The Richmond Art Center buzzed Sunday with visitors, as they explored handcrafted goods and engaged with artists and artisans at the Holiday Arts Festival.
The festival began 62 years ago as a craft-focused event and has blossomed into an annual tradition, celebrating the spirit of creativity, said Amy Spencer, the community engagement director who helps organize the event. Richmond Art Center has expanded its vision of bringing the community together to support independent artists and small businesses.
“Nearly half the participating vendors are from Richmond, and this event really puts Richmond on the map as a hub for creativity in the East Bay,” Spencer said.
The festival showcased a diverse array of more than 50 creators, including illustrators, jewelry designers, silversmiths, painters, and clothing designers, as well as zine and sticker makers. Alongside the marketplace were stations for making Christmas ornaments that engaged attendees of all ages.
Van Pham, who has been to other Richmond Art Center events, watched her two children decorate clay Christmas ornaments That would soon find a place on their tree at home.
Nicole Dickerson, a first-time attendee, was captivated by the event’s charm. “I had no idea it was going to be as big as it is. It’s amazing, just the most beautiful thing,” she said. “Spending money locally feels so much better.”
The Zine Zone is a new feature at the Richmond Art Center’s annual Holiday Arts Festival. (Paul Ghusar)
This year, the festival debuted the Zine Zone, showcasing art that intersects with activism. It grew out of a summer class for teens taught by Shani Ealey that focused on indigenous African storytelling, Spencer said. The Art Center wanted to share it with the broader community.
At the festival Zora Whitfield debuted her zine series exploring Black women’s lived experiences.
“I thought I’d just show people my zines,” Whitfield said. “But now, seeing people touched by my work and trading zines with others, I feel like I’m organically learning more about zine culture.”
Candle-maker Elishes Cavness found that he was doing a lot of listening at the festival, because candles often bring back memories that people like to share.
“We laugh, chat, and just have a good time,” Cavness said. “It’s about more than just selling.”
First-time participants like jewelry maker Tara Packard saw the festival as a way to meet people and grow business. “Meeting my fellow craftsmen is very exciting to me,” said Packard, who moved from San Francisco to Richmond four years ago. She credits the Richmond Art Center with helping her connect to the local arts scene.
The annual Holiday Arts Festival will return to the Richmond Art Center for its 62nd year on Sunday, with over 50 local arts and crafts vendors, live music, food, and art activities to create your own holiday gifts.
Everything from ceramics to knitwear will be showcased by artists from across the Bay Area, including many from Richmond. This year, the festival will include the Zine Zone for the first time, spotlighting independent zines, comics and prints. Amy Spencer, community engagement director at Richmond Art Center said that the Zine Zone was introduced after art instructor Shani R. Ealey ran a zine-making class at the center last summer.
“The work made in the class was really powerful and we wanted to find a way to share it with the broader community at a public event,” Spencer said.
The Zine Zone will provide the public with a different way to engage with art, one that revolves around something other than shopping.
“The Zine Zone will highlight non-commercial art and art as a vehicle for activism, at this event,” Spencer said.
Holiday Arts Festival
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave. in Richmond
What: More than 50 artists and crafters, about 20 zinesters, ceramic studio sale, music, food, drinks, art activities.
Oakland-based indie comic producer and former Richmond resident Avy Jetter is excited to display her work in the Zine Zone. Jetter, whose art prioritizes marginalized voices, hopes the Zine Zone will help diversify the festival.
“It’s super important to hold space for people who don’t necessarily get the shine or attention that they deserve,” Jetter said.
Among the independent artists, local nonprofits such as The Latina Center and Urban Tilth also will have tables at the festival. One of the nonprofits with the longest-standing relationships with Richmond Art Center is NIAD, a progressive art studio that serves adults with developmental disabilities, providing them with a space to make art that is then featured in exhibitions. NIAD has been present at the Holiday Arts Festival for over 10 years.
Ember Avalos, community programs director at NIAD, said the relationship has put the focus more on community building than art sales.
“People are interested in the stories of the artists and the story of how we fit into Richmond community and culture,” Avalos said.
About 1, 300 to 1,500 people are expected to attend the festival, which is free and runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“I think this event really puts Richmond on the map in the East Bay as a hub for art,” Spencer said, “allowing the artistic community to come together.”
(Top photo: The 2022 Holiday Arts Festival, by Sasha Schell)
Best Bets: 62nd Holiday Arts Festival In Richmond Highlights Free Art Fairs
By Bay City News Service | Dec 5, 2024
The notion of holiday shopping has been transmogrified over the years by forces and developments aimed at making it as easy and expedient as possible — Online shopping! Catalogs! Gift cards!
It’s reached the point where we expect that someday we’ll be able to send people their gifts telepathically (which, don’t get us wrong, we would totally do!) If it’s reached the point where you feel the celebratory fun of holiday shopping has been lost, head to Richmond Art Center this weekend for the venue’s 62nd annual Holiday Arts Festival, an event that celebrates the making of presents as much as giving them.
Among the attractions are a variety of arts and crafts activities as well as a special zone devoted to Bay Area zine-makers and their products, which includes opportunities to create your own zines. There will also be a wide variety of gifts and crafts for sale from more than 50 Bay Area artists, a ceramics studio sale, and plenty to eat and drink.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. More information is at richmondartcenter.org. The event is one of several art-centered holiday boutiques and events this weekend, most of which have free admission. These include the East Bay Print Sale Thursday through Sunday in Berkeley (www.eastbayprintsale.com); the Black Holiday Market, featuring works from African American-owned businesses on Saturday at San Francisco’s Ferry Building (downtownsf.org/do/pop-ups-on-the-plaza-black-holiday-market); the Makers Market on Haight Street on Saturday (thethirdplace.is/events/explore) and a pair of boutiques in Concord and Pleasanton this weekend hosted by KidFest (www.kidfestconcord.com). Happy shopping!
An opening reception for the trio of free-to-view exhibitions is set for Jan. 25 from 1-3 p.m. and gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The winter season will mark Art of the African Diaspora’s 28th year honoring the creative expressions of artists of African descent, according to the RAC. The center’s Main Gallery will feature the works of more than 150 local Black artists in what is touted as the Bay Area’s largest non-juried exhibition of its kind.
Nearby in the RAC’s West Gallery, artists Deborah Butler, Kim Champion and Carrie Lee McClish will be showcased, while the overall program also includes receptions, guest speaker events, open studios and satellite exhibitions Bay Area-wide. The RAC’s print catalog, coming out in January 2025, will offer a guide to the exhibition’s surrounding facets.
Richmond’s own Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert’s latest iteration of his Upcycled Garden, a project rooted in the pandemic, is coming to the RAC’s South Gallery. Repurposed materials—pizza boxes, COVID tests and shipping boxes among them—are applied to make “whimsical organic forms,” said the center. The forms have combined over time and to become a garden installation that’s a reflection on consumption and an otherworldly space that outshines its everyday origins.
Jennifer Linderman’s fall art classes at the RAC have set flight to a collection of work by her students in Across Land and Sea. The exhibition will feature mixed media and pastel works on paper by her students, as well as Linderman’s own works.
Find the Richmond Art Center at 2540 Barrett Ave. in Richmond. Learn more here.
Richmond-based artist Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert is fascinated by transition and transience. Both of these fascinations are expressed in his solo show, “Portal,” on view at San Francisco’s 111 Minna Gallery through December.
“If you look up at the stars, we are nothing. An atom on the back of nothing,” Seifert said in a phone interview. Paintings such as Collision, which depict asteroid-like rock formations floating in groupings, speak to his belief of the “beauty and wonderment” of our short time on Earth. In Organica, vividly colored mushrooms and flowers explode from an unknown source. In Anthro Study 1, a multifaceted being appears to reach for … a finger hold? The sun?
And although he spoke about turning 50, and thinking “Do I have 25 good summers left?” with characteristic whimsy, he also disparaged the concept of living every day as if it is one’s last, noting that someone who actually did that would be unbearable to everyone around them.
SOLO SHOW In Attaboy’s acrylic painting titled ‘Organica’ (left) vividly colored mushrooms and flowers explode from an unknown source; ‘Sigh’ consists of 100 silk-screened pieces that Siefert altered. (Photos courtesy of Daniel Attaboy Seifert/111 Minna Gallery)
Another image from the current show, Sigh, consists of 100 silk-screened pieces that Siefert has altered so that each one is different. The spherical character popped into his head one day, he said, and he has enjoyed replicating and re-visioning it.
Siefert’s section of the gallery also features painted cut-outs hanging from the ceiling, “asexually reproducing?” Seifert suggested, and inviting a feeling of “falling up into the sky.”
He spoke about his painting method, saying, “I draw with paint … I make paintings that are complete messes—and then the line comes in and saves the day.” He shares the idea of pop artists, such as Warhol, “looking at things that are really around us. Will we ever see a Campbell’s soup can the same way?”
Influences include Alexander Calder, Maurice Nobel, Eyvind Earle, Dr. Seuss and the futurist Syd Mead, renowned as the creator of “futurescapes” for films such as Blade Runner. A mentor once told Seifert, “If you’re not breathing correctly, you’re not ready.”
PORTAL AT MINNA Paintings such as ‘Collision,’ which depict asteroid-like rock formations floating in groupings, speak to Seifert’s belief of the ‘beauty and wonderment’ of our short time on Earth. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Attaboy Seifert/111 Minna Gallery)
Seifert is also known for inventing what is now a global event: Game of Shrooms Art N Seek. In June 2019, seeking a way to work through depression, he began hiding mushroom sculptures, inspired by ceramic mushrooms created by his grandmother, in public areas. Using social media, he challenged “hunters” to find and then keep them.
The game took off, especially during the pandemic, and mushrooms have been hidden and found as far afield as the South Pole. Atta’s partner, artist Annie Owens, helped devise some of the game’s “leave no trace” rules, including the admonition, “You don’t need to be destructive to be subversive.”
Seifert said, “It’s always different and fantastic. I’m just guiding it at this point.” He added that school groups and art supply stores now sponsor meet-ups before the event. The next “Game” is scheduled for June 14, 2025. He has also created “Shroombots,” articulated, poseable sculptures, viewable on yumfactory.com.
Even before Game of Shrooms, Seifert and Owens partnered on a project with worldwide impact: Hi-Fructose Magazine. In a previous interview by this writer for East Bay Magazine, Seifert said that the idea for Hi-Fructose “started as a dare while we were dating.” They knew starting a new print publication was risky, but couldn’t find coverage of the art they found provocative and inspiring.
So in 2005 Hi-Fructose launched, and has now become sought-after, with both American and European editions. In 2009, “New Contemporary Art” was added to the masthead as a sort of tongue-in-cheek definition of what the publication covers. “[It was] just redundant and absurd enough to make a perfect blanket term for what we like to cover,” said Seifert during the EBM interview.
The magazine remains print-only, and runs no advertorials. Galleries and museums carry it, and this year it was celebrated with a 10-year retrospective, “Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose,” which premiered at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Publisher Abrams Books described the hardcover book, Hi-Fructose: New Contemporary Fashion, published in 2019, as “a stunning visual exploration of the intersection between the worlds of wearable art and fashion.”
DYNAMIC DUO Atta’s partner, artist Annie Owens, is co-founder of Hi-Fructose Magazine and Game of Shrooms; her art, including ‘Nocturne’ (right) will soon be showcased at the Nielson Arts Gallery in Berkeley. (Left photo by Franklin Avery and Katy Castro; right image courtesy of Annie Owens)
Despite all this, Seifert said, up till now he has been puzzled by lack of recognition in his “backyard,” Richmond. But this will be remedied starting in January, when the latest version of his ever-evolving exhibit “Upcycled Garden,” first seen at Oakland’s UMA Gallery, will open at the Richmond Art Center. The RAC describes it as “a sculptural diary of consumption.” As his website says: “While beautiful and organic on the outside, when many of the sculptures are flipped over, you can see a visual diary of consumption (gluten-free pizza, Covid tests, light bulb and Amazon boxes, etc.) that is used to create them.”
A local exhibition, opening Feb. 1 at the Nielson Arts Gallery in Berkeley, will also showcase Owens’ elegant and often mysterious work. In an email, she said, “The new work [will] reflect my inner monologue around womanhood, and all the changes a female body undergoes (because yay menopause!). [The work will also reflect] accepting that I never quite fit with social standards as a ‘quiet’ person.”
She added, “and finally [the work reflects] ‘Where do I fit as a mixed-race person in a culture that is finally beginning to openly discuss race, privilege and prejudice.’”
Daniel ‘Attaboy’ Seifert exhibit, ‘Portal,’ showing through Dec. 31 at 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco. (With the ‘Here Comes the Howellman’ exhibit of Jay Howell’s work.) 415.974.1719. 111minnagallery.com
‘Upcycled Garden,’ showing Jan. 22-March 22, 2025 at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Opening reception Jan. 25 1-3pm. 510.620.6772. richmondartcenter.org‘Annie Owens: New Work,’ showing Feb. 1-28, 2025 at Nielsen Arts Gallery, 1545 Solano Ave., Berkeley. 510.525.8968. nielsenarts.com
TOP IMAGE: Daniel ‘Attaboy’ Seifert, co-founder of ‘Hi-Fructose’ magazine and the Game of Shrooms, exhibits his art at San Francisco’s 111 Minna Gallery through December. (Photo by Franklin Avery and Katy Castro.)
Art for a turbulent era: At a time when it’s hard not to focus on the tension, strife, controversy and bad mojo swirling around, here’s an exhibit illustrating how the key to serenity lies within each of us. “Sentinels & Saviors: Iconic Avatars,” on display at the Richmond Art Center, features work by Oakland-based artists Joell Jones and Kim Thoman, who encourage viewers to “pay closer attention to themselves, their thoughts and their feelings.” Jones, who works with a variety of media, shows paintings here. Her colorful, abstract and ethereal works of various sizes represent different facets of herself as she invites viewers to visit the “unknown world” in which her images take life. “I have painted a woman engaged in a struggle for transformation and my paintings portray her as a fluid, shape-shifting creature adrift in liminal environments,” Jones says. Thoman’s large, steel figures, in a sense, stand guard over Jones’ works, each with an oil painting on canvas at its center. She compares her works to Chinese Terracotta Warriors designed to offer protection in the afterlife. “When I was recovering from a serious illness, I decided I’d like an army of bodyguards for protection in this life,” she says. “Sentinels & Saviors” is on display through Nov. 21 at the Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., in Richmond’s Civic Center Plaza. The Center is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. On tap this Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. is “Make Your Own Avitar at Fall Family Day” led by Jones and Thoman. Admission is free. More information is at richmondartcenter.org.
Richmond Art Center preps for ‘Día de los Muertos: Fall Family Day’
By Kathy Chouteau | October 15, 2024
The Richmond Art Center (RAC) is diving in to the spirit of the season with a free-admission “Día de los Muertos: Fall Family Day” Saturday, Oct. 19 from 12-3 p.m.
The center’s courtyard will come alive with art activities, music and a live performance by Danza Azteca Teokalli, which is presented in partnership with Arts Contra Costa County (ARTSCCC).
Activities offered up that day by the RAC will span the gamut from a Community Mural with Luis García (@luismayanx) to Repujado with Rachel-Anne Palacios (@devikaspalacio) to DIY Smudging with Vane Hernandez to Make Your Own Avatar with Joell Jones and Kim Thoman and Día de los Muertos Coloring Pages. DJ José Ruíz (@mundomuzik) will spin the tunes. The RAC’s galleries will also be open for viewing and a Gallery Search and Find activity.
Volunteers are still needed to help out with the event. Interested parties can learn more and sign-up here.
The RAC is located at 2540 Barrett Ave. in Richmond; RSVPs for the event are not necessary.
It was opening night. The air was buzzing with excitement. As Kim Thoman and Joell Jones scanned the room, they took a moment to take in their success. What they saw was not just a populated art gallery, but a room full of family, friends, art lovers and Richmond residents who were eager to celebrate their artistry and creative journeys.
In early September, the Richmond Art Centerunveiled ”Sentinels and Saviors: Iconic Avatars,” an exhibition featuring the work of Thoman and Jones, two East-Bay artists and longtime friends. At 1 p.m on Saturday, the artists will be on hand to give walk-through tours of the exhibit.
On opening night, people admire artist Kim Thoman’s work. (All photos courtesy Richmond Art Center)
Having both migrated to the East Bay in their youth, Jones and Thoman have seen the area and its art scene through many seasons. Like many other creatives, they often draw inspiration for their artwork from their personal philosophies, experiences and day-to-day lives. Thoman, for example, drew from memories of a grueling battle she fought against uterine cancer almost 10 years ago.
“It was very scary,” Thoman said. “The way I handled it was that I didn’t cry for myself. I never once cried for myself until it was over, and I was cancer free. And then I had some really good, serious cries with my husband.”
Thoman’s abstract, mixed-metal figures have a steel frame with a hollow opening in which fit an oil-painted canvas. These structures are meant to resemble Chinese terracotta warriors. During her treatment, Thoman recalled the terracotta warriors that would be buried with Chinese emperors to protect them in the afterlife.
“What the heck,” she thought. “I’d like a bodyguard or guardians in this life. And so I made these sentinels/bodyguards.”
“Saviors & Sentinels: Iconic Avatars”
Artists: Joell Jones and Kim Thoman
Where: Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave.
When: Through Nov. 21
Cost: Free
What else: Walk-through tours with the artists at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5
Jones, who has always had a keen interest in spirituality and symbology, drew inspiration from a winged symbol that came to her repeatedly while she was mediating in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, one that she dubbed “Savior.” Throughout her paintings, each variation of this winged creaturerepresents a different aspect of her identity, and the evolution of these figures depict the struggle that women face in society. At the core of her work is a desire for freedom.
“I’m putting out this message that if we want to get freer, then we need to engage with ourselves,” Jones said. “You know, explore, go deeper.”
Although there are similarities between the two portions of the exhibit, Amy Spencer, the Art Center’s community engagement director, appreciates how they differ.
Joell Jones’ work lines a wall at the Richmond Art Center.
“You see the way the show is installed, it’s literally a face-off,” Spencer said. “You’ve got Kim on one side of the gallery and Joell on the other. And the work, while there are elements to the pieces that are similar, as a whole, it’s this huge contrast. These big, heavy, sort of almost intimidating war sculptures on one side by Kim, versus on the other side, Joell’s work is just so light and lyrical.”
The exhibit, in the Richmond Art Center’s South Gallery, is free and open to the public from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, until Nov. 21.
Richmond Art Center Wins GOLD for ‘Best Art Gallery’ in 2024 East Bay Express Reader’s Picks
Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We’re honored to receive this award and excited to share the spotlight with our neighbor, NIAD Art Center (Silver). The arts in Richmond are truly thriving!
New art exhibits get a boost from wrestlers Sept. 20
A group of wrestling celebrities will help promote some new exhibits at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave.
On Fri., Sept. 20, members of the Oasis Pro Lucha Libre Wrestlers will be at a Sunset Social sponsored by the art center.
The free event is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the art center. It will also feature photographs of the wrestlers taken by Anthony Delgado as well as custom cocktails from The Factory Bar and music from DJ Graham LP.
The new works will be on display until Nov. 21. The art center galleries are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.
Coastal Cleanup Day is Sept. 21
You can help beautify the Richmond shoreline at an event next weekend.
The local group will meet at Shimada Friendship Park, 79 Harbor View Drive, at 9 a.m. They will pick up litter and other trash between 9 a.m. and noon.
Volunteers are advised to wear a hat and sunscreen. They are also asked to bring a bucket, reusable gloves and a water bottle.
Artist Erin McCluskey will be doing her part. She will be picking up beach litter for material to incorporate into her mixed media work.
Top image: Members of the Oasis Pro Lucha Libre Wrestlers group will be at the Richmond Art Center on Sept. 20. Credit: Anthony Delgado
