It is with great sadness that we inform you that we have lost a longtime friend, creative artist and admired colleague. Kato Jaworski, our Studio Art Director, passed away on Sunday, December 28, 2014 after a serious illness. She will be dearly missed by her family, friends, and the artists, students and colleagues she touched at the Richmond Art Center and others in the Richmond community.
We count ourselves extremely lucky and honored to have known Kato since she became part of the Center in 2005. Her incredible energy, boundless enthusiasm and welcoming spirit permeated our hallways and flowed beyond our walls into the community. Kato was a natural leader, a passionate community builder, an inspiring artist and teacher, and a trusted friend and colleague.
Under her leadership this past decade, thousands of adults, teens and children from all across the Bay Area came to the Art Center to experience our engaging art programs. Knowledgeable and inspiring as an arts administrator, Kato designed most of our current studio classes and workshops, building a unique community of artist instructors along the way. Kato also conceived Skeletonfest and Upcycle, our free art-making events for families, and helped develop our art tours for K-12 students. The vibrancy of so many of our programs is due to Kato’s extraordinary commitment and generosity and unwavering dedication to ensuring art remains accessible, affordable and fun.
Having trouble finding the perfect holiday gifts for your friends and loved ones? Look no further! The Richmond Art Center has three easy ways for you to give the gift of creativity!
Gift Certificates
Gift certificates to the Richmond Art Center are an ideal present and are good towards classes, workshops and memberships. Help your friends become makers and artists by giving the gift of art. Purchase a Gift Certificate online today or by phone at 510.620.6772.
Gift Memberships
A wonderful way to give the gift with benefits that keep giving all year long! Your gift recipient will receive a notification with their membership that the gift is from you. When you give at the patron membership level or above, your friend will enjoy free admission to 700 museums nationwide! Neato! Purchase a Gift Membership online today or by phone at 510.620.6772.
Exhibition Catalog
Our Closely Considered – Diebenkorn in Berkeley exhibition catalog is a wonderful addition to any art appreciators library. This four-color catalog beautifully documents our exhibition of works by world-renowned artist Richard Diebenkorn and artists of the Bay Area Figurative movement. Give the gift of art by purchasing this $25 catalog for your friends and loved ones. Order your copies today by stopping by our front desk or calling us at 510.620.6772.
We hope you will support the Richmond Art Center during Giving Tuesday on December 2. This one-day national fundraising event aims to inspire people, like you, to donate to the nonprofits you love.
You don’t need to be an artist to work with clay or fibers. All you need is the desire. And a little support from your friends doesn’t hurt. The Richmond Art Center provides artistically inclined residents with potter’s wheels, electric kilns and looms to transform their creativity into a variety of art forms.
Located near the town Civic Center, the Richmond Art Center has one of the last remaining public art programs in the Bay Area. It first opened its doors in 1936. Every week, experienced artists as well as novices from Richmond and surrounding cities, mostly retired, come together to create pottery, weave fiber sculpture, basketry and quilt, and braid wonderful, multi-hued rugs. Most of the activities and events are free, but some classes do require a fee.
These workshops also provide retired people an opportunity to get to know more people in the community. Workshop participants said they are able to make friendships with their classmates and share in the inspiration and joy that comes from making things together.
A record number of people have flocked to the Richmond Art Center to view an exhibition of works by world-renowned artist Richard Diebenkorn and supporting exhibitions which feature artists of the Bay Area Figurative movement. A closing party for the public will be held on Sunday, Nov. 16 from 3:00-5:00 p.m.
The closing party will honor the generous collectors and galleries that have loaned the works, many shown publicly for the first time, for Closely Considered – Diebenkorn in Berkeley.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the work of Richard Diebenkorn, one of the most influential painters of the last 50 years. He exhibited his work at the Art Center in the 1950s and held his first major exhibition of drawings here in 1968,” says Richard Ambrose, executive director for the Richmond Art Center.
The Art of Living Black is seeking Bay Area artists of African American descent to participate in the 19th Annual The Art of Living Black exhibition to be held at the Richmond Art Center from January 10 – February 27, 2015. This non-juried exhibition is open to Bay Area artists of African American descent.
Deadlines Entry Application Deadline: Saturday, Dec 13, 2014 Artwork Drop Off: Friday, Dec 19 – Saturday, Dec 20, 2014 from 10 am – 4 pm
More than 300 people from all across Richmond and the East Bay, including superheroes, witches, princesses and bumblebees, came to make art and celebrate the multicultural traditions of Halloween and Day of the Dead at Skeletonfest on Saturday, Oct 25, 2014.
The Richmond Art Center first hosted Skeletonfest in 2009 and it’s been a wildly popular annual event ever since. And this year was no different.
Kids, parents, grandparents and community members sat side-by-side and spent a fun afternoon coloring and constructing paper masks, learning about Mexican paper cutting and making cool paper creations, designing movable skeletons and decorating sugar skulls with colored frostings and adornments (a crowd favorite)!
Dewitt Cheng from The Monthly stopped by our galleries to review our fall exhibitions. You can see the original review here and we’ve posted it below:
by Dewitt Cheng
With SFMOMA closed for construction and the Berkeley Art Museum about to close and move to new digs, what’s an art-lover to do for visual sustenance? The Richmond Art Center has been on a programming roll recently, notably with sculpture, and four shows that started on September 14 promise to keep up the momentum.
Three of the shows examine Bay Area Figuration, one of our region’s main claims to art-world fame. Closely Considered — Diebenkorn in Berkeley follows up on the recent major show by the California painter at the deYoung Museum, with smaller shows at the College of Marin and San Jose State University. This show, curated by Berkeley painter Jan Wurm, focuses on works on paper from Diebenkorn’s Berkeley years, 1953-1966, some never exhibited before, along with works by contemporary Bay Area Figurationists Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Frank Lobdell, Nathan Oliveira, David Park, and James Weeks. Several related events are scheduled.
“Pinch and pull, pinch and pull” was the constant mantra of 12 kids molding their clay on a sunny afternoon. Each student was given a block of clay, water, molding tools and freedom to make their own clay birds.
At the Richmond City Library, Marie Kamali, a multimedia artist, teaches kids ages 6-9 years old how to make clay sculptures as part of an art in community program.
Art in Community provides career readiness to future artists by aiming to “bring the art-making experience to the community [and] encourage people to see art as a lifelong pursuit,” Community Programs Director Rebeca García-González said.
An outgrowth of the Richmond Art Center, the program provides after-school art training to schools and community centers within the city of Richmond. Art programs usually last 4-8 weeks per semester and admission is free for children and teens. Students are limited to 10-14 per class to make sure that the artist-teachers have time for everyone.
Starting with 5 programs in 2012, Richmond Art Center currently has grown to 16 art in community programs running today. Local program sites decide on the kind of art program they want. Funding comes from the City of Richmond, local businesses and Parent-Teacher Associations.
According to Rebeca, out of the 450 enrolled students, 80% are Latinos and 20% are African-Americans.
During class, each student pinched a part of clay and pulled it to form a wing, then repeated it to make a pair. Their clay birds cannot fly, of course, but it did not matter to these children. They had the choice to create, and so their imaginations soared.
“The risk of being creative, which we lose as we get older,” Marie said, “the kids just have it.” Marie said that it was faith that brought her to meeting Rebeca and the introduction to the art in community program. “Faith in the sense that I believed there was a place for my passion, working with and teaching children, art,” she said.
Marie used to create environmental installations before getting involved with the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) program in Richmond, where she wrote a curriculum linking sciences and art. After years of living a “lucrative life” of art culture, Marie “realized doing something like this [teaching] held a deep sense of well being within.”
The STEAM program, tied to the Common Core, has been essential to the community program. It acknowledges art and design in learning different subjects. Art is the “glue to learning,” Richmond Art Center Executive Director Ric Ambrose said.
Each student carefully places their molded clay birds on plates and Marie collects them in a box ready for glazing. Students are also taught how to be responsible with their materials and the room. Several students cleaned-up after their class.
“Think of the Richmond Art Center as a person – one arm in exhibitions and one arm in education,” Rebeca said. That person is aiming that the little ones walk out of the room not only with “pinch and pull” thoughts, but also a further sense of freedom ready for their flight to creativity and learning.
Link online: https://richmondconfidential.org/2014/10/02/richmond-art-center-provides-a-blank-canvas-for-community-creativity-and-learning/
