“Thirty-three years ago, I was hired to teach the children’s Saturday classes at the Richmond Art Center because the current teacher was moving to Bali. I was very happy to get the job (but so wished I could visit Bali, too)!
After 33 years, here I am… teaching the children of many of my former students.
May the great Richmond Art Center go on forever.”
The Richmond Art Center is fortunate to have gifted, dedicated, and experienced teaching artists like Lisa DiPrima, who work with our youngest students who come through our Art in the Community and Studio Education programs each year.
Your commitment to supporting our ongoing efforts to bring art to thousands of people each year through our education programs is incredibly valued. Please help us end our fiscal year with a splash, by making a donation to the Art Center today.
On June 9, the Mathieu Court Alley Play Street Dedication project ribbon-cutting took place, honoring and celebrating the collaboration between the City of Richmond, Richmond Art Center’s Art in the Community program, The Trust for Public Land, Pogo Park and the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council.
The Play Street, a 640-foot-long stretch of Mathieu Court Alley between Barrett and Ripley Avenues. was a grant recipient of Kaboom!, a nonprofit that works with communities to transform neighborhood spaces like laundromats, sidewalks or bus stops into “stimulating, creative outlets for play.” Richmond was one of 50 winners out of more than 1,000 applicants nationwide to win the grant, and Richmond Art Center was a proud partner in this community effort.
The local neighbors were a crucial part of helping to design the play street. We’re especially grateful to the students of Peres Elementary School, who were instrumental in creating the art and structures in the Play Street!
Jeremy is an event organizer disguised as an art curator. He holds a BA in Communications from Seattle University and a Master of Art Curating from the University of Sydney, Australia. Jeremy’s docent training in Seattle led him to pursue a career planning art exhibitions and tours for audiences including seniors, adults and youth groups. In addition, his event planning experience obtained working as a caterer, concierge, and leasing agent gave him the ability to manage volunteer operations and develop collaborative fundraisers for arts-based non-profits. Jeremy’s favorite art activities include collaging and making artwork from found objects.
What do you find most inspiring about the Richmond Art Center?
What inspires me most about Richmond Art Center is its history as a WPA project. Taking into consideration the vast community of local artists and highlighting their successes (globally and locally) marks the city of Richmond as a significant destination for the development of Bay Area artists. I find it inspiring that we are not a blockbuster institution. RAC is a people’s gallery.
Tell us about the Volunteer Program. What are the most important things we should know about it?
The Volunteer Program at the Richmond Art Center is a great way to get involved! Volunteers can apply their hours to discounts on art classes or develop skills and build their resumes. Most importantly, volunteering is a way to meet other community members and donate your time to a great local cause. It’s an opportunity to give back to your Bay Area community!
What is your vision for the Volunteer Program?
Volunteers at the Richmond Art Center can now sign-up online! My vision for volunteerism at the Richmond Art Center is to make getting involved easier using the new iVolunteer.com platform. Another significant objective I have as the Volunteer Coordinator is to help volunteers discover something they’re good at while volunteering. I want to enhance the experience of volunteering because I believe people are more productive when they feel like they’re making a difference.
Who are your inspirations?
I’m really inspired by artist groups & collectives, one in particular is a group of sound artists called Postcommodity called ‘Do You Remember When? – 2012’. I was inspired by their work at the 18th Biennale of Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
What’s on your bucket list?
I don’t have an actual bucket list – I am slightly superstitious and I love writing lists so the thought of getting satisfaction of crossing everything off that list feels a bit scary. I’m not a major thrill-seeker. As for things I have already crossed off, David Bowie would be most significant.
If you could meet one artist, living or not, who would it be and why?
Given the privilege to communicate with a legend (and the dead), I would say Keith Haring. Before Banksy, Haring reached many people without using technology to become well known.
What’s the best way for people to be in touch with you about volunteering, or to learn more?
The best way to reach me about volunteer opportunities at the Richmond Art Center is either by phone at 510.620.6778 or by email at jeremy@richmondartcenter.org. Another way to browse current volunteer opportunities at the Richmond Art Center would be to visit: http://richmondartcenter.ivolunteer.com/
Richmond Art Center Members’ Annual Meeting, Board Election, and Reception
Saturday, June 10, 2017, 3:00 to 4:45 pm
The Richmond Art Center’s annual members’ meeting and reception will be held at the Art Center beginning at 3:00 p.m. The purpose of the meeting is to hold the election for the fiscal year 2017 – 2018 Art Center Board of Directors. During the reception, Ric Ambrose will lead a preview tour of the Annual Members’ Exhibition.
Ballots will be available at the front desk during the reception and must be submitted between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. back to the front desk of the Art Center. All members are eligible to vote. At least twenty (20) members must vote for the election to be valid.
Board President Inez Brooks-Myers will conduct the meeting, opening at 4:00 p.m. Executive Director Ric Ambrose and staff will provide up-dates on the Art Center’s accomplishments of the past year, and plans for the next year. The meeting will be followed by the public opening reception for the Summer Exhibitions at 5:00 p.m.
It’s that time of year again… Parent’s Press is holding their annual vote for the Best Of in children’s classes and camps. We’d love your help to get gold stars for 2017!
Last year we were thrilled to receive the gold in the categories for classes and camps. This year, you can vote for the Richmond Art Center in the following areas.
The exhibition Mapping the Uncharted (March 21 – May 20, 2017) interpreted the art and uses of mapmaking. The five artists in the exhibition—Guillermo Galindo, Mark Garrett, Indira Martina Morre, Lordy Rodriguez, and Diane Rosenblum—used physical maps as a point of departure for reconfiguring impressions of geography, politics, and visual language.
Our Spring Exhibition, Mapping the Uncharted, was recently the subject of an essay by Bay Area curator and professor John Zarobell. Excerpted from his essay, “Seeing Power Through the Map,” in this month’s edition of Art Practical:
The impulse of showing the state of the world through visual means is what maps accomplish even as the world we inhabit becomes ever-more virtual, and the tentacles of power increasingly opaque. Once a document of conquest, the map recreates the spaces that the mind traverses and occupies, creating networks for later exploration. As a means of representation, maps are reimagined and critiqued by artists in these two exhibitions and the underlying authority of maps is renegotiated. Viewers must make sense of each of these artistic maps and, in so doing, find their way in the world. Everyone is subject to power, but these maps help one to see through it.
John Zarobell is Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Director of International Studies at the University of San Francisco. Formerly, he held the positions of assistant curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and associate curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Art Quarterly (SFAQ) and the online journal Art Practical, has written for numerous exhibition catalogues and has published in Art History, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, and the Berkeley Review of Latin-American Studies. His first book, Empire of Landscape, was published in 2010 and his next, Art and the Global Economy, will be published by University of California Press in April 2017.
The exhibition Marking Space (March 21 – May 20, 2017) included seven sculpture and installation artists who moved off the historical pedestal to establish measured distance, to examine the nature of material, and to expose structure. In diverse materials, Mari Andrews, Robert Brady, Genevieve Hastings, Jann Nunn, Gay Outlaw, Lucy Puls, and Tracey Snelling deployed matter to mirror habitat and architecture, to explore aggregation, to reflect on social structures, and to give voice to a common impulse to locate myriad humanistic concerns in space.
Jeremy is an event organizer disguised as an art curator. He holds a BA in Communications from Seattle University and a Master of Art Curating from the University of Sydney, Australia. Jeremy’s docent training in Seattle led him to pursue a career planning art exhibitions and tours for audiences including seniors, adults and youth groups. In addition, his event planning experience obtained working as a caterer, concierge, and leasing agent gave him the ability to manage volunteer operations and develop collaborative fundraisers for arts-based non-profits. Jeremy’s favorite art activities include collaging and making artwork from found objects.
