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.
A record number of people have flocked to the Richmond Art Center to view an exhibition of works by world-renowned artist Richard Diebenkorn and supporting exhibitions which feature artists of the Bay Area Figurative movement. A closing party for the public will be held on Sunday, Nov. 16 from 3:00-5:00 p.m.
The closing party will honor the generous collectors and galleries that have loaned the works, many shown publicly for the first time, for Closely Considered – Diebenkorn in Berkeley.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the work of Richard Diebenkorn, one of the most influential painters of the last 50 years. He exhibited his work at the Art Center in the 1950s and held his first major exhibition of drawings here in 1968,” says Richard Ambrose, executive director for the Richmond Art Center.
We were thrilled to welcome our local news outlet, the Richmond Confidential, and its four reporters who documented the event with their cameras, video cameras and note pads! We’ve posted their story below, but you can read the original here.
By Fan Fei and Loi Almeron
Trick or treat? Halloween is here! Richmond Art Center is treating children to seasonal chills and thrills with its annual family art making event: Skeletonfest. This event was free and open to the public.
Three girls drew scary skulls on paper plates with colorful sugar paint. One girl couldn’t help taste her art work. No surprise. “It tastes like sugar,” she said.
Skeletonfest has been growing. Some 400 kids and adults came to the studio this year to take part in the drawing and painting, said Nicole Kite, education coordinator at Richmond Art Center.
“It is a great way to come and see the studios, meet our teachers, try a little bit art making,” Kite said.
Children and adults from around the East Bay had a grand time, decked out in scary costumes and bearing treats to share.
“We do a variety of things, like sugar skulls, decorate masks, do traditional paper cutting, Mexican flowers,” Kite said.“And this year we do these movable skeletons.”
More kids classes are coming up. A family event on how to use recycled materials to create art will be hosted in the same venue next spring, Kite said.
The Art of Living Black is seeking Bay Area artists of African American descent to participate in the 19th Annual The Art of Living Black exhibition to be held at the Richmond Art Center from January 10 – February 27, 2015. This non-juried exhibition is open to Bay Area artists of African American descent.
Deadlines Entry Application Deadline: Saturday, Dec 13, 2014 Artwork Drop Off: Friday, Dec 19 – Saturday, Dec 20, 2014 from 10 am – 4 pm
Great article in the NY Times that talks about the huge benefits of using art as a teaching tool.
We firmly believe that STEAM (science, technology, engineering, ART, match) and arts integration are crucial in K-12 education. Using art as a tool to teach students about the STEM subjects, ensures that creativity doesn’t fall by the wayside and is an important part of our Art in the Community programs.
When a child learns to think like an artist, she can apply that thinking to any career she pursues, which is why our efforts to bring this innovative initiative – STEAM – to Richmond children is so important. We’re helping our city’s next generation how to think creatively, to be innovative and preparing them for any career they choose.
By Henry Fountain
Engineering and art were not always completely separate disciplines. Take Leonardo da Vinci, who seamlessly combined the two.
“Five hundred years ago, you couldn’t really tell the difference between artists and engineers,” said James Michael Leake, director of engineering graphics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. But education has become balkanized and the field of engineering, in particular, more specialized, complex and math- and computer-oriented. Today’s engineering majors have little room for other pursuits.
The cover of November’s “The Monthly” showcases Maya, 2011, a woodcut by Juan R. Fuentes. His work features prominently in our exhibition Social Discourses: In Print along with the printmaking practices and private collections of Bay Area artists Art Hazelwood, Jos Sances and Jim Nikas. The exhibition addresses links between the practices and how printmaking has been used to create political solidarity, accessible political messages, and social change.
Juan R. Fuentes is a cultural activist, artist, and printmaker who has dedicated his art to supporting and being part of a global movement for social change. His work addresses issues relating to local communities of color, social justice, and international struggles for liberation. His early poster art is now part of the Chicano Poster Movement. In 2007, he created Pajaro Editions, a printmaking studio that is part of Consejo Grafico, a national collective of Chicano/Latino printmakers that promotes printmaking traditions and works to sustain existing Chicano/Latino Talleres nationally.
More than 300 people from all across Richmond and the East Bay, including superheroes, witches, princesses and bumblebees, came to make art and celebrate the multicultural traditions of Halloween and Day of the Dead at Skeletonfest on Saturday, Oct 25, 2014.
The Richmond Art Center first hosted Skeletonfest in 2009 and it’s been a wildly popular annual event ever since. And this year was no different.
Kids, parents, grandparents and community members sat side-by-side and spent a fun afternoon coloring and constructing paper masks, learning about Mexican paper cutting and making cool paper creations, designing movable skeletons and decorating sugar skulls with colored frostings and adornments (a crowd favorite)!
Sue Collins Art in the Community Program
Volunteer since 2013
What do you like most about Richmond Art Center?
“The people. I just love the Education Department. I attended the Upcycle event last year and was just so impressed by how friendly everyone is and how thoughtful they are about the types of activities they set up for the kids to do. I really look forward to the events here.”
Sue Collins found the Richmond Art Center by chance. A former Bay Area resident, Sue eventually moved to Massachusetts where she raised a family and maintained careers as a teacher and graphic designer. Recently, Sue and her husband decided to move back to the East Bay. Once settled, she attended a class at Richmond Art Center taught by Alan Tarbell that “really got me motivated again on my own path as an artist.”
Chris Finch didn’t expect to become an expert jeweler when she first entered the Richmond Art Center. Finch, a local painter, just had a simple repair to make to a single bracelet, and so she signed up for a metal working jewelry class. Without knowing it, Finch was following the intended path for everyone who enters the RAC. Several jewelry and enameling classes later, Finch has joined the canon of hundreds of local artists who have passed through the RAC since its doors first opened 78 years ago. In the hopes of inspiring artistry among the everyday, the RAC has worked to give everyone — no matter their background or artistic ability — a chance at creative self-expression.
Back in 1936, before the Richmond Art Center had a building to call home, Hazel Salmi, the Center’s founder, lugged her briefcase of art supplies around the city. Salmi was often seen painting with kids on the side of the road, or giving impromptu drawing lessons around the city. For the first 15 years of the Center’s life, her arts initiative operated as such.
Dewitt Cheng from The Monthly stopped by our galleries to review our fall exhibitions. You can see the original review here and we’ve posted it below:
by Dewitt Cheng
With SFMOMA closed for construction and the Berkeley Art Museum about to close and move to new digs, what’s an art-lover to do for visual sustenance? The Richmond Art Center has been on a programming roll recently, notably with sculpture, and four shows that started on September 14 promise to keep up the momentum.
Three of the shows examine Bay Area Figuration, one of our region’s main claims to art-world fame. Closely Considered — Diebenkorn in Berkeley follows up on the recent major show by the California painter at the deYoung Museum, with smaller shows at the College of Marin and San Jose State University. This show, curated by Berkeley painter Jan Wurm, focuses on works on paper from Diebenkorn’s Berkeley years, 1953-1966, some never exhibited before, along with works by contemporary Bay Area Figurationists Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Frank Lobdell, Nathan Oliveira, David Park, and James Weeks. Several related events are scheduled.
