This year the Richmond Art Center turned 80 and we threw two big parties to celebrate! We’re looking forward to the next 80 years of sharing art, education and community with you.
Our Back to School Community Celebration was a family-friendly event, full of heart, art, and delicious food. All ages were welcome to share a meal with us at our new communal tables in the courtyard, and the first 80 guests received a special handmade ceramic bowl crafted by none other than our talented ceramics manager, Marisa Burman. Delicious rice bowls were cooked and served by RAC students and volunteers, and our bar was staffed by RAC staff. DJ Juice provided danceable music for hours and our teaching artists Michael Perkin and Joyce Shon showed people the ropes in how to screenprint their own limited edition tote bags (with hand-drawn art by our Studio Education Coordinator Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo).
Our 80th Anniversary Gala was a stylish, elegant event where guests mingled in the galleries, met some of the artists—including Hung Liu, Jim Melchert, Richard Shaw, William Wiley, Mary Hull Webster and Lia Cook—whose works are now on exhibition in Making Our Mark. With Board President Inez Brooks-Myers and Board member Susan Wittenberg driving months of planning, this gala was beautifully executed by our entire Board and a team of volunteers (with thanks to our Volunteer Coordinator Nisha Chauhan-McGrath). Custom screenprinted tortillas featuring RAC founder Hazel Salmi were a big hit, thanks to the Great Tortilla Conspiracy, and guests listened to jazz singer Terrie Odabi in our Main Gallery while enjoying refreshing Vodka cocktails and wine bar , which were supported by donations from St. George Spirits in Alameda, and Jacobs & Co. and Vintage 59 Imports.
Almost 200 guests enjoyed a 3-course dinner, catered by Richmond favorite Menbere Aklilu and her restaurant Salute E Vita. The evening ended with a lively auction offering donated art, trips, theater and sports events to a very generous crowd. The funds raised from the auction and the Fund-a-Need will go towards supporting the Art Center in the upcoming year.
It was a great pleasure to see the enthusiastic gathering at the opening reception for Making Our Mark. The air buzzed with a sense of history – so many artists who had exhibited here in the past, including former director Kathryn Reasoner, former curator Michael Schwager, and former Board President, John Wehrle – all joined the astonishing group of artists in Making Our Mark: Dru Anderson, Megan Atherton, Christopher Brown, Ethan Caflisch, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, Lia Cook, Sofia Córdova, Yvette Deas, Allan deSouza, Nathan Dollarhite, Michael Hall, Scott Hewitt, Mildred Howard, Hung Liu, Nicholas Makanna, Bruce McGaw, Jim Melchert, Richard Misrach, Kate Nartker, Deborah Oropallo, Shari Paladino, Johanna Poethig, Richard Shaw, Ehren Tool, Mary Hull Webster, William T. Wiley, Wanxin Zhang – who have filled the Art Center with their vibrant works and challenging ideas.
These first two weeks of the exhibition have drawn many visitors and groups of students from California College of the Arts, Contra Costa College, and UC Berkeley. If you have not had a chance to see the current exhibitions, Making Our Mark and Marking New Paths, highlighting current MFA candidates at UC Berkeley, do come by for these stimulating arrays of artwork. If you attended the exhilarating opening, we hope you will come back and bring a friend! And we would love to see you at our upcoming artists talks. The first series of talks features Chris Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Yvette Deas and Megan Atherton on October 15 at 2pm.
We’re happy to announce that the Richmond Art Center, in partnership with the City of Richmond and The Trust for Public Land, has received a new grant from Kaboom to create the Mathieu Court Alley Play Street.
“It’s exciting that elementary school students will have the experience of transforming an outdoor community space in a lasting way. We have a strong team of teaching artists who will be facilitating this project bringing students, families and neighbors together in the process.” says Rachel Schaffran, our Art In the Community director.
Elementary school students from Peres Elementary and Nevin Community Center, along with their families and RAC teaching artists Vreni Michelini Castillo and Sophie Siegmann will paint interactive games & artwork on a recently transformed “green alley.” This inventive play street will give families a fun, green, and clean place to play in a underserved and park-deficient neighborhood in the city.
The Art Center and grant partners will host a design and development activities to discuss ideas for the play street and will work with artists, local non-profits and volunteers to carry out the plan. Possible innovations to the space include games painted on the ground, fence art, a trash & recycling receptacle, and community garden boxes with seating areas. Proposed interactive educational signs will share the green features of the alley, and offer ideas on nutrition and healthy living. Safety in the area will be enhanced with a barrier that can be closed when families are playing and fencing for the play street. English and Spanish signage will be installed to encourage full use of this play street by non-English speaking area residents.
We’ll be sure to share more information with you as this project develops.
Starting off an exciting weekend with a highlight from KQED Arts’ The Do List:
Sept. 23-Nov. 12: Another 80th birthday now, this time for one of the Bay Area’s best and most innovative art centers. The Richmond Art Center celebrates with the show Making Our Mark by some of the great artists who’ve shown there, and their students, featuring work by Hung Liu, Christopher Brown, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, William T. Wiley, and more. This evening the RAC celebrates its role teaching art to thousands of local school kids, with a Back to School Community Celebration with art-making and food. Tomorrow the Del Sol Quartetplays music by Terry Riley at 2pm — just ten bucks for that. Details for the gallery show and other goodies are here.
The Art Center’s abuzz with lots of things to do, so here’s our short list for you!
Be sure to send in your application for the Holiday Arts Festival if you want to be a vendor. Deadline is end of day, September 22! Apply here.
RSVP to our Back to School Community Celebration: an event with dinner, art making and music! Make new friends and enjoy the Art Center with us. RSVP here.
From the article: “The Richmond Art Center celebrated its 80th anniversary last Saturday with the opening of “Making Our Mark and Making New Paths,” an exhibit that builds a family tree of artists and their mentees. The show includes work by 14 artists who jumpstarted their careers by showing work at RAC, alongside pieces by younger artists they have mentored and believed in.
“Making Our Mark and Making New Paths” was inspired by RAC’s mission, which is to give voice to new artists and open the galleries to new visions, said curator Jan Wurm. The idea behind the show was to “reflect the Richmond Art Center as a place where young artists could both show their work and find support as they grow into the different phases of their artistic, creative lives,” she said.”
Making Our Mark and Marking New Paths are on view in our galleries Tuesdays through Saturdays, free of charge. We invite you to visit this inspiring and important collection soon.
Enroll your kids in our Parents’ Press award-winning classes this Fall! Our Studio Education team has selected their top three favorites… see which one is right for you and your family.
Calder Circus (Ages 6 – 8)
Be inspired by the magic of Alexander Calder’s 1927 Circus to create dioramas, small wooden figures, animals and other fantastical creatures. We will work in variety of mediums including clay, found materials, fabric and paint.
Forms in Clay (Ages 8 – 11)
Work with clay! In this class, young artists will learn a variety of techniques for making functional vessels in clay. We explore how clay has been used to make functional forms throughout history and around the world. Work will be fired, decorated, and glazed. We will see the whole ceramics process through from start to finish, and even learn some of the science behind ceramic!
Teen Printmaking (Ages 13+)
Teens will explore the processes of printmaking. Through demos and experimentation, students will learn a variety of techniques and will design and print their own unique prints to take home.
The Richmond Art Center’s ongoing See and Make Art Free Family Workshops were started in 2014 to broaden our arts offerings and include our community in new experiences around the making of art. Centered at the main branch of the Richmond Library, each workshop starts with a story, continues with an art-making project, and then finishes with a guided tour of the galleries at the Art Center.
Our August class marked a special new partnership experience with the local Richmond-based nonprofit, Girls Incorporated of West Contra Costa County. Their goal: to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold, provides school and community based programming that serves the unique needs of girls, ages 5-18, living in West Contra Costa County.
Crystal Banagan, Associate Director of this local branch of Girls Inc., partnered with our Art in the Community and Studio Education teams to put on the August Bookmaker Faire event.
The class was led by the Art Center’s teaching artist Dawn Gonzales and our Studio Education Coordinator Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo. “It was such a success and by far one of my favorite teaching experiences,” said Gonzales. “I was happy to see children and adults of all ages making lots of books and I hope that they will continue to teach others what they learned.”
Participating families worked together, making keepsake books with Turkish map folded papers inside. The class decorated their handmade books, read a story about sharing family stories, and had an all around great time making and enjoying time with the people we hold dear. Everyone who joined the class got a brand new book to take home.
“I was so happy to plan and watch this partnership come to fruition, with so much success,” said Branfman-Verissimo. “The See & Make Art Free Family Workshops were started to broaden and include our community in new experiences around the making of art centered at the library and this partnership did just that and more. It was really great to bring Girls Inc into the library and shine a light on their hard work side by side learning how to make our own handmade books to tell our stories.”
We look forward to more creative partnerships with our neighboring community partners. To learn more about our See and Make Art Workshops, contact our Studio Education office at education@richmondartcenter.org. (The class is offered on the last Saturday of each month and is free to families and children. Be sure to check out our Events calendar for upcoming workshops and other free events.)
DUAL ART-MUSIC PARTNERSHIP: RICHMOND ART CENTER AND DEL SOL STRING QUARTET WEAVE ART AND MUSIC IN CELEBRATION OF 80TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR
A grant awarded by Chamber Music America provides for the SF-based Del Sol String Quartet Residency at the Richmond Art Center, bringing chamber music and accompanying art classes to local K-12 schoolchildren.
RICHMOND, CA — SEPTEMBER 2, 2016 — As part of its much anticipated 80th Anniversary year, the Richmond Art Center is partnering with the Del Sol String Quartet (Del Sol) in a residency funded by a grant from Chamber Music America. The residency by the Del Sol String Quartet, organized in partnership with the Richmond Art Center, has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America through its Residency Endowment Fund. Hailed by Gramophone as “masters of all musical things they survey” and two-time top winner of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, the Del Sol String Quartet is a leading force in 21st century chamber music.
As part of its basic mission over the past 80 years, the Richmond Art Center has always worked to expand the cultural experience of local students to include music and the confluence of music and the process of making visual art. This grant by Chamber Music America creates the opportunity to present students (grades K-12) with the direct live experience of chamber music. This particular residency highlights the stimulating impact of music on art-making as well as the concentration art-making lends to the listening of music. With a deep commitment to education, Del Sol has reached thousands of K-12 students through inventive school performances, workshops, coaching and residencies.
photo credit: RJ Muna
The Del Sol String Quartet will perform three concerts, thematically focusing on three approaches to expression. Finding parallels in the art in the exhibition and the music performed, the students will have the opportunity to make art engaging some of the same elements in projects geared to the musical manifestations of these elements.
There are three planned performances as part of the Fall residency. Further details about each program can be found on the Richmond Art Center’s website: https://richmondartcenter.org/events. Suggested donation of $10 for adults attending the concert. RSVPs for workshops are requested. Please email us at admin@richmondartcenter.org or call our front desk at 510.620.6772.
Saturday, September 24th 2 p.m. (for elementary school children and their parents) Why Patterns? Del Sol String Quartet Performs Music by Terry Riley
The first performance explores pattern and repetition. In response, the audience will view the work of artist Squeak Carnwath as she uses shape and strong color together with repetition to define and order space.
Saturday, October 8th 2 p.m. (for middle school students) What’s Your Story? Del Sol String Quartet Performs Music by Gabriela Lena Frank, Lembit Beecher, Huang Ruo
This second performance reveals narrative elements in music. In parallel, the work of artist Hung Liu examines the unfolding of history, ideas of portrait and identity, and the power of art and music to create the beauty, hold memory, and draw on that energy to inspire.
SFArts.org had a wonderful endorsement. This is what SF/Arts curator Christian L. Frock had to say about Making Our Mark:
“Making Our Mark and Marking New Paths were organized in celebration of the Richmond Art Center’s 80th anniversary this year. It represents an artists list for the ages to celebrate one of the Bay Area’s longest running alternative nonprofit art spaces and features some 28 participants including Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, Mildred Howard, Hung Liu, James Melchert, Richard Misrach.”
The Art Center also has a very special partnership this season with the Del Sol String Quartet, who returns to our galleries for three events pairing art and music with workshops for local students. The residency by the Del Sol String Quartet, organized in partnership with the Richmond Art Center, has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America through its Residency Endowment Fund.
Images left to right: Wanxin Zhang, Deborah Oropallo, Hung Liu
It was a great pleasure to see the enthusiastic gathering at the opening reception for 
We’re happy to announce that the Richmond Art Center, in partnership with the City of Richmond and The Trust for Public Land, has received a new grant from Kaboom to create the Mathieu Court Alley Play Street.
Participating families worked together, making keepsake books with Turkish map folded papers inside. The class decorated their handmade books, read a story about sharing family stories, and had an all around great time making and enjoying time with the people we hold dear. Everyone who joined the class got a brand new book to take home.
