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RVA #37 Is On The Streets Now!

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Summer is alive in the River City, and the latest issue of RVA Magazine is here with it to tell the stories of arts, music, politics, and culture across Virginia.

It’s August, it’s hot, and it’s only going to get hotter here in the River City with the arrival on the streets of RVA Magazine #37, our Summer 2019 issue! This one’s bursting all around, with plenty of art, music, news, politics, and more. From the far corners of the Commonwealth to right here in Rich! Mond! Vee! Ay!, RVA Magazine is on point with the coverage of Virginia’s street-level culture that you’ve known and loved for the past 14 years.

The biggest news of the summer here in Richmond was the reunion of Avail, the band who defined Richmond’s music scene in the 90s and helped put the river city on the musical map throughout the country and beyond. After 12 years away from the stage, they brought a hotly-anticipated two-night stand to the National and blew fans’ minds all over again. In the run-up to that memorable weekend of rock, we had an exclusive conversation about their reunion with vocalist Tim Barry, and you’ll find it all in this issue of RVA Magazine!

PHOTO: Ken Penn

We’re also bringing you an in-depth profile of Trevor Frost, a photographer and Richmond native whose work with National Geographic and other world-renowned publications has taken him to every corner of the globe. You’ll learn what Frost has seen and discovered in his voyages, and why he keeps coming back to Richmond every time.

Photo of Trevor Frost by Melissa Lesh

We don’t just focus on Richmond, though — our reporting takes us to the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth this issue, where we learn about Tennessee-adjacent Lee County’s attempts to create a policy based on comments from political leaders about arming teachers to prevent school shootings. Why does this rural county at the very tip of Virginia’s panhandle think such a policy is a good idea? And how do they intend to put it into practice? We’ll give you a deeper look.

Photo by John Donegan

We’ve got a lot more in store for you in this issue as well, from a GayRVA report on the recently-released documentary capturing and honoring the life of legendary Richmond cult figure Dirtwoman to an exclusive conversation with up and coming postpunk band Unmaker. We’ll also learn about the hip hop and skateboarding connection with Richmond’s own Washington Avenue Skateboards, and take a closer look at the history of the city’s underground graffiti scene — a major influence on the mural boom RVA is undergoing today.

All of that is in store for you when you grab your very own copy of RVA #37, available in all your favorite local businesses around town. Get yours now… they’re going fast!

Check out the digital version on Issuu here.

Future Perfect: The Art of Chris Smart

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*This article originally appeared in RVA Mag #35, on the streets now at all your favorite spots.

Chris Smart is a photographer, artist, and visual engineer based in Richmond, Virginia.

In Smart’s work, he brings to life the physical and metaphysical connections we all have with our surroundings. “We are constantly on the hunt for a connection, whether it be spiritual, physical, or technological,” he says. “With my ongoing project titled Future: Love, I’m trying to portray the way I personally view human connections; connections with ourselves, the universe and our place within it.”

“For me, the beauty lies in the fact that every person will have a different view of reality than the next,” Smart tells us. He’s aware that his work is very open to interpretation, and he embraces this reality, seeing it as fuel for the imagination of the viewer. “Everyone takes their own message, whether that is positive, negative or indifferent — and there’s power in that.”

Find Chris Smart on Instagram at @theartofcjs.

Photographer Phillup Lyons Gets “RAW” at Fresh Richmond Saturday

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In the wake of the #MeToo movement, photographers are reevaluating the portrayal of women in their work. Richmond photographer Phillup Lyons’ upcoming show, which is entitled “RAW” and will be on view at Fresh Richmond Saturday, is, according to Lyons, an exploration of the female form in a “tasteful way.”

Lyons, who also goes by Rouge Jungle, works mainly with female models. When men appear in the photos, they are clothed, but much of his work focuses on nude or almost-nude women, posing in sheets or bathtubs. One female model poses lying on the floor at the bottom of a staircase.

“I’ve always shot women, and I’ve always enjoyed the female form overall as an art form,” said Lyons. “I don’t want it to seem like it’s a fetish or anything, like ‘Oh my god I love women,’ I just appreciate them in a certain kind of way. I want to share my appreciation through my work.”

Lyons is concerned with the predictable way women are depicted in modern photography, especially in online media: “With the rise of social media, I think photographers in general have fallen into the same pattern of the ideal woman — portraying women in a certain way, and not portraying them in a variety of ways.”

He strives to represent women differently from other photographers. When asked how he accomplishes this, Lyons said, “What I think separates my art from other people’s work is that I study art. I study different forms of art, I think that translates well in my work, so it doesn’t become so sexualized.”

The low light, high contrast, and bare skin so often found in his work gives a sexual element to the pieces. “Sensual” is the word used most often, Lyons said, when he asks models and viewers to describe his work. “[The models] don’t feel like I’m objectifying them in a certain kind of way,” said Lyons.

In order to create his work, Lyons values collaboration and honest conversations with the models, although he prefers to use the word “subjects.” “I just have a really honest conversation,” he said. “I’m not perfect in my point of view, I know that. I can always grow. I want the models feel their point of view is valued — I don’t even use the word models. I prefer subjects, like a subject of my photography. I believe every person I work with has their own story, and their own experience that they bring to my art, and I try to bring that to the people that enjoy my art.”

As a male photographer focusing on the #MeToo movement, Lyons said, “I’m very conscious that I’m a guy. I’m not doing it from a guilty standpoint, or a male guilt standpoint, but I wanted to use my platform to continue this conversation.”

This exhibit will show Lyons’ “best work to date.” Lyons’ inspiration from this show in part comes from his good friend and musical artist, Suzi Analogue, who also curated the show. “Her music is inspirational,” said Lyons, “She has been a big inspiration for this stretch of my life.”

Lyons’ advice for aspiring artists: “Do what you think is dope. That’ll be what lasts the longest, what you believe in.”

See Phillup Lyons’ photography at Fresh Richmond, located at 213 E. Broad St, on Saturday, December 15 from 7 til 10 PM. For more info, click here. You can find Rouge Jungle on Instagram.

“The Tragicly Poetic” Series Opens A Dark World of Nightmares and Redemption

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*Editors Note:

RVA Mag came across Ashley Loth’s images by chance and found them powerful, dark, and atmospheric. A dreamscape of anxiety and apprehension drawn across a world both accessible and ephemeral. We asked Loth to explain in her own words what creating this photo series meant for her. 

“The Tragicly Poetic” is a series that opens up a closed door, focusing on childhood trauma, young adult life experiences, along with sensitive issues on rape, eating disorders, depression, mental illness, addiction, infidelity and abusive relationships. This series reclaims the power I felt I’d lost. A bleeding heart, I pour everything I have into what I do. This series is a mixture of understanding that everyone has a dark side, and honoring that sometimes playing the villain in someone else’s story is what is needed so they can rise up and be their own hero.

And sometimes redemption is not needed by those who have hurt you and that the only closure you have is by freeing yourself from that hurt.

The second book in the “Tragicly Poetic Series,” is “The Blue Book,” and has separate chapters facing those issues, recreating scenes from both real-world experience and nightmares. Using multiple poems, I included conceptual photography for each poem. The images depict what I experienced or viewed in dreams. For example, one chapter titled “Monster,” dives deep into my mental psych in my young adult years. The relatable chapter brings the thoughts and feelings of being a lost soul into a visual and emotional encounter for the reader.

For years, I have had these dreams that were experiences that happened to me, that were twisted by my mind to make them more dream-like and fictional. I decided to write about them along with trying to recreate those dreams in my reality to further understand the root of that pain.

I hope that people find the same healing and empowerment from the introspective and creative series and hope to shed light on experiences and feelings many people hide from in the dark. In doing so, I and the viewers can “take the power back.”

“The Blue Book” is slated for a fall 2019 release. More work by Ashley Loth can be found here.

Photos By: Ashley Loth of Sound Snap Photography, Model: Alice Reed

Truthful Witnessing: Images From The Black Photographers Annual At The VMFA

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James Baldwin, hands clasped behind his back, stares off-camera in the black and white photo that opens Truthful Witnessing: The Black Photographers Annual, Volume 3 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The arresting image by Anthony Barboza doesn’t appear within the annual, but an essay by its subject, Baldwin, does, as an introduction.

“James Baldwin –Author,” 1975, Anthony Barboza © Anthony Barboza

Themes from that essay by one of America’s greatest authors run throughout the entire exhibit, from the name “truthful witnessing”, taken from a line describing the volume, to the selection of images that focus on the experiences of black men and women as photographed by black artists.

Inspired by the essay, and wanting to feature artists who she wouldn’t have other chances to show, curator Dr. Sarah Eckhardt admitted she “cheated a little” in selecting contemporaneous works “that could have been in the annual” and would “fit the theme of testimony found in Baldwin’s essay.” Like the companion volume, the exhibit of 20 images is the third in a four-part series showcasing work by photographers who appeared in four-volume annuals. The original volumes were produced in 1973, ‘74, ‘76, and ‘80 as an outgrowth of the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of black artists whose name translates from the Kikuyu language of Kenya into English as “to work together.”

The volumes were intended to promote the work of black photographers, Eckhardt said, saying they “came out of the lack of opportunity for black photographers in mainstream media.” The board of the museum undertook a similar goal in 2015, establishing a five-year strategic plan to increase representation of black photographers. One significant step toward that goal occurred in 2016 with the acquisition of a Kamoinge founder, Richmond-born Louis Draper. Everyone wanted it, Eckhardt said, but “we built a relationship with the family, and made a promise to his sister to show it here. She wanted him to be known in his hometown.”

It was that archive that made the current exhibition possible. After reading an article about Draper and the annuals, Eckhardt reviewed their archive and found all four. “I was just absolutely struck by how beautiful they were,” she said.

“Two Bass Hit, Lower East Side,” 1972, Beuford Smith © Beuford Smith/Cesaire

With all four volumes available at the VMFA website in digitized form, it’s the works Eckhardt selected that didn’t appear in the annuals that stand out. Among them, three pieces by Mikki Ferrill, who appeared in volumes one and two. “I only acquired her work in time to show it now,” Eckhardt said, describing the series as a chance to highlight exciting acquisitions as they come in. Ferrill wasn’t a Kamoinge member and only appeared in the first two volumes. “I won’t have another chance to show her work for a while, but I think it’s amazing, I just wanted to get it out there,” she said.

The artist excelled at “showing relationships” Eckhardt said, pointing to one photo where a woman gives a man a dubious look as he speaks, over and beyond her to an unseen audience. “She captures the glance at just the right moment,” Eckhardt said. Although there is no other context, the work shares an intimate moment between two people that feels familiar and immediately recognizable.

“America seen through Stars and Stripes, New York City, New York,” printed ca. 1976, Ming Smith. © Ming Smith, Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery, New York

Another piece that could have appeared in the volume but didn’t is Ming Smith’s “America seen through Stars and Stripes, New York City, New York.” Smith appeared in all four annuals, but this striking image of a man in mirror shades in front of hanging American flags did not.  “It fit so beautifully with the theme of Baldwin’s essay,” Eckhardt said, adding that she paraphrased a long quote from that work on the photo’s label.

That quote, which brings to mind Donald Glover’s recent music video for “This Is America”, begins by acknowledging 1975 as the American Bicentennial, but goes on to question the significance of the date. “I am writing this at the very beginning of the Bi-centennial Year,” Eckhardt said, reading the label. “But I have no real interest in America’s birthday, since I no longer expect Americans to grow up. Americans have, themselves, made the date irrelevant precisely by their avoidance of the testimony here recorded, and by their inability to face the truth concerning themselves and that history which has made, and makes, the lives of all black and non-white people so dangerous and so hard.”

Eckhardt compared the essay to a statement by Ming about her piece, in which the artist “quoted an aunt who said, “If you had seen the things I’ve seen…” she doesn’t share the details, but she was talking about the pain of being black in America. It all comes together.”

Pointing to Baldwin’s quote, she added, “This was in 1976. He was just so current…or maybe we’ve regressed.”

“Truthful Witnessing” remains on display in the photography gallery until Oct 2018.

All photos courtesy of the VMFA. Cover image “Pensacola, Florida,” 1966, Anthony Barboza © Anthony Barboza

‘PROOF’: The World According to Norfolk Photographer Mark Atkinson

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In today’s world, people are constantly bombarded with visual representations in all aspects of their everyday lives. In the hyper contextualized world of Instagram and Facebook, it can be easy for a person to forget the refined authority of a trained photographer’s eye – one that can tell a comprehensive story. And given the ease in which a person can now experiment with photography via their mobile phones, there are only a precious few who still have these talents without the crutch of modern tools. 

Mark Edward Atkinson is one of these precious few. He is a rare and illustrious photographic artist whose ability to transform experience beyond time and space into a single frame has singled him out even amongst his peers. In honor of this career and the transformative photos he has shot globally over the years, a retrospective of his career called PROOF opens this Friday in Norfolk at The Hermitage Museum. And with it comes a unique sense of purpose, since his body of work can never be replicated through the comfort of your mobile phone, only through a lens that has experienced all that life has to offer. 

Atkinson, began his journey as a photographer during his years at Wake Forest University studying print journalism before finding his way behind the camera. Yet his years as a photojournalist compelled him on a journey that has chronicled his keen ability to tell life’s stories through powerful images. He has effectively translated this journey into solid, striking moments through his lens – capturing icons or everyday people in portrait form – each stolen spirit living within the frame, which speaks from a place far beyond the space it was taken from.

In today’s world there are so many ways to quantify a photographer’s talent: 1,000 likes or $1,000, but to experience the depth of character, the darkness of the moment, the rapture of being present requires a certain kind of alchemy to translate still photos into a linear story for the viewer. 

PROOF is full of this visual storytelling, and each subject (alive or inanimate) represents a turbulent character arc. All of which is the mark not only of a seasoned photographer, but a great story-teller.  Atkinson’s body of work carries the stories of 1,000 different lifetimes and through his work and publishing will inevitably inspire and influence thousands more.

Atkinson’s roots are local to Norfolk, making him one of the most prolific artists still producing a body of work in Virginia today. For this reason, Carrie Spencer, Hermitage Curator of Contemporary Art, has said, “While many of Mark’s photographs have been taken all over the world, his roots are here in Hampton Roads. These photographs provide a window to various places both near and far.” She went on to comment how through his images people were “able to traverse the globe and gain a glimpse of the international human experience.”  

These local roots have always been important to Atkinson and informed his experience as a photographer. In the 1980s and after college, he moved to Norfolk and became the photo-editor of Commonwealth Magazine. He eventually opened a studio and began to explore commercial work and advertising.

Atkison’s exhibit PROOF is an exhibition that will also debut the release of his book of the same title. In doing so, the viewers of his work will hopefully see that the power of photography and what those photos convey is more than just a printed picture. That it isn’t who possesses the camera, but how the camera possesses the operator, acting as a channel to capture the beauty, tragedy, and solemnity of a moment in time that would otherwise be lost forever. 

This is an age in which photography is playing a critical role in our lives. Least of all, because the magic and mystery behind the lens have dissolved with the increased access to technology – a camera hides inside the pocket of each American. Yet it is storytellers like Atkinson who continue to show us that art can still come from behind the camera and that certain photos will always breathe their own rhythm, with a conductor that knows how to properly align each piece. 

PROOF opens on Friday, April 13th. Members are encouraged to come early at 6 pm for a cocktail hour and the general public is invited to join at 7 pm. Tickets are available here. The exhibition runs from April 13th to July 22nd at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens.

Photos By: Mark Atkinson