KTVU Fox 2 visits Sentinels & Saviors
KTVU Fox 2 visits Sentinels & Saviors
Courtesy of KTVU Fox 2 television
Sentinels & Saviors is on view at Richmond Art Center from September 4 through November 21, 2024.
East Bay Times: Richmond Art Center has opened a new exhibit
East Bay Times
Snapp Shots: Richmond Art Center has opened a new exhibit
Cont.
Richmond: “Sentinels & Saviors: Iconic Avatars” is a new exhibition on display at the Richmond Art Center now through Nov. 21 (richmondartcenter.org/exhibitions/sentinels-saviors), featuring the work of Oakland artists Kim Thoman and Joell Jones.
They say their goal is to encourage viewers to pay closer attention to themselves, their thoughts and their feelings. Neither artist is engaged in psychoanalysis or art therapy, but both bodies of work can be seen as avatars allowing for inner work of the heart and mind — a common theme of the two artists.
Jones’ large grouping of small paintings, called “Saviors,” invites you to follow her imagery as she connects to her unconscious.
“Those early months of the (COVID-19 pandemic) lockdown were used for self-exploration,” she says. “Pretending to be on a Buddhist retreat — something I had always wanted to do but never seemed to find the time — I spent the days observing my thoughts.
“Gradually, I became aware of a hidden pattern of behavior, a pattern unconsciously hardwired since childhood.”
Thoman’s art works, called “Sentinels,” integrate steel sculptures with oil paintings. They evolved from her wanting what she calls “protection” when she was recovering from uterine cancer, and the works were conceived during her chemo treatments.
“It was while my body was being wasted (and also ‘cured’) by the chemo, I felt the need for help to maintain my energy, a positive mood, a willingness to keep moving — all I’m putting in the category of ‘protection,’ ” she says.
“I never felt the effects of the cancer but was shocked at the ‘scorched earth’ aspect of chemo. I knew, of course, that chemo wasn’t going to kill me, but honestly there were days I didn’t care.
“But I don’t mean to complain. I’m one of the lucky ones. I know many have it much worse, and I’m 10 years cancer-free. I hope my ‘Sentinels’ might shine a light on others who also struggle with medical issues and, sometimes, the effects of the ‘cure.’ ”
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.
Image: Kim Thoman’s “Sentinel No. 6” is one of the art works on display in “Sentinels & Saviors: Iconic Avatars,” a new exhibition at the Richmond Art Center.
The Richmond Standard: Richmond Art Center features pro wrestlers, upcycled art and more
The Richmond Standard
Richmond Art Center features pro wrestlers, upcycled art and more
By Kathy Chouteau
September exhibitions at the Richmond Art Center (RAC) will see artistic inspiration derived from a variety of extraordinary sources, including Oasis Pro Lucha Libre wrestlers and Coastal Cleanup Day.
An Opening Reception will kick off the month of exhibitions at the RAC this Saturday, Sept. 7 from 1-3 p.m. in an event that’s free to attend. The afternoon of art will include Right Here, Right Now, Richmond—showcasing the work of Anthony Delgado, Art Hazelwood, e bond, Erin McCluskey Wheeler, Helia Pouyanfar, Quinn Keck and Taro Hattori. The exhibition celebrates the visionary art and ideas of local artists in Richmond, according to the RAC. Also up for exploration will be Sentinels & Saviors, Abi Mustapha: Recent Work and The Art of Sumi-e. An RSVP is not necessary for the Opening Reception.
Next up, on Friday, Sept. 20 from 5-8 p.m. will be a rare chance to not only mingle with the aforementioned Right Here, Right Now, Richmond artists after dark, but also meet the Oasis Pro Lucha Libre wrestlers who are the photographic subjects of Anthony Delgado’s exhibition. Adding to the revelry will be a Richmond-themed art project led by artist Quinn Keck, cocktails from The Factory Bar, light bites from local food vendors and a soundtrack by DJ Graham LP. Admission is free and RSVPs aren’t needed.
Inspiration for art is everywhere, you just need to find it. Driving home this point will be artist Erin McCluskey Wheeler, who invites the community to join her at the “40th Annual Coastal Cleanup Day” Saturday, Sept. 21 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Shimada Friendship Park in Richmond to collect beach litter to use in her mixed media artwork. “Join Erin in finding artistic inspiration while contributing to the cleanup of Shimada Friendship Park’s shoreline,” said the RAC. Registration is required.
Ricmondside: What’s Up: Labor Day weekend
Weblink: https://richmondside.org/2024/08/29/richmond-ca-events-calendar-aug-29/
Richmondside
What’s Up: Labor Day weekend music, trivia night, miniature golf
Shows open at Richmond Art Center, weekly pub trivia nights, Latin America Independence parade.
by David Mills
Aug. 29, 2024, 6:00 a.m.
Hello Richmondside readers. Here are some highlights of things to do and know this coming week and beyond. Monday is Labor Day so you can expect city and other government offices and banks to be closed. If you’re looking for something for fun to do over the long weekend, head to Baltic Kiss in Point Richmond where you’ll find a five-day lineup of music and comedy. Later next week, you can view inspiring artwork, attend a neighborhood meeting or learn about fraud prevention.
For additional events, check our calendar and be sure to add your own listings as well.
Community-based exhibits open Sept. 4 at Richmond Art Center
Four new exhibits open Fri., Sept. 4 at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave.
The works will be on view from Sept. 4 to Nov. 21. The art center galleries are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. An opening reception will be held from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Thur., Sept. 7.
The “Right Here, Right Now” Richmond-inspired exhibit features artists Anthony Delgado, Art Hazelwood, e bond, Erin McCluskey Wheeler, Helia Pouyanfar, Quinn Keck and Taro Hattori.
Much of the artwork reflects the Richmond community and some of the issues it is facing such as trash along the shoreline and the experiences of refugees.
An exhibit of two artists’ works designed to help inspire as well as guide people through turbulent times also opens that day at the Richmond Art Center’s South Gallery.
The “Sentinels & Saviors: Iconic Avatars” exhibit showcases two Oakland artists, Joell Jones and Kim Thoman with a goal to “remind us to pay attention to our inner lives and those avatars or symbols of our own choosing that can be our signposts giving guidance and encouragement,” according to the art center.
Jones’ work captures her “adventure into her unconscious or inner self.” It is “made safe” by Thoman’s work that portrays “guardians standing strong.”
“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 said in a press release.
Thoman’s work was inspired by her recovery from cancer.
“I decided I’d like an army of bodyguards for protection in this life,” Thoman said.
Also opening are “Abi Mustapha: Recent Work,” by Sierra Leonean/American contemporary artist Abi Mustapha of Santa Cruz, and a student showcase of Japanese ink brush paintings from Fumiyo Yoshikawa’s beginner sumi-e class at Richmond Art Center. Sumi-e is a traditional East Asian painting technique that uses black ink (sumi) on paper.
Diablo Magazine: Top Tickets: Richmond Art Center’s Summer Exhibitions
Article weblink: https://www.diablomag.com/blog/top-tickets/top-tickets-july-25-31/article_127da2f8-493b-11ef-8ddb-d76343eddaa6.html
Diablo Magazine
Top Tickets: July 25-31
By Emilie White Jul 23, 2024
Visual Art
Richmond Art Center’s Summer Exhibitions
Through 8/17 This season, the Richmond Art Center is showcasing several exhibitions’ worth of artworks. The View From Here and Taking Liberties highlight pieces from incarcerated or formerly incarcerated creators, while the Richmond Open Studios Preview exhibition showcases the talent of the city’s own artists ahead of the event. richmondartcenter.org.
Richmond Confidential: ‘The View From Here’ art exhibit offers prisoners’ perspective of the world
Article weblink: https://richmondconfidential.org/2024/07/06/richmond-art-center-view-from-here-art-exhibit-offers-prisoners-perspective/
Richmond Confidential
‘The View From Here’ art exhibit offers prisoners’ perspective of the world
Choekyi Lhamo on July 6, 2024
Eduardo Ramirez, a Philadelphia-based mural artist, was incarcerated for 27 years in a Pennsylvania prison for a crime he did not commit. Since he was exonerated in November, Ramirez has found solace in making and teaching art in his community.
“When a person creates, there’s a sense of pride in the act of creating, regardless of what the final product looks like,” he said.
His art is on display through Aug. 17 at the Richmond Art Center in an exhibition called “The View From Here.” The exhibition features 24 incarcerated artists from the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Phoenix. It came together through letters exchanged between men at the two prisons about creating art and communicating their thoughts into something tangible. It is being presented by the San Quentin Prison Arts Project in collaboration with Mural Arts Philadelphia and also was on display in Philadelphia in March.
“They were creators,” Ramirez said of the people he worked with during his time in prison. “They were much larger than the worst mistake they ever made in their lives.”
What: “The View From Here” art exhibition
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday until Aug. 17
Where: Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave.
Cost: Free
Some of their letters are also on display at the exhibition, representing those who are unable to visit their own showcase. One letter reads, “I am in a beautiful art program here at San Quentin, I am in all the art classes hahaha. Remember that you have entered the realm of ‘timelessness’ with the art you’ve done.”
Carol Newborg, program manager at the San Quentin Arts Project, emphasized the artists’ absence in the exhibition space, saying the system imposes “cruelly long sentences” despite its contention of rehabilitation.
The collaborators wanted to make the artists’ presence felt, which includes their letters as well as songs that hold personal meaning for them.
“As you walk around and look at the art, you can hear the music that was selected by the artists,” said Amy Spencer, community engagement director at the Richmond Art Center. “You are seeing their work but you’re also hearing something that they helped shape as well.”
Ramirez is one of the few artists who is out of prison and the only one who will be able to attend the exhibition. He chose the track ‘Cha Cha Cha’ by MC Lyte released in the late ‘80s to go with his painting titled “Radiohead.”
The artists came up with the exhibit’s title, wanting to convey what prisoners think of the outside world and what the public thinks of prisons.
“A lot of people in society have their preconceived notions of what prison life is like. And that’s because they’ve never been to prison,” Ramirez said. “The reality is that a person’s life is multifaceted and multilayered, and ‘The View From Here’ gets at that.”
The exhibition creates a space for dialogue between the public and the incarcerated. Richmond Art Center is also organizing a panel discussion on July 13 with Ramirez and artist Mwasi Fuvi, whose work is not part of the exhibition, alongside facilitators of the two prison art projects, Newborg and Phoebe Bachman. It will be followed by a mural painting workshop with Ramirez, where the community is welcome to help complete a mural designed by artists from the Pennsylvania prison.
The event and exhibit are free to attend.
(Photos: “Fishing from a Hole in a Wall” by Keith Andrews; “Bridge to Freedom” by Jeffrey A. Isom, photographer Peter Merts. Courtesy of Richmond Art Center)
Richmondside: Richmond Open Studios: Art ‘crocheted’ from cassette tape, black-light reactive pieces
Article weblink: https://richmondside.org/2024/06/14/richmond-art-center-open-studios-summer-2024/
Richmondside
Richmond Open Studios: Art ‘crocheted’ from cassette tape, black-light reactive pieces
Nearly 50 artists participating in Richmond Art Center Open Studios; Preview Exhibition opens July 3.
By Janis Hashe
June 14, 2024, 7:19 a.m.
Don’t miss Richmond’s biggest stories. Sign up to get the Richmondside Report sent straight to your inbox every Thursday morning.
Art viewed with a black-light flashlight and a creative take on crocheting are among works on display starting next week when the Richmond Art Center opens its preview of pieces by artists participating in the Visual Artists of Richmond Open Studios event this summer.
The Open Studios Preview Exhibition, July 3-Aug. 17, showcases work by 42 of the 48 participating Open Studios artists. Visitors can use the preview to decide which studios they’d like to tour during the official event, Aug. 17-18. An opening reception will be held at the Richmond Art Center from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday.
North and East resident Sadiqeh Agah’s gouache and watercolor paintings/mixed media, including pieces depicting food from local restaurants and coffee houses, will be featured at RAC during the preview and at NIAD Gallery during Open Studios.
“We moved here in November 2020, and I’m delighted I’m still getting to know Richmond,” Agah said. “I feel so supported (as an artist) living here. It’s been very motivating.”
Sara Sunstein has worked in clay, collage, papier-mâché, and mixed media for decades. Some of her pieces, including “Bewildered Cleo,” will be on view Saturday Aug. 17 at RAC. The Richmond Annex resident also creates crocheted “tape boxes” from cassette tape. She credits RAC classes as a source of inspiration.
“I haven’t shown in forever,” she said.
Visual Artists of Richmond Open Studios Preview/Exhibition
WHAT: See works by artists who will open their studios to the public later this summer.
WHEN: Opening reception is 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave. Preview runs July 3-Aug. 17. Open studio tours are Aug. 17-18.
INFO: A map of Open Studio locations will be posted on the Richmond Art Center website and will be available at the opening reception.
Oil painter/sculptor/mixed-media artist Ozi Magaña moved to East Richmond Heights two-and-a-half years ago and will show one piece at RAC and open his home studio during the tour weekend. “From the Ashes” is one of his “black-light reactive” paintings, and the artist plans to supply a black-light flashlight, allowing viewers to experience it. He’s discovered an underground Richmond arts scene since moving to the city.
“There’s a warmth here…it’s like a mini-Bay Area in its diversity,” he said.
JANIS HASHE
Janis Hashe, a journalist for 30 years, writes about the arts.
What I cover: I cover performing and fine arts and other community news for Richmondside.
My background: I have been a professional journalist for 30 years and a freelancer since 2020. My work has appeared in Sunset Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic Journal Constitution, The Tennessean, Monocle, and the East Bay Express and East Bay Magazine.
East Bay Express: Home Is Where the Art Is
Article weblink: https://eastbayexpress.com/home-is-where-the-art-is/
East Bay Express
Home Is Where the Art Is
Exploring ‘home’ at Richmond Art Center
By Janis Hashe
Jun 4, 2024
The concept of “home” is baked into human DNA. “There’s no place like home,” says Dorothy as she clicks her heels to return to Kansas. But, wrote seminal American writer Thomas Wolfe, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”
Home can be a safe, comforting place—but for some, it’s a place of anger and insecurity, and for others, “the homeless,” it doesn’t exist at all.
All these ideas of home and more are explored in the exhibition at the Richmond Art Center through June 15. “Home Show” features the work of six RAC teaching artists—Eli Africa, Ned Axthelm, Colleen Garland, Julia LaChica, Travis Meinolf and Kristin Satzman—who work in many media, from printmaking to ceramics, to jewelry to video.
RAC Community Engagement Director Amy Spencer both envisioned the idea for “Home Show” and curated it. She did so with two goals, she said: To curate a theme that people have in common, and to highlight the work of the teaching artists at RAC. “Everyone was happy to participate. It’s always exciting to find a way to work differently with them,” she said.
Spencer noted that the pandemic elicited mixed feelings about home for many. While home was a safe space and a retreat from a frightening unknown, it also felt confining and isolating. “You can see that in [one of] Ned Axthem’s paintings, created during the pandemic,” she said. “It’s hyper-focused on this space … comfortable but confined.”
Julia LaChica’s pieces in “Home Show” address home as both a place to be venerated and as an ideal that isn’t realized for many. Her/their Home Altar (Ode to Monica) celebrates her/their Japanese/Filipino ancestry, with items collected over 20 years from those places, and also including an old clock assembly with a note honoring a housing activist friend who died.
LaChica, an Oakland resident, has been a teaching artist at RAC for a year, instructing classes in both screen and block printing. She/they has watched and spoken with gallery visitors while they look at Home Altar. “Someone said, ‘Standing in front of this is very calming,’” she/they said.
But LaChica’s three works in the exhibition deal with her/their own experiences as a child of divorce, moving from one home to another. Court Ordered depicts a family portrait layered over a court-ordered custody document. LaChica and her/their siblings were, for some time, bounced between her/their mother’s and father’s apartments, with neither feeling like a true home.
In another work, Home, some of the effects of this are seen. LaChica’s mother did not speak English well, and felt she had to leave her three young children home alone as she went out to work. LaChica’s five-year-old brother accidentally set the apartment on fire. At that point, “Child Protective Services stepped in, and we moved into public housing in [San Francisco’s] Chinatown,” she/they said.
Yet the third piece, Permanent Resident, is an homage to her/their mother, using her old Japanese passport, and reimagining her/their 4-foot-11-inch-tall mother as a samurai with a sword. Under “occupation” on the passport, LaChica wrote: “Badass hell-raiser.” Under “visual identification marks,” she/they inserted: “Back straight,” “Youthfully beautiful” and “Singing Japanese love songs.”
LaChica is inspired by the theme of home, and plans to continue creating a “broader exhibit [focusing on] the displacement of people. This project will affirm that all people deserve a place to rest. I want people to think about that,” she/they said.
Displacement is also addressed in Eli Africa’s animated video, The Story of Frai, a tribute to immigrant workers deciding to leave their home in the Philippines to make a better life for their children.
Richmond resident Colleen Garland has taught ceramics at RAC since 2019. With more than 10 pieces in “Home Show,” she considers her contributions to be, in part, a tribute to her own ceramics teacher at Contra Costa College, Mary Law. “I continue to fire with her,” she said.
The show’s theme literally hit home for Garland. “I make pots to be used,” she said. But some of her work in the show is sculptural, including a “chipmunk house,” complete with log and mushrooms, created at the request of a friend, and dioramas of interior scenes. In Soda Kiln (Pot House), “I replicated the inside of Mary Law’s kiln. It’s a home for pots,” she said.
One project she attempted to make specifically for “Home Show” proved unsuccessful. “We had a month’s turnaround to prepare for the show, and I tried to make a self-portrait,” she said. But she didn’t let the clay dry long enough—and it exploded in the kiln. She’s philosophical about it, noting that working with clay, glaze and heat is always full of variables, which is one of the reasons the work that survives and is beautiful should be valued.
Garland would like visitors to “Home Show” to feel “that each artist has brought in a piece of [their own] home.” She also urges viewers to imagine how pieces interact with each other, like her pots being used in Travis Meinolf’s Small Shelter.
“Look really closely [at the art],” she said. “How was it made? Travis’ woven house took hours of work.”
Amy Spencer discussed yet another aspect of the show: That it’s a home for the multiple teaching artists featured in it, as well as for the many students from all over the East Bay who take classes with them. RAC offers classes for adults, kids, youth and families, including some bilingual offerings.
Art Boost! scholarships are available for some who cannot afford class fees. This summer, adult classes run the gamut from “Urban Nature Journaling” to “Japanese Brush Painting and Calligraphy.” A summer art camp for kids, and free summer art classes for youth, are also offered.
“The Richmond Art Center has been here for more than 80 years, but there are still people who haven’t discovered us yet,” Spencer said.
“We are doing special things here,” Garland added.
Upcoming: “Richmond Open Studios Preview,” an exhibition showcasing art by artists participating in Richmond Open Studios; July 3–Aug. 17.
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Gallery hours: Wed-Sat, 10am to 4pm. 510.620.6772. richmondartcenter.org
Top image: Created During The Pandemic, Ned Axthelm’s ‘Whelmed’ (2020, Oil On Panel), Conveys The ‘Comfortable Yet Confined’ Feeling Of Home During That Time. (Photo Courtesy Of Richmond Art Center)
KQED Arts: Your Guide to This Summer’s Not-To-Miss Visual Art
Weblink: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13957410/visual-art-guide-summer-2024-galleries-museums
KQED Arts
Your Guide to This Summer’s Not-To-Miss Visual Art
By Sarah Hotchkiss | May 13, 2024
[Excerpt]
Every year, it’s a struggle to whittle this list down to a select few. There’s simply so much happening in art spaces across the Bay Area. For 2024, I’ve plotted out an ideal summer, full of inventive gallery shows, exciting museum exhibitions and local artists getting the attention they deserve, all in venues spread across the region.
…
‘The View from Here’
July 3–Aug. 17, 2024
Richmond Art Center
Over the past year, incarcerated artists at San Quentin and Philadelphia’s State Correctional Institution (SCI) Phoenix have exchanged letters — but not through ordinary means. Using their arts programs (the William James Foundation and Philadelphia Mural Arts) as intermediaries, letters were scanned, emailed and printed out to facilitate a creative exchange. The results in this group show includes both imagined and literal views (of daily prison life, of a landscape seen through bars), alongside some of those letters. Art can transport us to other places and into others’ experiences, the show argues, but that is true for both the makers and viewers of that work.
Richmond Standard: Richmond Art Center seeks applicants for artist residency, board
Richmond Art Center seeks applicants for artist residency, board
By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Art Center (RAC) is offering opportunities for a residency for one special artist and board positions for those wishing to support local art.
The Richmond Artist Residency enables an “emerging or mid-career artist to pursue their creative work, while also engaging with the community in Richmond,” according to the RAC. The center is additionally seeking community-minded folks who live or work in Richmond to serve three-year terms on its Board of Directors in support of its work.
Richmond Artist Residency
Applications for the artist residency are due by Friday, May 24. The residency runs from October 2024 to May 2025 and comes with an $8,000 stipend, 250 square foot dedicated studio for 8 months and opportunities to teach, exhibit, take classes and develop strategies for community-based arts programming. The selected artist will also receive competitive hourly rates for their teaching time.
Those who have a strong connection to Richmond and who are bilingual in English/Spanish or English/Mandarin are especially encouraged by the RAC to apply for the residency, as well as artists who are open to learning the best practices for community engagement. The center is being supported by the National Endowment for the Arts to make this opportunity possible. Learn more and apply here.
Board of Directors
A variety of volunteers are sought, including people who live/work in Richmond, are artists, love the RAC, have accounting/bookkeeping expertise, legal experience, are experienced fundraisers and other leaders who may want to become president/VP someday.
Board meetings are typically held on Zoom or in-person and its members help the RAC as ambassadors at evening and weekend events, by contributing their knowledge and expertise and supporting the center financially as is possible. Learn more here and reach out to jose@richmondartcenter.org to indicate your interest along with a brief bio, if possible.
