Celebrate the Fall and upcoming Day of the Dead at the Richmond Art Center with an afternoon full of fun and art-making for all ages. Make Calavera hats with Dawn Gonzales, mini honoring pinatas with Isaías Rodríguez, paper flowers with Lisa diPrima, and milagros and nichos with Malena Lopez-Maggi and Taylor Zarkades King. This event is free and open to all ages. Create and honor with us!
Back to school also means back to school for art. Check out these great class offerings for kids and teens to add creativity and color to their week! You can register online via the links below.
Calder Circus (Ages 6 – 8): Be inspired by the magic of Alexander Calder’s 1927 Circus to create dioramas, small wooden figures, animals and other fantastical creatures. We will work in variety of mediums including clay, found materials, fabric and paint.
Forms in Clay (Ages 8 – 11): Work with clay! In this class, young artists will learn a variety of techniques for making functional vessels in clay.
Home School (Ages 6 – 10): Students engage diverse art making approaches utilizing painting, clay, and drawing.
This year the Richmond Art Center turned 80 and we threw two big parties to celebrate! We’re looking forward to the next 80 years of sharing art, education and community with you.
Our Back to School Community Celebration was a family-friendly event, full of heart, art, and delicious food. All ages were welcome to share a meal with us at our new communal tables in the courtyard, and the first 80 guests received a special handmade ceramic bowl crafted by none other than our talented ceramics manager, Marisa Burman. Delicious rice bowls were cooked and served by RAC students and volunteers, and our bar was staffed by RAC staff. DJ Juice provided danceable music for hours and our teaching artists Michael Perkin and Joyce Shon showed people the ropes in how to screenprint their own limited edition tote bags (with hand-drawn art by our Studio Education Coordinator Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo).
Our 80th Anniversary Gala was a stylish, elegant event where guests mingled in the galleries, met some of the artists—including Hung Liu, Jim Melchert, Richard Shaw, William Wiley, Mary Hull Webster and Lia Cook—whose works are now on exhibition in Making Our Mark. With Board President Inez Brooks-Myers and Board member Susan Wittenberg driving months of planning, this gala was beautifully executed by our entire Board and a team of volunteers (with thanks to our Volunteer Coordinator Nisha Chauhan-McGrath). Custom screenprinted tortillas featuring RAC founder Hazel Salmi were a big hit, thanks to the Great Tortilla Conspiracy, and guests listened to jazz singer Terrie Odabi in our Main Gallery while enjoying refreshing Vodka cocktails and wine bar , which were supported by donations from St. George Spirits in Alameda, and Jacobs & Co. and Vintage 59 Imports.
Almost 200 guests enjoyed a 3-course dinner, catered by Richmond favorite Menbere Aklilu and her restaurant Salute E Vita. The evening ended with a lively auction offering donated art, trips, theater and sports events to a very generous crowd. The funds raised from the auction and the Fund-a-Need will go towards supporting the Art Center in the upcoming year.
It was a great pleasure to see the enthusiastic gathering at the opening reception for Making Our Mark. The air buzzed with a sense of history – so many artists who had exhibited here in the past, including former director Kathryn Reasoner, former curator Michael Schwager, and former Board President, John Wehrle – all joined the astonishing group of artists in Making Our Mark: Dru Anderson, Megan Atherton, Christopher Brown, Ethan Caflisch, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, Lia Cook, Sofia Córdova, Yvette Deas, Allan deSouza, Nathan Dollarhite, Michael Hall, Scott Hewitt, Mildred Howard, Hung Liu, Nicholas Makanna, Bruce McGaw, Jim Melchert, Richard Misrach, Kate Nartker, Deborah Oropallo, Shari Paladino, Johanna Poethig, Richard Shaw, Ehren Tool, Mary Hull Webster, William T. Wiley, Wanxin Zhang – who have filled the Art Center with their vibrant works and challenging ideas.
These first two weeks of the exhibition have drawn many visitors and groups of students from California College of the Arts, Contra Costa College, and UC Berkeley. If you have not had a chance to see the current exhibitions, Making Our Mark and Marking New Paths, highlighting current MFA candidates at UC Berkeley, do come by for these stimulating arrays of artwork. If you attended the exhilarating opening, we hope you will come back and bring a friend! And we would love to see you at our upcoming artists talks. The first series of talks features Chris Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Yvette Deas and Megan Atherton on October 15 at 2pm.
We’re happy to announce that the Richmond Art Center, in partnership with the City of Richmond and The Trust for Public Land, has received a new grant from Kaboom to create the Mathieu Court Alley Play Street.
“It’s exciting that elementary school students will have the experience of transforming an outdoor community space in a lasting way. We have a strong team of teaching artists who will be facilitating this project bringing students, families and neighbors together in the process.” says Rachel Schaffran, our Art In the Community director.
Elementary school students from Peres Elementary and Nevin Community Center, along with their families and RAC teaching artists Vreni Michelini Castillo and Sophie Siegmann will paint interactive games & artwork on a recently transformed “green alley.” This inventive play street will give families a fun, green, and clean place to play in a underserved and park-deficient neighborhood in the city.
The Art Center and grant partners will host a design and development activities to discuss ideas for the play street and will work with artists, local non-profits and volunteers to carry out the plan. Possible innovations to the space include games painted on the ground, fence art, a trash & recycling receptacle, and community garden boxes with seating areas. Proposed interactive educational signs will share the green features of the alley, and offer ideas on nutrition and healthy living. Safety in the area will be enhanced with a barrier that can be closed when families are playing and fencing for the play street. English and Spanish signage will be installed to encourage full use of this play street by non-English speaking area residents.
We’ll be sure to share more information with you as this project develops.
The Art Center’s abuzz with lots of things to do, so here’s our short list for you!
Be sure to send in your application for the Holiday Arts Festival if you want to be a vendor. Deadline is end of day, September 22! Apply here.
RSVP to our Back to School Community Celebration: an event with dinner, art making and music! Make new friends and enjoy the Art Center with us. RSVP here.
Enroll your kids in our Parents’ Press award-winning classes this Fall! Our Studio Education team has selected their top three favorites… see which one is right for you and your family.
Calder Circus (Ages 6 – 8)
Be inspired by the magic of Alexander Calder’s 1927 Circus to create dioramas, small wooden figures, animals and other fantastical creatures. We will work in variety of mediums including clay, found materials, fabric and paint.
Forms in Clay (Ages 8 – 11)
Work with clay! In this class, young artists will learn a variety of techniques for making functional vessels in clay. We explore how clay has been used to make functional forms throughout history and around the world. Work will be fired, decorated, and glazed. We will see the whole ceramics process through from start to finish, and even learn some of the science behind ceramic!
Teen Printmaking (Ages 13+)
Teens will explore the processes of printmaking. Through demos and experimentation, students will learn a variety of techniques and will design and print their own unique prints to take home.
The Richmond Art Center’s ongoing See and Make Art Free Family Workshops were started in 2014 to broaden our arts offerings and include our community in new experiences around the making of art. Centered at the main branch of the Richmond Library, each workshop starts with a story, continues with an art-making project, and then finishes with a guided tour of the galleries at the Art Center.
Our August class marked a special new partnership experience with the local Richmond-based nonprofit, Girls Incorporated of West Contra Costa County. Their goal: to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold, provides school and community based programming that serves the unique needs of girls, ages 5-18, living in West Contra Costa County.
Crystal Banagan, Associate Director of this local branch of Girls Inc., partnered with our Art in the Community and Studio Education teams to put on the August Bookmaker Faire event.
The class was led by the Art Center’s teaching artist Dawn Gonzales and our Studio Education Coordinator Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo. “It was such a success and by far one of my favorite teaching experiences,” said Gonzales. “I was happy to see children and adults of all ages making lots of books and I hope that they will continue to teach others what they learned.”
Participating families worked together, making keepsake books with Turkish map folded papers inside. The class decorated their handmade books, read a story about sharing family stories, and had an all around great time making and enjoying time with the people we hold dear. Everyone who joined the class got a brand new book to take home.
“I was so happy to plan and watch this partnership come to fruition, with so much success,” said Branfman-Verissimo. “The See & Make Art Free Family Workshops were started to broaden and include our community in new experiences around the making of art centered at the library and this partnership did just that and more. It was really great to bring Girls Inc into the library and shine a light on their hard work side by side learning how to make our own handmade books to tell our stories.”
We look forward to more creative partnerships with our neighboring community partners. To learn more about our See and Make Art Workshops, contact our Studio Education office at education@richmondartcenter.org. (The class is offered on the last Saturday of each month and is free to families and children. Be sure to check out our Events calendar for upcoming workshops and other free events.)
Our new President of the Board of Directors, Inez Brooks-Myers, reflects on her personal history with the Richmond Art Center. Click here to learn more about our Board and the people who provide governance of the Art Center.
Inez in our Weaving Studio. Inez is passionate about textiles!
My mother, Hattiemay, loved the Richmond Art Center. After she retired, she volunteered on Friday mornings, answering the telephone, taking messages and greeting Art Center guests. My father, Ed, was president of the Richmond Civic Music Association, bringing artists like Robert Merrill and the Vienna Boys Choir to perform in Richmond. My parents set an example of volunteer civic service.
The Richmond Art Center has been important to me since I was a student at Lincoln Grammar School. I went to the Art Center, located above a garage on 9th Street, just behind the Macdonald Avenue branch of the Mechanics Bank. Hazel Salmi worked with my Girl Scout Troop, helping us to qualify for badge work.
In 1951 I was excited to attend the dedication of the new Richmond Civic Center, where our Governor, Earl Warren (later Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court), spoke. The new location of the Art Center made it more visible, and greater studio space allowed for a variety of artistic endeavors. Richmond’s leaders understood the importance of art in the daily lives of the people of the community—not only making a painting or a sculpture—but the ability of each of us to appreciate those things that are tactile or visual, that are beyond words. Placing the Art Center in the Civic Center was indicative of the commitment that the city had to the cultural life of its citizens.
Since my childhood days, art has been eliminated from public school classrooms. The Richmond Art Center is doing something about that. This year, some 2,000 Richmond school age students have been give free lessons in art at schools and community centers all over the city. Our Art Center offers on-site classes to adults, teens and children and continues to delight the public with free art exhibitions. I personally enjoy coming to the exhibitions, especially those focused on textiles, crafts and design. In this 80th anniversary year for the Richmond Art Center, my hope is that we can each appreciate the good works we have inherited and improve on them for the generations to come.
In Fall 2016, the Richmond Art Center continues to celebrate 80 years of community art making in Richmond and its surrounding areas with its Back to School community event. This all-ages event is open to Art Center constituents old and new and serves as a means for our community to celebrate and contribute to its 80-year milestone for our students, teaching artists, and larger Art Center community. Guests will participate in hands-on activities, including art making and contributing to a “Making Our Mark” memory wall.
Images by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo
This event serves as a celebration and small fundraiser for the active Richmond Art Center community including its students, instructors and extended Art Center family. The $25 sliding scale ticket includes informal dinner and one drink ticket. In addition, the first 80 attendees at the door will receive a hand-thrown bowl for their meal and to take home, made by the Art Center’s Ceramics Manager Marisa Burman.
The main event will take place in the Richmond Art Center’s Courtyard, with additional art making activities in several studios, including button making and screenprinting tote bags, led by teaching artist Michael Perkin. Music for the evening will be provided by San Francisco-based DJ The Juice (http://www.mixcrate.com/mightyjuicy). This event has sponsored in part by Lagunitas Brewing Company.
Guests can also visit the Main, West, South and Community galleries, where the Fall Exhibitions Making Our Mark and Marking New Paths will be on display. For more information about this exhibition, please visit: https://richmondartcenter.org/exhibitions/making-our-mark/
It was a great pleasure to see the enthusiastic gathering at the opening reception for 
We’re happy to announce that the Richmond Art Center, in partnership with the City of Richmond and The Trust for Public Land, has received a new grant from Kaboom to create the Mathieu Court Alley Play Street.
Participating families worked together, making keepsake books with Turkish map folded papers inside. The class decorated their handmade books, read a story about sharing family stories, and had an all around great time making and enjoying time with the people we hold dear. Everyone who joined the class got a brand new book to take home.
The main event will take place in the Richmond Art Center’s Courtyard, with additional art making activities in several studios, including button making and screenprinting tote bags, led by teaching artist Michael Perkin. Music for the evening will be provided by San Francisco-based DJ The Juice (http://www.mixcrate.com/mightyjuicy). This event has sponsored in part by Lagunitas Brewing Company.
