THE RICHMOND ART CENTER EXHIBITION FEATURES REFLECTIVE WORKS OF VIOLA FREY AND JUAN CARLOS QUINTANA IN THE HUMAN SPIRIT: CONTEMPORARY FIGURATION AS AN EXPRESSION OF HUMANISM
In conjunction with our 80th anniversary, the Richmond Art Center will present two important companion exhibitions that trace the human figure as vehicle in Bay Area art.
RICHMOND, CA — FEBRUARY 29, 2016 — As the Richmond Art Center reflects on its 80th Anniversary, appreciation for our rich history of artists and exhibitions illuminates current art practices and the shape and form of contemporary visual exploration. These influences on visual language and culture are revealed in the exhibition, The Human Spirit: Contemporary Figuration as an Expression of Humanism.
In particular, the autobiographical work of Joan Brown and Viola Frey stand as beacons to the younger artist striking out on a personal path peripheral to the mainstream and in pursuit of identity and place in the world. The challenges of treading new interior territory have been met by new voices including Lava Thomas in her portrayals of her Grandmother or her close friend and mentor, Mildred Howard, in which hair provides a vocabulary for identity. Similarly, Juan Carlos Quintana faces desolation and mortality with repetition and aggregation in a shared intensity of focus.
The Human Spirit: Contemporary Figuration as an Expression of Humanism runs from March 19 – May 22, 2016, and will focus on the historical and aesthetic development of Bay Area figurative art over the past 60 years. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Art Center will offer enlightening public programs including performance, video, music, and a series of talks.
The Spring exhibitions are sponsored by Artists’ Legacy Foundation, Blick Art Materials, Susan and Steven Chamberlin, James Curtis III, Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, Nina and Claude Gruen, Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation, Jacobs & CO., Oliver and Company, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.
About the Richmond Art Center: The Richmond Art Center is the largest visual arts center in the East Bay, delivering exciting arts experiences to young and old alike who reflect the diverse richness of our community. The Art Center features hands-on learning, well-equipped studios, traveling Art in the Community programs and contemporary exhibitions in its galleries.
Every year, the Richmond Art Center serves thousands of students through classes and programs taught by professional artists, both onsite at the Art Center and at sites throughout Richmond. The Art Center’s four galleries mount rotating exhibitions that display the works of emerging and established Bay Area artists. Artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Jay DeFeo, Wanxin Zhang, Hung Liu, Ed Rossbach and Peter Voulkos have been showcased here.
The Richmond Art Center originated in 1936, when local artist Hazel Salmi, who worked for the WPA, traversed the streets of Richmond with a suitcase packed with art supplies, eager to teach art to anyone interested. Today, everything at the Art Center continues to breathe life into Salmi’s original vision: That within every person lives an artist.
Please visit the Richmond Art Center’s website http://richmondartcenter.org for a full detail of activities and events relating to these exhibitions.
Contact:
Jessica Parker, Communications/Marketing Director jparker@richmondartcenter.org 510-620-6780
About the interviews: The Richmond Art Center is fortunate and proud to work with a diverse and growing number of artists and teachers who work with our students at the Art Center as well as in our local communities. We want to share some of these wonderful people with you, to inspire your own artistic path, take a class, or learn more. See all of our interviews here.
In this interview, meet Joyce Shon, a long-time Richmond Art Center instructor who’s teaching our upcoming Handprinted Textile Workshop and Material(s) World (which teaches basic screenprinting techniques). You can register for both of these classes now (see links above).
Joyce Shon is a Berkeley-born artist with a particular fondness for screen printing. She would probably rather sketch her bio than try to write it. She attended UC Berkeley and worked in construction for many years, supplementing her income and retaining her sanity with her artwork. Her unofficial job title for herself is Semi-professional Dilettante, constantly trying new techniques and attempting to integrate them into her artwork. Joyce loves not only creating art but also adding to her collection of the work of local artists.
Q. What do you find most inspiring about teaching art?
A. It might be easier to answer what is not inspiring about teaching art. In particular, I am always amazed at the way ideas multiply exponentially in a class. So much creative inspiration! Although most of my personal work is done in a solitary setting, the energy and inspiration I get from students and other teachers is simply phenomenal. And I love to solve problems, so when a student asks, for example, “Can I print with patinas? Can I print on glass? Can I print an image of the moon on green cheese?”… I’m instantly trying to figure out how to do it. Those sort of challenges really jazz me and expand my repertoire as both a teacher and an artist.
Q. How did you become involved with the Richmond Art Center?
In 1998, I was recovering from nearly two years of treatment for cancer. I spent a lot of that time in “solitary confinement,” and being able to draw and journal saved my sanity and possibly my life. I really wanted an arts community and found the Richmond Art Center through the recommendation of Patti Kjontaas, who was teaching there at the time. My goal was to learn enough basic ceramics skills to move on to meshing it with screen printing. Curtis Jones was teaching a screen printing class, and I took that because I love learning other artists’ tips and techniques and approaches. When he left to teach at the University of Oklahoma, he suggested that I take over his classes. I was hesitant (scared!) but agreed to teach one class. I loved it! But I still love being a student, too.
Q. What was your path to becoming an artist? Please share some of your favorite work (captions below).
A. Wow…my path is now 67 years long, and very meandering. My family was very hands-on. We did these very un-suburban things in suburban California. Making our own soap in a big kettle outdoors, pouring concrete for patios, building stairs and retaining walls, canning our own food, picking berries for jam, digging clams, sewing our clothes—we were always Doing Something. And I was one of those children who was constantly drawing on everything, always making something: Ballpoint pen tattoos on my friends, costumes for the family cats, papier-mâché dragons and castles for my little sister’s Barbie dolls, little mud figures that I would bury to be discovered in future eras as Items of great Archaeological Interest. I sketched while babysitting, which led to my first commission work: watercolors of toy soldiers for a little boy’s room.
Then my father gave me a screen printing kit for my 12th birthday. He had an ulterior motive—labels for his homemade beer. I really got into it, though: labels, posters, cards, yearbook covers. I attended the University of California in the ’60s (!) with a mind to transfer to CCAC but got waylaid by politics and ended up in Vancouver, Canada with a community of conscientious objectors.
Eventually I returned to the Bay Area and worked in construction, did custom sewing and screen printing and raised a daughter. Regardless of the direction I was headed at any point in my life, there was always an element of art. I remember washing new towels once and being intrigued by the lint in the dryer. It was so beautiful and soft, I decided to felt it into wall hangings. Meanwhile, at my day job, I was operating heavy equipment, turning the Berkeley Landfill into Cesar Chavez Park. Large scale sculpting! I could go on and on and on, but you’ve probably got the drift by now. No particular favorite work—after all, I am a semi-professional dilettante. But I am sorta more jazzed by fiber than paper. May my path continue to meander.
Q. Who are your inspirations?
A. That’s a tough question, because inspirations are everywhere. But what comes to mind first is all the hours I’ve spent in museums looking at marvelous magical works by unnamed artists from cultures all over the world. Masks from anywhere, cloth of bark or fibers, painted or printed, kachinas, carvings, ritual objects of known and unknown purpose. Our human history is full of everyday people recording their visions in marvelous ways.
Q. What do you like to do when you’re not at the Art Center?
A. Well, twenty years ago, I might have been racing camels or fueling up a backhoe. But these days you are more likely to find me working on a costume for an event past, present, future (or none of the above), baking cookies, reading anything in print, attacking weeds or packing my suitcase —the sketchbook and camera go in first.
Q. What’s on your bucket list?
A. I always thought it would be very cool to learn to fly a helicopter. And I am terrified of heights.
Q. If you could meet one artist, living or not, who would it be and why?
A. Unfair question! How ever to make a single choice? Any of the unnamed women who made those carvings, textiles, baskets, adornments that I have gazed at, enraptured, in countless museums. Maybe Susie Silook, a woman of Yupik, Inupiak and Irish descent. Her work, which combines traditional carving technique with a modern message, just takes my breath away and makes me feel my heart sending my blood to my brain. And she doesn’t live so very far away—can you get me an introduction?
Thank you, Joyce!
Be sure to check out Joyce’s class and workshop and register early before they fill up!
Images, from left to right:
1st row: screenprinted cats plates (set of 4), handmade bog coat, “Chat Noir” print, “Curios” print
2nd row: felt cuff, handmade journal,“Nostrum” print (from The Alphabet According to Kate series), screenprinted poppy pod plate
3rd row: ceramic sculpture—piece from “The Right to Bear Arms”,“Look Up Sam” mixed media piece—screen print on salvaged materials, “Tools” print, “Kilter” print
The people and places which mark a town as “Our Town” are as varied as our lives.
The histories and generations of schools and teachers, shops and customers, workplaces and co-workers, these populate our days.
As the Richmond Art Center reflects on its 80th Anniversary, we are asking for your views, impressions, thoughts on what makes a place unique, what gives a place its identity, what meaning can be drawn from experience, association, or memory. We invite artists to show us their art reflecting their town, our town, a better town.
Juror: Jack Fischer, director of the vibrant Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco, brings a unique point of view to this selection. Always fresh and direct in his response to art, Fischer extends a multi-textured and open approach to “Our Town.”
Important Dates
Submission Deadline: Monday, April 11
Notification of jury results (via email): Sunday, May 1
All accepted work must be Hand Delivered Friday, May 27 or Saturday, May 28 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Opening Reception: Saturday June 11 5 – 7 PM
Exhibition Closes: Saturday, August 27
Pick up of accepted work: Sunday, August 28, or Monday, August 29 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Eligibility/Jurying Criteria
California Residents only
All media except for Video/Film
Original work produced in the last three years
Size Limitations: no larger than 36 x 36 inches
All works must be suitably prepared for hanging or installation.
Entry Fee
Entry Fee is $40 for two works RAC Members Discount: $30 for two works $15 for each additional work
Images must be submitted online in the Entry Form. The images must be in jpg format at 300 dpi .
JPEG must be labeled with Artist’s first and last name and title
Insurance
The Richmond Art Center will insure the artwork while on site with the exclusion of any damage due to acts of God. Artists are responsible for insuring their artwork to and from the RAC.
Sales
The RAC will retain 40% commission on all art sales. Not for Sale work (NFS) will also be accepted but an insurance value must be stated.
Come make new art and new friends at the Richmond Art Center this summer!
$20 off any session of Spring or Summer camp at the Richmond Art Center when you sign up early! Register before March 31 with coupon code: RACAMP. Coupon can be used more than once and combined with other offers.
Signing up multiple kids? Use coupon code: SIBLING for 10% off registration
Our teaching artists will create wonderful opportunities for students to experiment, create, and make amazing art in our beautiful studios. Classes are organized by age and you can sign up for multiple weeks to experience everything we’re offering this summer. Full descriptions and instructors will be listed on our website. Students age 7+ who are taking a morning and afternoon class can break for lunch in our enclosed courtyard supervised by summer camp staff.
About our Art Camps
The Richmond Art Center’s Art Camps offer kids and teens a nurturing environment and creative atmosphere to experience hands-on activities including painting, drawing, clay, weaving and collage in small morning and afternoon classes during summer and spring breaks from school.
Parents have voted! The Richmond Art Center has won the Silver Award for Best Arts Camp in Contra Costa County and Gold Awards for Best Art Classes and Best Enrichment & After School Programs.
About the interviews: The Richmond Art Center is fortunate and proud to work with a diverse and growing number of artists and teachers who work with our students at the Art Center as well as in our local communities. We want to share some of these wonderful people with you, to inspire your own artistic path, take a class, or learn more. See all of our interviews here.
Dawn Gonzales is a Richmond based artist specializing in surface design, illustration and mixed media. She received her BFA from the University of Arizona. After many years working in Marketing and Design for apparel companies including Gap Inc and lucy Activewear, she’s returned to her passion for art and good ol’ fashioned analog sketching. She is a collector of “stuff” and delights in re-purposing gently loved items into treasured new art objects. These days she loves the work of late collage artist Rex Ray, hand drawn typography, duct tape and pom-poms. A lover of all animals, she also enjoys creating custom embroidered pet portraits for friends and family. http://www.dawngonzalesillustration.com
Q. What do you find most inspiring about teaching art?
I believe that art saves lives. Not only visual art, but music, theatre, and performance. When I was a child in elementary school, our art teacher, Mrs. Spearo, would wheel her “art cart” full of glue sticks and tempera paint into the classroom on Wednesdays and all the kids would start clapping. We went crazy! That’s how much we loved it! So, it’s very concerning to me that the first programs cut from school curriculae is usually art. It makes me very sad. After a dry spell of many years, I am recapturing that joy I once had in making art as a child, and I want to share it with others. I want to help others, especially adults, find their joy in “creating” and when I see people get excited about it, being compelled to make art… well, that inspires me!
Q. How did you become involved with the Richmond Art Center?
I have lived in Richmond Annex for over 10 years and always knew about the center. But since I spent the last two decades deeply entrenched in corporate America, I felt that I never “had time” to explore, visit or learn more about RAC’S offerings. When I started freelancing two years ago, my friend suggested that I try teaching at the center. I had led creative workshops in my previous life, but teaching in a formal capacity really wasn’t on my radar at the time. The more I thought about it and the more I created my own art, the more the idea appealed to me. So in 2015, I pitched some class ideas to Erin and here I am! My introduction to teaching at RAC was my Pom-Pom booth at Skeletonfest 2015. What a blast! (Click on the images below to enlarge.)
Q. What was your path to becoming an artist?
I have always been artistic. As a child, my sister and I would busy ourselves for hours just drawing, and making things with any materials that we could find. I remember I even made a pair of high heeled shoes out of cardboard once. Eventually, I studied art in college and received my BFA from the University of Arizona. After school, I moved to San Francisco to “become an artist” and promptly took a job in retail, of course. But that led to many other creative opportunities for me, career wise. I discovered the world of Visual Merchandising and environmental design which is a genre that encompasses all sorts of mediums, especially if you are working on a shoestring budget! It was a very hands on job, and I found myself splattering paint, hammering nails and chopping up astroturf to make my ideas come alive. It was innovative work for a retail environment, and, even though I was not drawing or sketching, it kept my creative juices flowing and I learned a lot technology wise. So, I guess you could say that I took the long way around!
Q. Who are your inspirations?
Of course, I am inspired by the late David Bowie who was a true artist in every aspect and showed us all that being different is okay. That being unique is, in fact, quite special. I admire people who are true to themselves, kind, and hard workers. I’m really inspired by the talent, work ethic and attitude of illustrator, Lisa Congdon. She’s worked very heard to pursue her heart’s desire and she’s a very nice person. She also didn’t hit her prime until her 30’s. I’m also really inspired by other “late bloomers” like David Sedaris and Julia Child who didn’t begin their careers until mid-life. And who can forget Grandma Moses, an embroiderer whose arthritis inspired her to take up painting at age 78 because it was “easier for her hands.” Grandma Moses is my spirit animal! Ha ha.
Q. What do you like to do when you’re not at the Art Center?
I’m either working on pattern designs for clients, art journaling, building up my own accessory design business, or doing something fitness oriented. I also spend a lot of time at home with our 12 year old Bulldog, Cookie. She is the light of my life. http://www.dawngonzalesillustration.com/sketch-book/.
Q. What’s on your bucket list?
I have never been to Europe! I would definitely love to go one day. I would also like to run a marathon. I did a half marathon a few years ago, and it felt great. I love challenging myself. If I won the lottery, I would build my own English Bulldog sanctuary and care for all the wayward pups.
Q. If you could meet one artist, living or not, who would it be and why?
I would love to meet painter, Martha Rich. She’s wacky. I think she would be a fun friend. I love her talent and her incredible sense of humor. http://cargocollective.com/martharich/ABOUT
DAVID PARK: PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES and THE HUMAN SPIRIT: CONTEMPORARY FIGURATION AS AN EXPRESSION OF HUMANISM
In conjunction with our 80th anniversary, the Richmond Art Center will present two important companion exhibitions that trace the human figure as vehicle in Bay Area art.
RICHMOND, CA — JANUARY 29, 2016 — From March 19 – May 22, 2016, dual exhibitions David Park: Personal Perspectives and The Human Spirit: Contemporary Figuration as an Expression of Humanism will focus on the historical and aesthetic development of Bay Area figurative art over the past 60 years. In conjunction with the exhibitions, the Art Center will offer enlightening public programs including performance, video, music, and a series of talks.
Jan Wurm, Exhibitions Director at the Richmond Art Center explains, “These complimentary and concurrent exhibitions establish a bridge from David Park as the catalyst for the development of Bay Area Figurative Art to the activities of contemporary artists who move between painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography to explore issues of figuration, identity, and humanistic perspectives.”
David Park: Personal Perspectives contains 37 works on paper in various media executed from the 1930s through 1960, the last year of Park’s life. Drawn from the artist’s estate and private collections, this exhibition includes works shown for the first time. Presented in the intimate South Gallery at the Richmond Art Center, visitors will have an unique opportunity to study his space, compositions, and very personal narratives.
David Park produced a late body of work extraordinary for its focus and direction. In a sharp shift from abstraction to figuration. Park’s move stands out as a re-orientation of radical proportion. Yet it is as a teacher and mentor that Park presides as the cornerstone of an entire art movement and perspective, which came to be known as Bay Area Figurative Art in the 1950s.
During those years, the Richmond Art Center mounted a series of pivotal exhibitions and workshops highlighting the figurative Bay Area artists through a series of exhibitions and programs. These programs provided a platform for several emerging artists to launch their careers. The Richmond Art Center was an important venue for David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, and other emerging artists active in their time.
Park set the stage and inspired his cohorts and the generations since to follow the singular and diverse impulses evident in figurative art explored in the drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and performance represented in the Art Center’s companion exhibition, The Human Spirit.
The exhibition The Human Spirit: Contemporary Figuration as an Expression of Humanism bridges the Art Center’s historical role in presenting formative exhibitions of the Bay Area Figurative artists in the 1950s, The Human Spirit will extend our consideration of legacy to the work of over 20 contemporary Bay Area artists who have expanded the figurative art tradition through paintings, sculpture, photography, video, and performance. This survey will include the work of Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Terry St. John, Christopher Brown, Charles Garabedian, Viola Frey, and Enrique Chagoya. Following a highly personal path with exuberant use of materials and iconography, these artists have forged visual language built on vocabularies including folk, medieval, aboriginal, and outsider art.
Pursuing other modes of autobiography, social commentary, and cultural reflection, the sculpture, film, video, and performance of Lava Thomas, Kota Ezawa, Farley Gwazda, and Allan deSouza draw the painted dialogue into other media. From the intimacy of the photography of Judy Dater, Katy Grannan, and Richard Misrach, to the beading and capturing of images in the memorial hangings of Taraneh Hemami, the myriad manifestations of the human visage and the human spirit for survival extend this exhibition beyond the personal or the domestic. In a time of social, economic, and environmental instability, the art employing the human figure to illuminate the struggles and spirit of contemporary life is of greater power and significance than it has been in nearly a century.
Throughout the duration of the exhibitions, the Richmond Art Center will present a series of public programs. This program includes a discussion with Helen Park Bigelow, daughter of the artist, a plein air workshop exploring gouache and watercolor while referencing David Park, and a session for contemporary artists to draw from the model while referencing David Park’s approach to the figure. A roundtable discussion with artists exhibited in The Human Spirit will establish contemporary concerns and visual approaches in the fluid movement across diverse media.
The Spring exhibitions are sponsored by Artists’ Legacy Foundation,Blick Art Materials, Susan and Steven Chamberlin, James Curtis III, Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson Charitable Foundation, Jacobs & CO., Oliver and Company, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.
The Richmond Art Center is the largest visual arts center in the East Bay, delivering exciting arts experiences to young and old alike who reflect the diverse richness of our community. The Art Center features hands-on learning, well-equipped studios, traveling Art in the Community programs and contemporary exhibitions in its galleries.
Every year, the Richmond Art Center serves thousands of students through classes and programs taught by professional artists, both onsite at the Art Center and at sites throughout Richmond. The Art Center’s four galleries mount rotating exhibitions that display the works of emerging and established Bay Area artists. Artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Jay DeFeo, Wanxin Zhang, Hung Liu, Ed Rossbach and Peter Voulkos have been showcased here.
The Richmond Art Center originated in 1936, when local artist Hazel Salmi, who worked for the WPA, traversed the streets of Richmond with a suitcase packed with art supplies, eager to teach art to anyone interested. Today, everything at the Art Center continues to breathe life into Salmi’s original vision: That within every person lives an artist.
Please visit the Richmond Art Center’s website http://richmondartcenter.org for a full detail of activities and events relating to these exhibitions.
Contact:
Jessica Parker, Communications/Marketing Director jparker@richmondartcenter.org 510-620-6780
“Howard,” wrote Jeff Kelley, “is trying to hold something together in her works, some moments of recognition, perhaps, when keepsakes become art; when vernacular speech becomes titular and punny; when the given histories of found objects cede to the emergent content of the artist’s process; when family storytelling combusts into modernist black magic; when incongruous juxtapositions of objects and media become easy exchanges of history and memory; when an artwork asserts its aesthetic privilege while remaining open to worldly influence. Howard has been waiting alertly for decades for the objects in the studio to tell her what to do. She recognizes their metaphoric potential in relation to each other, the way words and images add up to a story. Then she ‘tells’ them.”
During the Holiday Season, the Richmond Art Center will be closed from December 24th through January 3rd. See you on Monday, January 4th! We will be closed on Sundays through January 9th.
On Saturday, December 5, the Richmond Art Center hosted our 53rd annual Holiday Arts Festival. The Art Center bustled with artisans, teachers, and members of the East Bay communities. Studio Arts hosted fun, creative activities for the kids, Ceramics held its famous sale, and our pop-up cafe served delicious paninis, desserts, and lattés. Both the silent and live auctions successfully raised vital funding for our core programs thanks to your generosity. We raised over $30,000 to support the many programs we offer to people of all ages. Our Fund-A-Need drive raised over $5,800 for the Kato Jaworski Scholarship Fund, which will provide kids and teens with need-based scholarships to take our classes and workshops in 2016!
The annual Holiday Arts Festival had a triumphant return, and everyone at the Richmond Art Center, myself included would like to extend our deep appreciation to our dedicated committee of Board Members, generous donors and Art Center supporters, our teaching artists and students, and more than 90 devoted volunteers. A special thank you goes to Board member Ellengale Toki Oakley for chairing the committee, to our Deputy Director Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez for organizing the project, developing numerous job descriptions and scheduling the volunteers, and to our Exhibitions Director Jan Wurm for acquiring a magnificent collection of donated art for auction.
We could not have done this without you–thank you for making this event memorable.
Best,
Ric Ambrose
Executive Director
***
Photos by John Wehrle. All of our Holiday Arts Festival images can be viewed here.
The Holiday Arts Festival at the Richmond Arts Center is a great place to find unique gifts for the holidays for friends and loved ones! We’re proud to showcase so many local artists, including several of our own instructors. Below is a collection of some of the items that will be for sale here on December 5 from 11am – 3pm. Please join us to support the Richmond Art Center, our local artists, and our wonderful community.
In this interview, meet Joyce Shon, a long-time Richmond Art Center instructor who’s teaching our upcoming 
In this interview, meet Dawn Gonzales, who’s teaching our upcoming Story Book Cigar Box Diorama Class in March (and 
