As the Richmond Art Center celebrated its 80th Anniversary year, it prepared a major exhibition in tribute to its history and its mission. The exhibition, Making Our Mark, looked to artists who have had a history with the Art Center: artists who have exhibited, supported, and enriched the programs over the years. In selecting these artists, we reflected on the scope of interest—media as richly varied as painting, ceramics, fiber, sculpture, and photography—and themes as diverse as the cultural backgrounds at the foundation of the community.
We also asked each of the invited artists to put forward a younger artist: someone whom they have taught or mentored or whose work they have felt should be shown and promoted. This, too, is in line with our history and our mission—giving voice to new artists and opening the galleries to new visions. Some of the invited artists, including Jim Melchert, Hung Liu, Squeak Carnwath, and Lia Cook, had their very first exhibitions at the Richmond Art Center and have over the years served as the core of the Bay Area art community, teaching, mentoring, and lighting a path for younger artists. And for some of the younger artists, this exhibition presents one of the first major showings of their work. Turning our attention to materiality, the environment, systems of power and inequality, these artists have followed different modes of expression with a common passion for their art.
As the Richmond Art Center celebrated its 80th Anniversary year, it prepared a major exhibition in tribute to its history and its mission. The exhibition, Making Our Mark, looked to artists who have had a history with the Art Center: artists who have exhibited, supported, and enriched the programs over the years. In selecting these artists, we reflected on the scope of interest—media as richly varied as painting, ceramics, fiber, sculpture, and photography—and themes as diverse as the cultural backgrounds at the foundation of the community.
We also asked each of the invited artists to put forward a younger artist: someone whom they have taught or mentored or whose work they have felt should be shown and promoted. This, too, is in line with our history and our mission—giving voice to new artists and opening the galleries to new visions. Some of the invited artists, including Jim Melchert, Hung Liu, Squeak Carnwath, and Lia Cook, had their very first exhibitions at the Richmond Art Center and have over the years served as the core of the Bay Area art community, teaching, mentoring, and lighting a path for younger artists. And for some of the younger artists, this exhibition presents one of the first major showings of their work. Turning our attention to materiality, the environment, systems of power and inequality, these artists have followed different modes of expression with a common passion for their art.
Over the course of four decades, Mildred Howard has created rich and evocative work by taking common objects of daily life and infusing them with the spark of meaning to illuminate the underlying significance and historical weight of cultural form. In free-standing sculpture, in wall-mounted musings, in graphic explorations and in representations of shelter, Howard has developed a language to address racism, injustice, need and compassion.
Mildred Howard: Spirit and Matter showcased a selection of works that present some of the artist’s most iconic sculptures as well as graphic works never before exhibited. Long admired for her direct and forthright reflections on society, Howard will be exhibiting work which incorporates her own image, popular images and anonymous photography. Whether taking found objects for use in assemblage or layering complex collaged works on paper, Howard imbues her artwork with the spirit of personal and community history as she reveals the matter at hand in the materiality of the object. Guest curated by Jan Wurm.
You don’t need to be an artist to work with clay or fibers. All you need is the desire. And a little support from your friends doesn’t hurt. The Richmond Art Center provides artistically inclined residents with potter’s wheels, electric kilns and looms to transform their creativity into a variety of art forms.
Located near the town Civic Center, the Richmond Art Center has one of the last remaining public art programs in the Bay Area. It first opened its doors in 1936. Every week, experienced artists as well as novices from Richmond and surrounding cities, mostly retired, come together to create pottery, weave fiber sculpture, basketry and quilt, and braid wonderful, multi-hued rugs. Most of the activities and events are free, but some classes do require a fee.
These workshops also provide retired people an opportunity to get to know more people in the community. Workshop participants said they are able to make friendships with their classmates and share in the inspiration and joy that comes from making things together.
