Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. We’re standing on some corner in downtown Richmond: me, my two friends, a pair of women, and their male friend we had met...
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. We feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. “Big Flame is Gonna Break My Heart in Two” by Richmond writer Nate Waggoner drifts through the blur of early college years, where...
Under the Manchester Bridge, what had been an idea for years turned into something tangible, at least for a day. Hundreds of people moved through the space as muralists painted, DJs played, and passersby stopped mid-bike ride or walk to figure out what was going on. By the end of the afternoon, the one-day test of a proposed arts park felt less...
If you are in the market for a glass eye in the same shade as your lover’s, some elaborate hair jewelry, or even an electric couch to use as a Victorian cure-all, then you need to head over to The Veiled Mirror. This Victorian antique store opened downtown in January, during the great icing of RVA. Olivia Lloyd and Kath Parker have curated a...
It was 72 and breezy. Unseasonably pleasant, almost chilly. VCU students were splayed out on picnic blankets in Monroe Park enjoying soft serve and the sunshine. Citronella and the smell of hot dogs wafted through the air from some folks having a cookout. “High energy, high discipline” was the chant from activists from the Richmond chapter of the...
Editor’s Note: Max Winter is a University of Richmond alumnus reflecting on his time at UR in the late ’90s and the campus culture he experienced. You can read more of his work on his Substack HERE. Recently, while eating carnitas in East LA, I check my phone and get blasted with an absurd screenshot. A text out of nowhere from my old college...
“Katie Davis left home (Maine) at 16 and moved to Richmond Virginia. She started working in a tattoo shop at age 17. A total dream job for a music and art loving minor delinquent. While apprenticing and working full time, she also attended/graduated VCU with a BFA in Fine Arts. Fred and Katie opened Salvation Tattoo in 2004 on Pine St in Oregon...
The City of Richmond is giving organizers behind a proposed arts park under the Manchester Bridge a one-day opportunity to test the concept in real time. Scheduled for Saturday April 25 from 12-5pm, the event will serve as a live proof of concept for what supporters have described as a “vibrant arts park,” an open, artist-led space built around...
Before the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU was even around, and before the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts really began to embrace contemporary work, especially anything connected to street art or artists working in the present, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art was already doing that work. It was one of the few...
Join us for Salon de Résistance on April 30 at Black Iris for an unfiltered conversation about the role of art and culture during times of political upheaval with three of Richmond's leading artists. This is a free event open to the public. Event page here. Art has never been neutral. Across generations, artists have either...
