Editor's Note: Writers Block is an occasional series featuring personal essays, reflections, and creative nonfiction from Richmond-area writers. In Seeing Richmond Through Their Eyes, Gabriella Ryan shares how a month spent showing her Italian cousins around Richmond...
For four nights this weekend, bands from different generations of Richmond's music scene are taking over Get Tight Lounge. Called Tonal Recall, the series is part reunion show, part showcase and part excuse for a bunch of old friends to get back in the same room. Behind it all is Good Day RVA. If you've been around Richmond music for the last...
"Richmond has your back... maybe." That about sums it up, doesn't it? It's the slogan behind KCPFC, a new football-inspired project from Kwame Hayford, the guy behind Kwam's Chicken Project, and Richmond designer Ignatius Friend. The collection blends soccer culture with fried chicken, which wasn't something I expected to write about this week....
Editor's Note: This article was produced as part of our partnership with the Science Museum of Virginia. Not every night out has to end with squeezing into a crowded bar. Sometimes it's nice to grab a drink, eat something good, learn a few things, and actually have something to talk about afterward. Sounds like a pretty solid date night, or at...
Just weeks after bringing together Latino muralists from across Virginia for a collaborative project in Richmond, artist George Arturo is once again turning to public art. Following the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent during an immigration enforcement operation in Houston last week, Arturo wants to donate his time and...
I went to Virginia MOCA expecting to hear Andy Howell talk about skateboarding. Instead, I left thinking about community and how people find each other. Howell's installation opens Seamless, the museum's new exhibition exploring the overlap between art and design. At first glance, it feels almost chaotic. A skateboard hangs in front of a wall...
It was the USA's 250th birthday this past weekend, and it felt like it was 250 degrees outside. During a heat wave, a pool is the place to be, and the annual Fourth of July party at Daddy's Grotto was the cool down for the hottest queers in town. Daddy's Grotto is literally just the name of Brad Kutner and his husband Marcus's backyard, where...
How two decades of community organizing grew into a vision for land ownership, education, and self-determination. The first time I met Duron Chavis, he wasn't talking about farmland. He was talking about culture. It was the early 2000s, and Happily Natural Day was still in its infancy. Founded in 2003 at Richmond's Black History Museum &...
Editor's Note: We're sharing this essay from community content partner Jon Baliles of RVA 5x5. If you enjoy his work and want more in-depth coverage of Richmond politics and history, consider subscribing to RVA 5x5 on Substack. The views expressed are those of the author. As the 250th Independence Day weekend winds down, we take a peek back at...
There is a spotlight still mounted in the rafters of 528 N. 2nd Street. It has been there since 1914. It has outlasted segregation, fire, the highway that cut Jackson Ward in two, and decades of silence. On the nights when the Hippodrome Theater fills up, that light falls on the stage the same way it fell on Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and a...
