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.
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.
Inner Vision – Summer 2021 Youth Photography Class
Calling All Aspiring Photographers!Online Photography Class for High School Youth in Richmond!
About the Class: Richmond Art Center is working with esteemed artist Simone Bailey to offer an online summer photography intensive for high school students in Richmond. This online class offers students the opportunity to develop skills using a SLR camera and while learning to create impactful photography. Students will also learn to curate photographs when they select images for a public exhibition.
Eight students selected to participate in the class will receive:
DSLR Camera (Canon EOS Rebel T7)
Stipend of $350
Prints of work developed in class
Opportunity to exhibit photos in an exhibition at Richmond Art Center and/or in the community
Schedule: The online class will meet twice a week via zoom on Mondays and Wednesdays, 11am to 12:30pm. The class runs for five weeks from July 21 to August 25, 2021. The first day of class is Wednesday, July 21.
Eligibility / Selection process: All high school students in Richmond with an interest in photography (including 2021/22 rising high schoolers) are eligible to apply. Eight students will be selected for the class based on need and readiness to take the next step in developing their photography skills as demonstrated by their application.
How to apply: Complete the short application by the deadline Friday, July 1, 2021. Applications will be reviewed as they are received, so please apply as early as possible.
Selected students will be notified by Friday, July 9, 2021. Once students have confirmed their participation in the class Richmond Art Center will begin coordinating camera pick ups from RAC asap.
About the Instructor: Simone Bailey is an artist who utilizes photography, video, performance, sculpture, and site-specific installations in her artistic practice. Her work focuses on perception, process, ephemerality, desire, surrogate bodies, violence, and the impossible, all while maintaining an intimate proximity to blackness. Simone’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA), The Lab (San Francisco, CA), Southern Exposure (San Francisco, CA), Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), and the Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, NY), among other venues. She received both an MFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She also earned a BFA in Filmmaking from San Francisco Art Institute. Simone lives and works in San Francisco.
This program is funded by a grant from the California Arts Council
Top image: Richmond Art Center recently re-discovered a series of analog photographs taken by youth at RAC in the early 1970s. These photographs were created in an afterschool class taught by Richmond photographer Robert Benin. Participants in the class learned how to use cameras and process film, they then took the cameras home with them to photograph their friends and families. Nearly fifty years later, these photographs made by youth, for youth and with youth, provide an intimate glimpse into daily life for youth in Richmond in the 1970s.
S.P.O.T.S: Supporting Peoples Outlooks, Talents, and Speech
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2pm to 4 pm
The painting spot, the gathering spot, the spot light or epicenter of action.
Public art is a powerful tool for community building. This program will introduce young artists to the means to create vibrant community art works. A cohort of twelve young artists (ages 12-24) will learn about different models of community art projects, help to define how the program will local youth, and create a collaborative mural project. Students will learn basic color theory, composition, and painting methods.
Eligibility: This six week class is for youth ages 12-24 who live, work or study in Richmond.
Stipend: Each student will receive a $200 stipend for their work at the completion of the program.
Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-4pm, July 6 – August 12
Instructor: Fred Alvarado
This class welcomes Spanish speakers and is an inclusive bilingual space. El Artista Maestro habla Español.
Join us Friday, June 25, 3:30-5pm for an afternoon showcase of Richmond arts!
In collaboration between Richmond organizations NIAD, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Richmond Art Center, and RYSE, we bring you “Out of the Mouths of Beings”, hosted by Richmond’s own Youth Poet Laureate, Sheila McKinney!
This special online event will feature spoken word, dance, music, visual arts, and movement; building community, love, and togetherness in the virtual space.
Kick off the summer right and enjoy the abundance of creativity Richmond has to offer!
Richmond, CA: Richmond Art Center has been approved for a $30,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support the inaugural Richmond Artist Residency (RAR) for emerging artists. The 2021-2022 RAR artists will be local collective Liberación Gráfica, a group of young printmakers whose work explores community, culture and social justice through the lens of growing up in Richmond.
Richmond Art Center’s project is among the more than 1,100 projects across America totaling nearly $27 million that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2021 funding. This is Richmond Art Center’s first NEA grant since 2003.
“This grant comes at an important time for Richmond Art Center,” says José R. Rivera, Richmond Art Center’s Executive Director. “As we plan to reopen our facility later this summer, after over a year of being closed due to the pandemic, this NEA grant will help us develop new and responsive ways to partner with artists in Richmond.”
“As the country and the arts sector begin to imagine returning to a post-pandemic world, the National Endowment for the Arts is proud to announce funding that will help arts organizations such as Richmond Art Center reengage fully with partners and audiences,” said NEA Acting Chairman Ann Eilers. “Although the arts have sustained many during the pandemic, the chance to gather with one another and share arts experiences is its own necessity and pleasure.”
About Liberación Gráfica: Liberación Gráfica is a collective of young printmakers from Richmond whose members create work to uplift social justice, the Richmond community, and young voices. As educators the collective has developed a curriculum that helps young people engage in printmaking through exploring historical political posters and creating their own posters on topics they feel connected to. The collective has held multiple live screen printing workshops around the community at events, high schools, and local organizations like RYSE, Urban Tilth, APEN and Richmond Art Center.
About Richmond Art Center: For over 80 years, Richmond Art Center has served the residents of Richmond and surrounding communities through studio arts education programs, exhibitions and events at our facility, as well as off-site activities that bring free, high-quality art making experiences to WCCUSD schools, community centers, and Richmond Public Library. Richmond Art Center’s mission is to be a catalyst in Richmond for learning and living through art. Our organizational values – relevance, equity and creativity – guide our programming. richmondartcenter.org
