On Saturday, December 5, the Richmond Art Center hosted our 53rd annual Holiday Arts Festival. The Art Center bustled with artisans, teachers, and members of the East Bay communities. Studio Arts hosted fun, creative activities for the kids, Ceramics held its famous sale, and our pop-up cafe served delicious paninis, desserts, and lattés. Both the silent and live auctions successfully raised vital funding for our core programs thanks to your generosity. We raised over $30,000 to support the many programs we offer to people of all ages. Our Fund-A-Need drive raised over $5,800 for the Kato Jaworski Scholarship Fund, which will provide kids and teens with need-based scholarships to take our classes and workshops in 2016!
The annual Holiday Arts Festival had a triumphant return, and everyone at the Richmond Art Center, myself included would like to extend our deep appreciation to our dedicated committee of Board Members, generous donors and Art Center supporters, our teaching artists and students, and more than 90 devoted volunteers. A special thank you goes to Board member Ellengale Toki Oakley for chairing the committee, to our Deputy Director Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez for organizing the project, developing numerous job descriptions and scheduling the volunteers, and to our Exhibitions Director Jan Wurm for acquiring a magnificent collection of donated art for auction.
We could not have done this without you–thank you for making this event memorable.
Best,
Ric Ambrose
Executive Director
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Photos by John Wehrle. All of our Holiday Arts Festival images can be viewed here.
The Holiday Arts Festival at the Richmond Arts Center is a great place to find unique gifts for the holidays for friends and loved ones! We’re proud to showcase so many local artists, including several of our own instructors. Below is a collection of some of the items that will be for sale here on December 5 from 11am – 3pm. Please join us to support the Richmond Art Center, our local artists, and our wonderful community.
Our incredible Holiday Arts Festival on December 5 features a Live Auction. All of our auction items are featured below, with descriptions to entice art collectors and people seeing unique lifestyle experiences. We hope to see you at our event! A limited number of tickets are still available… please call us at 510-622-6772 to purchase your tickets.
Auction #1
Artist: Hung Lui, Mission Girl – Red Shoes, Mixed Media, 2013
Value: $6,000, Donor: Hung Lui
Born in China and immigrated to California in 1985, Hung Lui is regarded by many as the greatest Chinese painter in the U.S. This mixed media work features her typical style of dripping paint and layered brushstrokes. Combining a mixture of Chinese culture, contemporary and ancient visual language, Lui addresses history, gender, identity and Chinese politics and culture. With a focus on women and their place in society, Hung Lui elevates her central singular figures and emphasizes their dignity imbuing her richly decorated subjects with hope.
Auction #2
Five day retreat for 12 people at Dillon Beach House
Value: $3,500 Donor: Tracy Freedman
Dillon Beach has a fairy tale atmosphere with the far-far-away charm of time suspended. This is a chance to partake of a fabulous 5 night vacation in a gorgeous Dillon Beach House with stunning ocean views from every room. The house features 5 bedrooms, sleeps up to 12 people. Stroll the 7 minute walk down to the beach, soak in the hot tub, lounge on the sundecks, whip up magic in the gourmet kitchen, then settle down to a cozy fire. 2 satellite TV’s and wifi for those who stay connected.
Auction #3
Dinner for Four with Mildred Howard in her Studio
Value: $800
Donor: Mildred Howard
Internationally known Berkeley artist, Mildred Howard invites you and your guests into her studio for an intimate dinner for four surrounded by her art and peppered by her stimulating conversation. In the hands of a great cook and deep thinker, dinner with Mildred Howard promises to be an event you will never forget! Bring along your closest friends and the four of you will get to know this deeply important artist and her powerful art as you share a meal she has prepared for you in her home. The considered influences of music, literature, community, and art will all pull up a chair at this table for an engaging evening!
Auction #4
Artist: Terry St. John Model on Floor, Mixed Media, 1999-2001
Value: $8,000, Donor: Terry St. John
This study of Model Seated on the Floor will hold you captive, locked in the inky dark space which pulsates with life and emotion. His exuberant black and white studies of light and dark, shape and space, fuse his sense of Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. Working with brush and washes of ink, St. John builds the surfaces of his works to present the figure in and of the cconjured space. Former curator at the Oakland Museum, Terry St John brings decades of work and influences from the Bay Area Figurative painters to his plein air studies and his female nudes. The Richmond Art Center is excited to be mounting a survey exhibition of his powerful work next summer.
Auction #5
Two tickets to a Golden State Warriors game
Total Value: $ 500
Donor: Tim Ilario
Bring a friend and enjoy a once in a lifetime up-close view of MVP Stephen Curry and the NBA World Champion’s Golden State Warrior face off against its archrival Miami Heat at the raucous Oracle Arena on Monday, January 11, 2016.
Auction #6
Artist: Ric Ambrose Op-Art, graphite, 2010
Value:$3,800, Donor: Ric Ambrose
A large graphite drawing of an urban landscape contrasting a broody old balustrade stone building dwarfed by a minimalist modern high-rise Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco. Ric is the Executive Director of RAC and has exhibited his work throughout the U.S. and is included in many public and private collections including the Getty Family, City of Littleton, Coos Bay Art Center and the Colorado Fine Arts Center.
Auction #7
A day of sailing on the Bay and lunch for four people
Value: $1,000, Donors: Ellengale Toki and Owen Oakley
Enjoy a day of sailing on the Bay for four people on Sambolo, a 40 foot Sabre, starting at the Richmond Yacht Club in Point Richmond. The picturesque venture includes a lunch with wine and cheese.
Auction #8
Drinks and Tidbits for a party of eight with legendary art historian Peter Selz.
Value: Priceless!! Donors: Carole and Peter Selz
Drinks and tidbits for a party of eight with Peter Selz in the home of Carole and Peter surrounded by their contemporary collection of art. Be prepared for salty anecdotes and anchovies. Founder of the Berkeley Art Museum and former Curator of Contemporary Art of Museum of Modern Art, Selz has curated seminal exhibitions of new art over the past five decades.
Auction #9
Artist: Hung Lui Shan-Mountain, Color etching & aquatint, 2012 edition of 40
Value: $2,500, Donor: Paulson Bott Press
Working with some of the most expressive artists of our time, Paulson Bott Press has established a record of producing some of the most beautiful and nuanced contemporary color etchings. This very large print by Hung Liu is a tour de force of etching technique displaying extraordinary visual clarity and exquisite design and surface. Internationally renowned, Hung Lui has received numerous awards, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, and the Pollack-Krasner Award. Her work is represented in major museum collections in the U.S. and Asia. The Richmond Art Center mounted one of her first solo exhibitions in 1991.
Auction #10
Artist: Richard Shaw
Studio Drawing, ink on paper, 2010
Value: $1200, Donor: Richard Shaw
A unique figure in the work of contemporary ceramics, Richard Shaw is nationally known for his experimental trompe-l’oeil sculptures. Humor and irreverence play a large role in his still life ceramic work and spontaneous drawings as he inserts stuff of daily life into his whimsical narrative. His work in housed in major museum collections throughout the U.S.
Auction #11
Three hours with handyman and Contra County Supervisor John Gioia
Value: Priceless, Donor: John Gioia
Here is your chance to have a few home repairs done and have an engaging conversation with John Gioia, long-time District Supervisor of Contra County and chair of CC Board of Supervisors. No small repair can’t be done by this multitalented Richmond resident.
Auction #12
FUND-A-NEED Youth Scholarship
Your donation to Funded- A–Need will provide a once in a lifetime opportunity for dozens of youth to participate in Richmond Art Center’s noted youth classes.
The Kato Jaworski Youth Scholarship Fund offers partial funds for at risk Richmond youth to participate in one of our studios’ art making classes providing the wonder of discovery and building self-esteem.
Just some of the fantastic art you’ll see on display at our Silent Auction at the Holiday Arts Festival! Our South Gallery is filled with beautiful art right now, in anticipation of our daytime event, which is free and family friendly! All of this wonderful art will be available for bidding at our silent auction. Please join us on December 5! More info on our Event page.
Artist: John Wehrle Muriel 13 (for Etienne-Jules Marey)
Digital photograph, 2012
Richmond High School student Arion Smith created this design, titled Quantum Physics, for the Mobile Fab Lab’s Design contest sponsored by Chevron, and the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Winning designs will be part of the trailer housing the mobile version of the Fabrication lab that will travel throughout the county, supporting students who want to create designs using Science, Technology, Engineering and Math concepts.
South Richmond’s Kennedy Park is undergoing a massive redesign, the majority of which will be completed on October 24th at a community build day. AIC is a key part of this effort by holding a community mural panting class, led by community muralist and educator Fred Alvarado. Fred is taking a group of adults and teens through a collaborative design process, and the group will prep and paint the 1134sq foot circular floor mural. Most of the class participants are longtime residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the park and are excited to make this huge mandala painting that reflects their values and history.
We are still in need of folks to help prep and paint this mural on Monday and Thursday afternoons before the finishing touches can be added on October 24th build day. If you are interested in supporting the painting effort before or on build day please contact Rachel Schaffran, Art in the Community Director at (510) 620 – 5543 orrschaffran@richmondartcenter.org.
Each year nonprofits around the Bay Area apply to the CCA CONNECTS program and are matched with a CCA student who will work for them for one academic year. CCA provides an hourly wage for the students and training and networking opportunities. We are so thrilled to be selected to take part in this program and to have Francisco working with us!
In Memoriam: June Schwarcz June 10, 1918 –August 2, 2015
Born in Denver, Colorado, June Schwarcz was a legend in the field of metal enamel sculpture. After studying industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Schwarcz pioneered unconventional, electroformed and electroplated metal nonfunctional sculpture. Schwarcz utilized the traditional bassee-taille enameling technique, which involves cutting and etching into the surface of copper plaques, plates and bowls to create complex, abstract compositions that are visible through layer upon layer of transparent, almost ethereal enamel. When asked why she chose this technique, Schwarcz replied, “I felt there were characteristics of enamel one could use that were not available in any other medium. I didn’t want to do what everyone else had done.”
Schwarcz was a founding member of the Northern California Enamels Guild where she was also given a Life Time Achievement Award in 1991. She was designated a California Living Treasure in 1985 and was awarded the Masters of the Medium Award by the James Renick Alliance of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York (now the Museum of Arts and Design), the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Mingei Museum, San Diego, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and many others.
Schwarcz exhibited her work at the Richmond Art Center in 2012 alongside acclaimed camera obscura photographer John Chiara in the show titled, In Coversation: June Schwarcz and John Chiara. Ken Baker, art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle recognized this exhibit as the top five exhibit in the Bay Area for 2012.
“We were honored to feature her innovative artwork at the Richmond Art Center, and are so fortunate to have worked with such a fearless and experimental leader in the enamel arts, Ric Ambrose, Executive Director of the Richmond Art Center.
