Recently at Richmond Art Center instructor Maxon McCarter and students got creative with copper in the metals studio (see photos below by Elaine Moreno).
Do you like sculptural art and jewelry? Want to learn how to shape metal to create something amazing? Check out these classes starting soon at RAC…
Intermediate Jewelry
Practice and refine your skills using a jewelers saw, shaping techniques, textures and finishing with patina and polishing.
Do you dream of making your own silver creations? Then join us in this exploration of silversmithing and get started making your silver dreams come true.
An introduction to working with bronze and silver metal clay. Projects will include pendants, rings, stone setting and mold making with a focus on different methods for creating, firing and finishing designs.
Check out the Spring Catalog for information about upcoming classes, exhibitions and special events. CLICK HERE to see the catalog online, or pick up a copy at Richmond Art Center.
A Message from RAC’s Executive Director
Hello Friends,
Sunny weather is coming and we have a couple of “not to be missed” events at Richmond Art Center this season. First, it’s Spring Family Day. This time, this free event will celebrate advocacy for environmental justice through art-making. And then in April, it’s the West Contra Costa Unified School District Student Art Show. It always astonishes me to see the incredible artistic talent of local middle and high school students. And this year marks the 57th year of the exhibition.
Meanwhile, a new and exciting class is launching: blacksmithing! It will be held in the courtyard to keep everyone safe (and no need to carry your own anvil!)
Finally, a few weeks ago we were happy to welcome to Richmond Art Center Tony Tamayo, Chief of Staff to Richmond’s Mayor and B.K. White, Public Policy Director in the Office of the Mayor. Tony and BK toured our facilities and we talked about upcoming events and how the Office of the Mayor can assist RAC in its efforts. We are so appreciative that the Mayor’s Office visited us during their busy transition time. We look forward to a great relationship with them.
Join us at Richmond Art Center to celebrate one last time our winter exhibitions! We’ll also be having a free photo session with ENOUGH Considered and hosting a visioning session for the establishment of an Arts Council and an Arts & Culture Strategic Plan for our county.
What’s Happening:
Visioning Session for Arts & Culture in Contra Costa County, 10am-11:30am | More info…
Art of the African Diaspora Closing Party, 2pm-4pm | More info…
Connected Always and Remembrance Project Closing Reception, 2pm-4pm | More info…
ENOUGH: Photo Portrait Session, 2pm-4pm | More info…
ANNOUNCING: Spring Exhibitions at Richmond Art Center April 5 – June 3, 2023 Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804 Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm Exhibitions and events are all free and no rsvp is necessary
Fencelines is a community-based participatory art project that invites local folks to reflect on the circumstances of environmental injustice in the city of Richmond. The exhibition is centered around portraits of community participants and aims to amplify the work of local environmental justice organizations and provide opportunities for visitor participation and discussion.
Central to Fencelines is a public art installation along a city-owned fence bordering the Chevron refinery and the North Richmond residential neighborhood immediately downwind of it. A special installation event will be held on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22, at the Richmond Parkway Bay Trail between Gertrude and Vernon Avenues.
Fencelines is co-created by Graham L.P., Princess Robinson, Gita Khandagle, and members of the Richmond Community.
Photographer Ruth Morgan presents a selection of evocative photographs that document the devastation of Greenville, CA after it was burned down by the Dixie Wildfire in 2021. Officially caused by a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. equipment failure, the fire was fueled and exacerbated by man-made climate change along with overgrown forests caused by decades of fire suppression and population growth at the edges of forests. In this exhibition Morgan’s large 40 ”x 60” prints envelop the gallery composing a requiem to Greenville and a warning for us all to meet the challenge of climate change and ensuing global warming.
In the first exhibition of The Greenhouse Series, artist Tanja Geis displays mesmerizing cyanotypes of painted decomposing common murres, a bird species that experienced historic die-offs along local coasts in the summer of 2015 as a direct result of global warming. With carcasses of starving birds, ocean litter, and mud ridden with local toxins and heavy metals, Geis reassembles the components of decay into new forms, new bodies, new life.
The Greenhouse is a three-part exhibition series at Richmond Art Center that focuses on the climate crisis and environmental justice movements in Richmond, CA. The Greenhouse is organized in partnership with Round Weather, a nonprofit art gallery in Oakland, and curated by its director Chris Kerr.
Exhibition: April 5 – May 13, 2023 Reception: Tuesday, April 18, 5pm-6:30pm (Award Presentation at 5:45pm)
Now in its 57th year, the WCCUSD Student Art Show presents work by over 300 students from 15 different schools. This teacher-curated exhibition demonstrates best practices in delivering an art-based curriculum. It also represents Richmond Art Center and WCCUSD’s shared vision that art education is a crucial component of a thriving and productive society.
Participating Schools: Betty Reid Soskin Middle School, De Anza High School, El Cerrito High School, Fred T. Korematsu Middle School, Helms Middle School, Hercules High School, Hercules Middle School, John F. Kennedy High School, Mira Vista School, Pinole Middle School, Pinole Valley High School, Richmond High School, Montalvin Manor, Stewart Elementary School, Vista High School
Above image: Artwork by Meghan Shelby Reisbord, El Cerrito High School
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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
Kimberly Ross joins Richmond Art Center’s staff team with extensive experience in the fashion industry, as well as entrepreneurial endeavors in event production and image consulting. As Public Programs Coordinator Kimberly will coordinate the volunteer program and special events, as well as support front desk activities. Kimberly is a Richmond native, with roots in Oakland and San Francisco.
Say hello to Kimberly at the front desk next time you are at RAC!
Or connect with her at kimberly@richmondartcenter.org
Did you know we have a school tours program? Bring your class to Richmond Art Center and enjoy a guided tour of current exhibitions. Students also get to visit studio spaces and engage in an art-making activity.
(Psssst Richmond youth organizations, groups and schools can book a tour for FREE thanks to funding from California Arts Council)
Three woven baskets hold round pillows, each painted with a bright sun-like geometric design. On the wall behind them, scrawled in curly cursive, is the message, “Hug a pillow/ Hug your ancestors/Notice, feel, breathe.”
When she was a teen, Amanda Ayala’s middle school teacher took her to her first art museum in San Francisco. Ayala hated that she couldn’t touch the art.
Today, she loves museums, but longing to touch the art is still the hardest part, she says.
At Ayala’s first solo show, “Connected Always,” at the Richmond Art Center through March 18, this rule doesn’t apply. Guests are invited to touch her work.
A visit to Ayala’s home in Santa Rosa further reveals why she wants her art to be tactile.
Ayala lives with her sister and parents in the home where she was raised. Before we sat for an interview, she showed me the house, pointing out additions and upgrades her father has made.
The living room is a carport he converted. He added a covered patio. In the garden, dozens of plants he potted hang from structures he built.
“I consider my dad an artist and craftsperson. You can touch everything he makes,” Ayala says.
Ayala’s home overflows with her art-making. A few times during the conversation, she mentions appreciating her family’s support and permission to take up shared space in their house.
She speaks of her parents with tremendous love and admiration, even as she notes that living with them as an adult can be challenging.
“Connected Always” captures both Ayala’s youthful spirit and timeless wisdom, captivating her audience with an interactive, multimedia exhibition focused on one’s ancestors.
Praying Over Ancestors
Ayala’s interest in her own ancestors emerged after she began Aztec dancing more than 12 years ago.
“I started dancing in ceremonies as a way of praying and connecting with my community and with the spirits of my ancestors,” Ayala says.
Although she had limited knowledge of her own ancestor’s stories, the impact of one’s ancestors—both blood relatives and chosen family—was impressed upon her, as was the understanding that she will be an ancestor with an impact on generations going forward.
She has researched her own family history, but the stories she can find are limited. Ayala’s mother is a fourth-generation Xicana whose ancestors are Yaqui. Her father migrated from Michoacan to Mexico City and then to northern California in his late teens.
“I don’t have access to everything I would like to know. People who are targeted by different oppressions have different access to their ancestry,” Ayala says.
EMBRACE Guests are invited to hold a pillow to hug seven generations of their ancestors. Photo by Chelsea Kurnick.
The Ancestor Wheel
A few years ago, Ayala saw an infographic about ancestral mathematics and wrote about it in a journal.
Many people would be embarrassed to share their personal journals even with close friends, but not Ayala. The journal in which she first started thinking about the ancestor wheel is on display at “Connected Always.”
To be fair, most people’s journals don’t look like Ayala’s, which combines diaristic writing and scrapbooking with collage and painting.
She hand-sews the pages together with big, visible seams, often creating books that fold like an accordion rather than with pages that turn. Her bookbinding techniques replicate and honor Mesoamerican books.
Ayala took the ancestry infographic she saw and started sketching what seven generations of parents would look like, depicted in a circle. Across seven generations, that’s 254 people.
Images similar to Ayala’s ancestor wheels are easy to find online, but always in the context of an infographic; they never make the leap to artistic design.
Ayala creates her wheels as complete circles, starting with two halves in the center to represent parents. Each previous generation fans out from this center. The result is an eye-catching abstract pattern reminiscent of a compass.
The image of the ancestor wheel repeats throughout Ayala’s exhibit.
“Soft Landing,” the largest wheel in the exhibit, is almost seven feet in diameter. A nod to the textile part of Ayala’s practice, it is made of a satin tablecloth and canvas tarp, sewn together with thread, stuffed with pillow fluff and dyed with pink and yellow fabric ink. It is in the center of a large wall in the gallery, with hundreds of hand-dyed silk pieces hanging around it.
On Instagram, Ayala shared a timelapse process video revealing what it took to make “Soft Landing.” The fabric is taped to the floor of her living room, filling almost the entire room as she sketches it. In the caption, she says that after a sleepless night spent stuffing it, she laid on top of it feeling grateful, exhausted and amazed.
Roberto Martinez, exhibitions director at Richmond Art Center, says that “Soft Landing” is one of the most popular parts of the show.
“The colors are rich, and it’s so big that I think it’s almost shocking to people when they enter,” Martinez says. “But then when you touch it, it allows you to land in this place of connection, surrounded by softness.”
Martinez met Ayala several years ago through Oakland’s Chiapas Support Committee (CSC), which educates about Chiapas and Zapatista communities through an annual festival of Zapatista art called CompArte.
When there was a CSC talk at California Institute of Integral Studies, Ayala created an altar that Martinez says set the tone for it.
“The altar was a space we could all connect around—to express honor and reverence for the land we’re on, and also for the energies we were bringing into the space,” Martinez says. “I thought it was pretty incredible.”
Ayala’s collaborators at CompArte knew about her ancestor wheel project. As he planned this winter’s exhibitions at Richmond Art Center, Martinez realized that “Connected Always” would be a great fit.
Alongside Ayala’s art, Richmond Art Center is showing a large annual group show, “Art of the African Diaspora and The Remembrance Project.” The latter, presented by Social Justice Sewing Academy, is described as, “a cloth memorial of activist art banners commemorating the many people who have lost their lives to systems of inequity and racist structures.”
Martinez says he is moved by Ayala’s ability to visualize the magnitude of interconnectedness.
“I thought Amanda’s ability to create space for us to show care for one another would work really well [alongside the other shows], which gets us thinking about our ancestors, our neighbors and people affected by systemic violence,” Martinez points out.
Recently, Ayala visited the show to meet with Martinez about an artist talk and journaling workshop that happened on Feb. 18.
A school teacher approached Ayala and told her that her students really loved the show. Their favorite part? They could touch the art.
‘Connected Always’ is on display through March 18 at Richmond Art Center. There will be a closing party on March 18 from 2-4pm. Admission is free. richmondartcenter.org.
Top image: ENVELOPED Amanda Ayala wraps herself in purple silk she dyed in her yard. Photo by Chelsea Kurnick.
In these informal online sessions RAC’s Education Team will share information about our hiring process and teaching opportunities.
Richmond Art Center offers visual arts education programs for the community year round, on-site at RAC, off-site in the community and online via Zoom. We work collaboratively with Teaching Artists to develop dynamic and inclusive arts education programs that cultivate, support and build our creative community here in Richmond. RAC currently offers visual arts programs and media under the following disciplines: Ceramic Arts & Sculpture, Digital Arts & Sculpture, Drawing & Painting, Glass Arts & Sculpture, Jewelry & Metal Arts, Printmaking Arts, Textiles & Fiber Arts, Mixed Media Arts & Sculpture. TEACHING ARTIST JOB DESCRIPTION
Spring Class Registration Opens Wednesday, February 15
Spring classes are now posted (don’t worry if the class says ‘Fully Booked’ this will change once registration opens). Browse listings and plan which class or workshop you’ll sign up for when classes open for registration on Wednesday, February 15 at 10am.
