Kennedy High art teacher finalist for The Ed Fund

kennedy high art steve mainini

Dozens of palm-sized faces hang from the ceiling in Steve Mainini’s art classroom at Kennedy High School. The ceramic reflections of former students dangle in wire cages and defy gravity as if trapped in some sort of bad dream. But for the hundreds of students that have enrolled in Mainini’s art classes the past eight…

Read More

Richmond students prepare for countywide Poetry Out Loud contest

It was less than two weeks until Contra Costa’s Poetry Out Loud recitation contest and 9th grader Allyson Gayoso, a 14-year-old from Richmond’s Salesian High School, was reciting a poem from memory with the confidence of a seasoned orator. Inside a small, quiet office, Gayoso practiced the words of “On an Unsociable Family,” an 18th…

Read More

Richmond music video in support of Obama goes viral

Picture of storefront with Obama poster

A music video recorded by a coalition of Richmond-based artists, featuring an inmate and a parolee in support of President Barack Obama’s campaign for reelection, has gone viral on YouTube, attracting more than 80,000 views with at least 60,000 people having watched it in the past week. The song, titled “Change,” features the vocals of…

Read More

Point Richmond is not your normal walk in the art

Every third Thursday, between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., downtown Point Richmond transforms itself into a little party and art mecca. Residents, near or far, roam the sleepy streets by the tunnel, and stop into a variety of galleries and studios to chat with artists or owners. And if that wasn’t cool enough, visitors are…

Read More

Art Behind Doors

Lead Art, picture of a green door.

Sculpting our bedroom lives. Turning gas tanks into robots. Finding beauty in roadkill. Four artists open their homes to Richmond Confidential.

Read More

Creating a community of learners

Since 2005, the Elders Learning Community has paired professionals in the community with elderly seniors learning lessons in areas such as astronomy, history, art. But time spent in these learning partnerships is teaching local volunteers other life lessons outside of these subjects.

Read More