Session.
Can’t make the meeting on Thursday, February 23? We are hosting another online session on Saturday, February 25 at 9am.
Top image: A community workshop at Richmond Art Center for the Fencelines public art project.
Feeling Fine will be a vendor at the Holiday Arts Festival from 10am to 5pm on Sunday, December 4 at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond.
EGChu Handcrafted will be a vendor at the Holiday Arts Festival from 10am to 5pm on Sunday, December 4 at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond.
