ISSUE 26 Abstraction as Land Care | RAC News | Special Event this Thursday | Last Call | Drawing: The Grounding
Abstraction as Land Care
This Land Is Me
New Online Exhibition: July 28 – September 7, 2021
This exhibition highlights the work of three artists – Saif Senussi Azzuz, Kim Champion, and Emily Van Engel – who use abstraction to express ideas related to land care. Employing approaches that range from personal to cultural to imagined, selected works show how abstraction can be a powerful tool for exploring how we can situate ourselves within the land; a vital first step towards restoring and protecting it.
Top Images (l-r): Details for work by Saif Senussi Azzuz, Emily Van Engel, and Kim Champion
Roberto Martinez is a curator and cultural organizer with over a decade of experience developing community-centered exhibitions and programs. At Richmond Art Center he is committed to organizing from the bottom-up and to nurturing collaboration with local communities, in order to co-create exhibitions that are relevant and uplift the voices and experiences of the Richmond community.
Thursday, September 9 is the day our galleries reopen. In-person classes will start rolling out the following week. Stay tuned as we’ll announce our fall exhibition schedule and class schedule later this month!!
*Subject to Covid-19 rates of infection and local health and safety guidelines.
Online Artists’ Talk: Thursday, August 5, 7-8pm PST
Join us this Thursday, August 5 at 7pm as photographer Robin D. López (Shots from Richmond) speaks with three artists about their recent mural projects in Richmond: Deonta Allen, Rebeca Garcia-González, and David Solnit.
Image: Climate Strike Mural. Richmond, CA, 2021. Lead Artist: David Solnit. Photo by Shots from Richmond
Top and bottom banner images: Details of Kim Champion’s drawing Pink eye purple hull peas (2020). This work is part of the new online exhibition This Land Is Me.
Have something to share? Please email us at admin@nullrichmondartcenter.org
Richmond Art Center is thrilled to announce Roberto Martinez as the organization’s new Curator!
About RobertoMartinez: Roberto Martinez is a curator and cultural organizer with over a decade of experience developing community-centered exhibitions and programs. His work weaves together the colorful strands of imagined possibilities that stem from the Arts with the powerful threads of stories, shared experiences and ancestral memory. Roberto believes that Art is critical and necessary to imagine a better world, a world that is more just, more kind, and more empathetic, therefore Art needs to be accessible to all. So, his commitment is to organize from the bottom-up and to nurture collaboration with local communities, in order to co-create exhibitions that are relevant and uplift the voices and experiences of the Richmond community. Roberto holds a Masters in Museum Studies from JFK University and has worked with community-centered institutions like the Museum of Social Justice, the East Side Arts Alliance, and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
FALL 2021 GALLERY AND FRONT DESK HOURS: (starting 9/9/21):
Thursdays 10am-2pm Saturdays 10am-2pm
Closed Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and major holidays. We are working hard to expand these hours subject to staffing and Covid-19 health and safety guidelines.
FALL 2021 STUDIO HOURS:
Online and in-person classes are happening during weekday, weekend and evening hours. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, studios will be open for in-person classes at a limited capacity. Fall class schedule to be announced soon.
Richmond, CA: Richmond Art Center presents a new online exhibition This Land Is Me, presented in conjunction with EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention. The exhibition will run July 28 through September 7 and feature work by three Bay Area artists Saif Senussi Azzuz, Kim Champion, and Emily Van Engel.
This Land Is Me highlights artwork that uses abstraction to express ideas related to land care. Saif Senussi Azzuz is a Libyan-Yurok artist whose paintings explore the interconnected and dynamic practices of Indigenous land management. Kim Champion’s detailed drawings are a visual tribute to the connection she shares with her father and the importance of her family’s land in Mississippi. In her new series of paintings, Emily Van Engel searches for a future without crisis through assigning positive meanings to colors.
Employing approaches that range from personal to cultural to imagined, the artists in This Land Is Me show how abstraction is a powerful tool for exploring how we can situate ourselves within the land; a vital first step towards restoring and protecting it.
Top image (l-r): Details for work by Saif Senussi Azzuz, Emily Van Engel, and Kim Champion
About EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss: The Extraction Project is a global coalition of artists and creators committed to exposing and interrogating the negative social and environmental consequences of industrialized natural resource extraction. The project consists of nearly fifty overlapping exhibitions, performances, installations, site-specific work, land art, street art, publications, poetry readings, and cross-media events throughout 2021. www.extractionart.org
About Richmond Art Center: Richmond Art Center has been sharing art and creating with the community since 1936. Our programs encompass classes, exhibitions and events at our facility in downtown Richmond, as well as off-site activities that bring free, high-quality art making experiences to WCCUSD schools and community partners. richmondartcenter.org
ISSUE 25 Mural Art as Resistance | Online Classes and Reopening Survey | Announcing… The Student Show! Classes Starting Soon | Support Funding for the Arts in CC County
Mural Art As Resistance
#RichmondSpeaks
Online Artist Talk: Thursday, August 5, 7-8pm PST
Special Event Announcement Join us Thursday, August 5 at 7pm as photographer Robin D. López (Shots from Richmond) will speak with three artists about their recent mural projects in Richmond: Deonta Allen, Rebeca Garcia-González, and David Solnit.
Online Classes and Reopening Survey (win a free class!)
With the reopening of Richmond Art Center in sight, we want to take a moment to reflect on and celebrate the achievements of our students online over the past year.
Students who complete the survey are eligible to win a free class!
Let’s see our collective creativity over the pandemic!
Deadline to Enter: Sunday, August 8, 11:59PM Online Exhibition Dates: August 23 – November 19, 2021 In-Person Exhibition Dates: September 8 – November 19, 2021
All students who have taken an class or workshop at Richmond Art Center in the past year are invited to enter!
Image: Drawings by student Melody Rose Serra made in Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh’s ‘Visual Journaling’ class
In this online camp students will be making stretchy, gooey, colorful, irresistible SLIME! Enjoy making fluffy cloud slime, milk and cereal slime and more.
In this two-part workshop, students will learn how to create simple paper templates and profiles with which to construct larger symmetrical forms like vase.
Adult Workshop (Ages 16+) Saturdays, 10am-12pm Aug 21 – Aug 28
More info…
Support Funding for the Arts in Contra Costa County!
Support secure arts funding at the Measure X meeting!
Measure X is Contra Costa’s new countywide half-cent sales tax. The Measure X Community Advisory Board was formed to identify unmet community needs and recommend spending priorities to the county Board of Supervisors. On Wednesday, July 28 at 5pm the Arts Commission will be presenting to the Advisory Board to request $625,000 ($.54 per resident!) to support art programs and a community art fund.
Let’s see our collective creativity over the pandemic!
Deadline to Enter: Sunday, August 8, 11:59PM
Non-Juried Online Exhibition Dates: August 23 – November 19, 2021
Juried In-Person Exhibition Dates: September 9 – November 19, 2021*
About the Exhibition: The Student Exhibition is a two part exhibition. 1.) All work entered will be exhibited in a non-juried Online Exhibition on RAC’s website. 2.) Selected artists in the online show will also be invited to exhibit their work in an in-person exhibition in RAC’s remodeled Community Gallery.
Eligibility: All students who have taken an online class or workshop at Richmond Art Center in the past year are eligible to enter. Entries may include work done in a RAC class, or work completed over a period of time for a RAC class. Students may enter up to three images (of different work) into the exhibition (just complete this form three times to do this!).
By uploading your artwork image here you are agreeing to the following exhibition terms:
The Online Exhibition is a listing webpage only. RAC will refer any sales inquiries directly to the Artist.
The Artist grants the right to RAC to use the submitted images for publicity and educational activities related to the Online Exhibition. RAC will use reasonable efforts to credit the Artist.
*In-person exhibition dates are subject to change based RAC’s reopening and Covid-19 health and safety guidelines.
2020-2021 Student Exhibition Registration Form
Top images: These beautiful drawings are by beginner students in Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez’s online Fundamental Drawing class. Work by Jeanette, Judith, Lorna, and Susana
With the reopening of Richmond Art Center in sight, we want to take a moment to reflect on and celebrate the achievements of our students online over the past year.
Online Classes and Reopening Survey (win a free class!)
If you’ve taken an class or workshop over the past year we want to hear from you! We also want to know how students feel about RAC’s facility reopening to the public. Please be as candid in your feedback as you like. This survey may be completed anonymously. (But you’ll need to leave your email address if you would like to go into the draw to win a free class.)
We’re honoring the achievements of our students over this past year with an exhibition showcase! This online and in-person exhibition will feature work made in our online classes by students of all ages and all experience levels.
ISSUE 24 **EVERYTHING RICHMOND SPECIAL EDITION** A Showcase of Richmond Art | Richmond Artists Speak | Summer Mural Class for Richmond Youth Summer Photography Class for Richmond Youth | Seeking Past Students of Robert Benin
A Showcase of Richmond Art
Spoken Word. Dance. Music. Art. Movement.
Online Event: Friday, June 25, 3:30pm-5pm PST
In collaboration Richmond organizations NIAD, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Richmond Art Center, and RYSE bring you Out of the Mouths of Beings, hosted by Richmond’s own Youth Poet Laureate, Sheila McKinney!
Kick off summer right and enjoy the abundance of creativity Richmond has to offer!
End in Sight Three Artists’ Bittersweet Journey Through a Pandemic
Online Artists’ Talk: Thursday, June 24, 7-8pm PST
Three artists – Elishes Cavness, Tiffany Conway and Marva – will discuss their journey through the Covid-19 pandemic in a special online artists talk on Thursday, June 24, 7pm to 8pm. These three Richmond artists have studios very close to each other, and over the past eighteen months have developed a special bond. As Cavness says, “We are a unique three. We’ve supported each other. We’ve been in contact. We created a community of three.”
In-Person Mural Class for Richmond Youth Class starts Tuesday, July 6
Learn how public art is a powerful tool for community building while creating a mural at Richmond Art Center this summer with artist Fred Alvarado. Students will learn basic color theory, composition, and painting methods.
This class welcomes Spanish speakers and is an inclusive bilingual space. El Artista Maestro habla Español.
Online Photography Class for High School Youth in Richmond Class starts Wednesday, July 21
Would you like to be paid to develop your photography skills this summer? Richmond Art Center is working with esteemed artist Simone Bailey to offer an online summer photography intensive for high school students in Richmond. Students in the class will receive a DSLR Camera (Canon EOS Rebel T7), stipend for their time, prints of work developed in class, and opportunity to exhibit photos in an exhibition at Richmond Art Center. Apply today, space is limited!
Image: Photograph by a student in a RAC photography class from the 1970s. See the bottom of this newsletter for more information.
Did you take an afterschool photography class at RAC in the 1970s?
We would love to hear from you! Contact Amy Spencer amy@nulltherac.org, 510.620.6772
We recently discovered a trove of black and white photographs taken by youth at Richmond Art Center and Shields-Reid Community Center in the early 1970s. These works were created in an after school class taught by Richmond photographer Robert Benin. We’ll be sharing these more of these photos online and around the community this summer as we try to identify the photographers and their models.
