Art in autumn: Family Day, new exhibits, artist talks and workshops at Richmond Art Center

Colorful portraits of ancestral traditions and spirits, and delicate hanging sculptures of everyday objects are just some of the offerings on display at the Richmond Art Center this fall.

Three new exhibits — “Seeds of Tradition,” “Big Feelings,” and “Unsettled Things/Things I Had to Leave Behind” — opened last month and will run through Nov. 20. The center will host free events for the public to meet the artists and engage in hands-on workshops over the next six weeks.

“The fall shows are all emerging or underrepresented artists who we selected for their potential to engage the public,” said Amy Spencer, community engagement director.

The first event, Fall Family Day, is Saturday, from noon to 3 p.m., in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day. It features an artist talk by Luis Garcia, whose “Seeds of Tradition” is showing in the West Gallery. 

Oakland-based Garcia is a 2002 graduate of the California College of Arts and Crafts. His acrylic on canvas painting, rich in tropical colors and images, is inspired by his origins in El Salvador. Overall, his work emphasizes the interplay of people, culture, memory, and spirit in Mesoamerican cultures — “When I was in art school, I didn’t see that much,” he said. This exhibition is his first solo show. 

On Oct 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the RAC will host two artist talks and a workshop for the “Big Feelings” exhibit, currently showing in its main gallery. 

“Big Feelings” is three separate installations. The first, “Cascading Cartography” by Ayesha Ateekh, Bhagyasshree Ramakrishna and Shivani Vinayak Atre, began as a research project at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. The three graduated from Berkeley in 2025.

The exhibit is anchored by a heart-shaped map of Richmond rendered in colorful woven cloth that highlights the Iron Triangle, North & East, and North Richmond neighborhoods, where the trio researched  community-based economic revitalization. 

In their talk, they are inviting the Richmond community to use the map to discuss how Richmond’s small businesses operate in these neighborhoods, and how to harness their entrepreneurial energy to catalyze economic revival. 

“This art exhibition serves as a medium for us to take our studio work and our study into the public realm, and bring it into the general community and see what they think of it,” Ateekh said. 

The second is “The 6000 Circle Project,” a giant mobile composed of circular collages intended to radiate feminine energy and connection, by Chantelle Goldthwaite, Yasmin Lambie Simpson, and Sheila Metcalf Tobin. This project began as an exhibit in a 2022 show in Prague. In 2024, the artists issued a call for submissions from their Instagram followers. The display at the RAC is a sample of circles they’ve received from around the globe. 

“What I like about this idea is that anyone and everyone can participate in the creative process,” Lambie Simpson said. 

Goldthwaite, Lambie Simpson, and Tobin’s artist talk features a circle-making workshop to add to the project’s growth. 

The third “Big Feelings” installation is Emeryville-based Erin Fong’s “The Friendship Project,” a mural-sized piece made in letterpress print using handset woodtype. Fong’s work explores the struggles around building and maintaining adult friendships. She asked her Instagram followers to share their best advice on maintaining friendships and their favorite color. “The Friendship Project” is 288 prints of their responses arranged across the colors of the visible light spectrum. 

The final artist event this fall is sculptor Xinchen Li’s 3D printing pen workshops on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The workshop fee is $15, and registration is required due to limited space.

Li’s solo exhibition in the South Gallery, “Unsettled Things/Things I Had to Leave Behind,” explores issues of memory, loss, and migration she has experienced as a Chinese artist in the United States. She creates her sculptures with polylactic acid, a biodegradable 3D printing filament she described as an easy-to-access medium. 

“It’s a kind of child’s toy, really,” she said. The installation consists of the fine outlines of everyday objects — lamps, a mattress, a screen partition — she left behind while moving between temporary homes. Each piece is lit to cast heavy shadows on the gallery walls and floor. 

All fall 2025 exhibitions are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday to Saturday, through November 20. 

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