On certain Friday nights, patrons entering Biancoverde restaurant at Point Richmond’s Hotel Mac are serenaded with arias from an operatic voice in a cozy alcove lounge. A vibrato breaks through the low din of the packed bar and dining room. Patrons, some opera aficionados, some neophytes, sit with rapt attention while a real opera diva performs, returning to their drinks, meals, and conversations between the solo numbers she alternates with the evening’s divo. Such a scene plays out the first…
Group behind Richmond Arts Corridor asks City Council for more time and money to put a plan together
Richmond Renaissance, the collective of local artists spearheading development of the Richmond Arts Corridor, is asking City Council for more money and a six-month deadline extension to produce a plan. Tuesday’s City Council agenda shows the group will seek an additional $15,000 for door-to-door canvassing to beef up the Arts Corridor’s strategic plan. The project aims to revitalize downtown Richmond by establishing an arts hub at the intersection of Macdonald Avenue and 23rd Street. The plan is expected to include…
On the third Thursday of each month, Richmond’s poet laureate, Stephen Sharpe, hosts a poetry Open Mic Night at CoBiz Richmond, a coworking space on Macdonald Avenue next to the BART station. At the October event, Sharpe and CoBiz Executive Director Wesley Alexander arrived early to transform the atrium into an intimate auditorium. They set up three rows of eight chairs before the mic stand, and projected the logo of Afterword Press, Sharpe’s publishing business, on the wall behind the…
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…