In the depths of the Great Depression, not everything was coming up roses in Richmond.
But Hazel Salmi had a vision that art could transform lives, even when jobs were scarce and art supplies were hard to come by. One of the first classes she offered in 1936 after moving to Point Richmond was in flower arranging, a seed that soon blossomed into the Richmond Art Center.
The center, one of the Bay Area’s longest-running arts organizations, is marking its 90th year with two milestones: It has hired a new executive director and it’s launching 90 days worth of events and exhibits.
Vicky Chen has been hired as the new executive director, according to art center officials. The Pinole resident will trade a decade-long commute to Oakland’s Children’s Fairyland, where she was senior director of education and community engagement, for one closer to home. She starts Sept. 21 — just days before the center’s 90th-anniversary gala on Sept. 25.
“The diversity and community vibrancy is always something that draws me to this place,” Chen told Richmondside. “I’ve been following the fun, welcoming events on social media that they’ve been producing recently, including presenting local artists from different diasporas. My hope is to invite more people to the Richmond Art Center, to reach people who live so close and may not know about it, to let them know that we’re here as a resource.”
It’s an infusion of new energy from an artist and administrator who’s been closely watching activities at the center since she volunteered at the organization’s 75th anniversary celebration. The opportunity to take the reins, which emerged after a long national search, proved irresistible.
With a background in nonprofit management, arts education, and community engagement, Chen spent the past decade expanding youth programs and producing community gatherings and cultural celebrations with local artists and partner organizations at Children’s Fairyland, a beloved East Bay institution. As a graphic artist, she’s received public art commissions and served two terms on the Alameda County Arts Commission’s Public Art Advisory Committee.
“I think the aspiration to be a public artist translated into being an arts administrator, where you touch everyone who looks at the art.” — Vicky Chen
Photo courtesy of Richmond Art Center
Born and raised in Taiwan, she moved with her family to Southern California in the 1990s, settling in the East Bay about 20 years ago. With a master’s degree in fine art in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, she began her Bay Area career as a visual artist and educator teaching printmaking and bookmaking.
Free 90th community party is Saturday
The festivities begin soon, with an opening reception and community party kicking off the nonagenarian birthday celebration on Sat., Aug. 29, from noon to 3 p.m. The free event marks the start of three anniversary exhibitions running Sept. 2 through Nov. 19: “One Artist Contributes, Then Another, Then Another,” “Ninety@Ninety” and “First Impressions.”
If you go
What: The Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., is celebrating its 90th anniversary with a series of events.
When: The opening reception and community party is Sat., Aug. 29, noon to 3 p.m.; several exhibits will run Sept. 2 through Nov. 19; and there is a Sept. 25 fundraising gala. Opening event and exhibits are free; gala tickets are $150 and up.
The all-ages afternoon includes art-making, live music by the Dwayne Oakley Blues Ensemble, food, birthday cake, and a variety of family-friendly activities. In honor of the center’s founder, the artist, educator and flower-arranging aficionado Salmi, who died in 1986, guests will be encouraged to create a personal corsage, floral crown, or other flowery adornment.
“Everything is coming together for us, just in time for this celebration,” said Jeff Nathanson, interim executive director, who has led the center for the past year.
Sitting in the campus’s sunny courtyard on a recent Saturday, where a giant, colorful piñata hung above the scene, Nathanson and Amy Spencer, the center’s community engagement director, greeted a handful of artists delivering works for “Ninety@Ninety,” an exhibition designed to showcase the broad spectrum of work being created around the city. The campus was humming, with people wandering through the three galleries on the last day of “Made In Richmond,” an exhibition organized by Visual Artists of Richmond (VAR).
“RAC is a huge influence in the artists’ community,” said Brian Conery, VAR co-founder. “Not just with all the classes they offer. I know a number of people who have or do teach there. They’re a great resource, and that Open Studios partnership has been a huge success.”
Reaching its 90th milestone wasn’t always a smooth journey
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the Richmond Art Center would make it to this milestone looking strong. For an arts institution to survive 90 years, many things have to go right: Leadership successions must be skillfully managed, particularly the handoff from a founder to a new leadership team, and economic ups and downs bring a different set of challenges depending on the year.
Like countless arts organizations, the center took a hit during the pandemic shutdown. By 2022 it had lost some of its largest annual donations and had some city funding cutbacks, forcing it to fight to get its balance sheet back in the black. It finally reported in January of 2024 that things were back on track thanks to fundraising efforts and partnerships with other arts organizations that increased attendance.
It was in the process of expanding its faculty and student communities when then-Executive Director José R. Rivera went on medical leave last September.
Interim director Nathanson, who had run the center in the late 1990s and had retired from a series of leadership positions at other arts organizations, returned at this crucial time. He oversaw the major “Art of the African Diaspora” exhibition while Spencer has led the center’s relationships with local artists through VAR and their flagship Richmond Open Studios initiative.
A newly found archive fills in decades of missing history
But crises aren’t new to the organization, given it was founded during the Great Depression. Salmi, an artist trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and UC Berkeley, created the center with support from the federal government’s job-generating Works Progress Administration.
However, many details of the center’s early years were lost — until this year.
While it is known that RAC moved into its present campus downtown on Barrett Avenue in 1951, “We didn’t have much in the way of records or documentation for the years before that,” Spencer told Richmondside.
But several months ago, she got a call from the city library that a trove of RAC historical material needed a home during the library’s renovation.
Spencer ended up with six boxes of material, including Salmi’s brown leather bound scrapbook of photos and newspaper articles covering the center’s first years. Some of the materials will be on display, including a brochure from the center’s first exhibition, complete with a Works Progress Administration logo.
The photos from Salmi’s 1930s flower arranging classes, often attended by well-dressed women, offer a portal into a vanished world that made the present-day art center possible. Her vision to found a “community studio workshop” attracted many of the region’s leading artists, and the galleries were often among the first to exhibit their work.
“Over the years, the faculty was really a who’s who of Bay Area artists,” Nathanson said. “Diebenkorn, Terry Fox, Paul Kos, Emiko Nakano were a few.”
Chen can relate to Salmi’s original vision of making art accessible as a shared, public practice. It’s what drew her to the field in the first place.
“I had a practice in Oakland but had to close the studio when I started a family,” Chen said. “I think the aspiration to be a public artist translated into being an arts administrator, where you touch everyone who looks at the art. Twenty years later, this drive — this spark — has translated into working for arts organizations welcoming of everyone.”
