Buttermilk & Molasses

Hands On Day Totally Ruled

Let's get this out of the way fast: Hands On Day is the Richmond Folk Festival of community engagement.

The event, which matches hundreds of volunteers to dozens of community projects for a half day engagement, put the wraps on its second annual day of service today. And somewhere around 1,000 people are sleeping a little harder tonight. That's twice as many as last year, which makes 2010 an exciting opportunity to double up.

(Unless they immediately went home and took naps, like I did.)

It's almost embarrassing that my team was indoors all day, particularly when I look at photos from some of the project teams who spent the day working on houses, outdoor murals, park maintenance. It was cold, misty and wet outside today. Miserable might be an operative word.

The weather might have stopped my team -- which was set to paint murals on the asphalt playgrounds of Linwood Holton Elementary School (the puddle-strewn asphalt playgrounds) -- but Holton's assistant principal had other plans in mind for us.

Members of the Asian-American Society of Central Virginia and members of various Leadership Metro Richmond classes (above) were on hand to tackle whatever projects the school needed completed. The 15 volunteers at Holton jumped into action soon after everyone arrived -- painting sound-absorbing panels in the cafeteria, recording books onto tapes for students, cutting out several thousand letters and images out of construction paper for the teachers to use for bulletin boards. (Believe me when I say that the teachers will be most appreciative of the construction paper letters and images!)

Richmond Fire Chief Robert Creasy (above) and I were tagged as the project captains for the day, but I think we all agree that Eric from the Asian-American Society was the star of the show. He not only enlisted most of the volunteers on our project, but he went on a paint run when we ran short of supplies -- and returned to help us muscle through the final painting sprint.

Early in the afternoon, I went on a second paint run to the nearby Lowe's and (on a whim) swung by Pizza Hut to pick up lunch for the team. The four large pizzas were gone before we could even blink.

How great are the people who volunteered at Holton? Most of the team agreed to return when the sun came back out to tackle the outdoor painting and landscaping work that was deferred by the cruddy weather.

Did I mention that more than 1,000 volunteers turned out to tackle 40+ projects? John Murden at Church Hill People's News has the skinny on where to turn for more coverage:

More than 1,000 volunteers signed up for 40 service projects that all took place today as part of HandsOn Greater Richmond 2009, including projects at Armstrong High School and Bellevue Elementary. RVA Tweets has a running commentary from the day. The HandsOn Youtube page will be collecting video from the day and the HandsOn Flickr page will have photos from the day (and the local events ought to show up in the Church Hill Flickr pool, too).

Changing Richmond, 45 Projects and 1,000 Volunteers at a Time

One of the coolest, most ambitious initiatives around returns to Richmond for the second year on Saturday, October 17.

The Second Annual HandsOn Day crams 5,000 volunteer hours into one Saturday morning, and in the process transforms some swaths of our city long in need of a little TLC. It's not too late to volunteer a slice of your Saturday to a good cause.

The 45 projects are targeted toward area nonprofits, schools and parks. Volunteers will get their hands dirty building trails, painting murals, repairing homes, feeding the hungry and taking care of animals.

One of the coolest events on the docket is an extreme school makeover at Huguenot High School on Forest Hill Avenue (that's South of the James, people). Altria has donated a boatload of materials to paint six murals, build a new courtyard and generally overhaul the school, but the project calls for 300 volunteers to do all the heavy lifting required by this ambitious initiative.

In the mood for something a bit less intense? How about joining the Friends of Paradise Park or volunteering for the Visual Arts Center's one block cleanup? Feeling random? Sign up as a HandsOn Hero -- they'll assign you the project that lines up with your talents.

I'll be hanging out at Holton Elementary School in Richmond's Northside, working as a team captain on a playground and school yard clean-up project (and repainting a gigantic mural of the United States).

If you're interested in being part of one of the largest community spruce-up projects in Central Virginia, head over to Hands On Richmond and register to volunteer for HandsOn Day.

C3 and 1708 Host Stellar First Talk 20

Richmond's first Talk 20 event -- seven creatives with 20 slides and 20 seconds to talk about each slide, or scramble to catch up with their slides -- was a hit. At least the first half of it was; I had to slip out of the 1708 Gallery after the first four presenters did their thing.

The event, modeled after similar Talk 20 programs happening around the world, proved to be an excellent introduction to seven individual voices and their creative experiences, products and philosophies. Best of all, it was casual, periodically profound and clever, and delivered in good fun -- at a reasonably rapid clip.

Believe me, you'd be surprised how much you can tell in six minutes and 40 seconds.

Co-presented by the Creative Change Center (C3) and 1708 Gallery, the first of what both groups promise will be many Talk 20 events featured a dynamic lineup:

• Charles Foley of Scout Design
• Photographer Shaun Irving
• Painter and illustrator Matt Lively
• Artist Liz Kellinger
• Architect Michael Pellis
• Designer and skull aficionado Noah Scalin
• Gallery owner and tattoo artist Thea Duskin

Here are a few highlights from the first four voices in the room:

Charley Foley and his wife Angelina Robertson founded Scout Design together. As a series of projects -- booklets and websites and posters -- flipped through the screen behind him, Foley succinctly described how Scout Design sees itself.

"What bucket do I think I'm in?" he asked. "We're not advertisers and we're not designers, we're problem solvers."

Actually, they are designers, but as Foley walked through several of their projects it became clear that a passion for the work is a common theme.

Discussing the web design for photographer Gordon Stettinius, Foley encouraged the audience to check out the site's Gincrack Cinema, which he said "combines quotes that he likes with photographs in a random way with interesting results."

He also spoke of the catalog project for artist Carson Fox as an example of how they approach work. "We can get obsessive about details," he admitted; Fox's catalog is silk-screened and has a sewn binding -- done by the artists on a sewing machine in the kitchen.

As with all the subsequent presenters, Foley moved quickly through a casual discussion of their work, their clients and how they approach projects. Behind him, slides moved like clockwork. He moves steadily. Nothing feels rushed.

When he ends, it feels like just enough time.

Shawn Irving's story is a bit different. He sums up his creative endeavor in one statement: "I build giant cameras out of delivery trucks."

The truck is a giant light-free box with a lens. It makes big photos -- four feet tall and eight feed wide.

(The NYTimes' Lens blog tells Irving's story here.)

The self-trained giant truck photographer says he's self-trained, and that "it's been both a ringing success and a miserable failure." He goes on to described it as being "like a backyard science project."

One built on a tight budget.

"To get a set of custom lenses made for the truck was going to be $2,000," he said. "Plan B was to get some old military surplus ... my shutter is a cardboard box."

To develop giant prints, a simple solution -- buckets and sponges.

"The camera truck project has never been about fame... or money," he says. "Instead, it's about getting people excited about art. You can make beautiful things in simple ways."

Matt Lively's self-deprecating humor is as low-key as the artist himself appears to be during his six-minute monologue.

"I work in a big barn in the middle of nowhere and I don't talk to people very often," he begins. "Most of what I make is really horrible, but I make a lot of it."

"But I don't mean it's all horrible," he quickly adds.

Like the others, Lively describes his process in the simplest of terms: "I invent little characters and make up stories and combine the materials and stories with the materials I have."

Lively talked briefly about his painting and illustrations before going into more detail about his newer work on a children's book and a film.

He's modest about his success, as well. "I don't know how real jobs work," Lively says. "I know you get direct deposit."

The final Talk 20 presenter I saw was Liz Kellinger, whose Reveal/Conceal show last year was great to experience. The photography/painting exhibit began with a self-portrait.

"I started to wonder how other people if they were asked would present themselves," she says, as photos of those people -- ranging from the normal to the unusual (a naked man lounging in a bathtub filled with water and rose petals). In six months, she collected 500 photos; she chose seven to paint for the exhibit.

"What amazed me was the stories that came with the photos -- the epiphanies and fears," Kellinger says.

Fourth Annual Ruby's Run Set for November 8

If you were living in Richmond at the start of 2006, then you know how a significant portion of Richmond region collapsed in on itself at the news of the New Year's Day murders of Bryan, Kathryn, Stella and Ruby Harvey.

Out of tragedy, hope.

Just ten months after their deaths, a group came together to organize the first Ruby's Run -- because even at the young age of four Ruby loved to run, and she loved to laugh.

The Fourth Annual Ruby's Run will be held on Sunday, November 8, at the Carillon Grounds in Byrd Park. Kids four to 12 can run, and all proceeds go to scholarships in Ruby Harvey's memory at Second Presbyterian Child Care Center and at Theatre IV's Children's Theatre. The races begin at 2:00 (and runners can pick their packets up at 1:00).

It is celebration time once again. In just a few short weeks, we will hold the 4th annual Ruby’s Run. For the children it is an afternoon of running around, face painting, hair painting, dressing up, climbing trees, knocking around a soccer ball, and all the fun that comes with doing that with so many other people your own size – a totally child centered event.

For us, the adults, is a time to remember and celebrate the love that Ruby and her family brought to all of our lives and to the wider Richmond community...

Years seem to fly by, yet some days seem to drag on interminably – we all know that feeling. It is hard to believe that almost four years have passed until we look around us at the kids who are growing up a little bit more each day. Some of our runners from the 2006 Ruby’s Run have “aged out” of the races, and will volunteer this year. Little ones who were infants back then will race this year for the first time.

And so it goes. We see the event as a legacy of love. I hope you do too.

If you want a reminder of what it’s all about, click on the photo links below from the 2nd and 3rd years’ races, and go the website www.rubys-run.com and click on the picture link for photos from the very first year. http://www.backlightdigital.com/Ruby2008/   www.backlightdigital.com/RubysRun/index.html (2007)

Endearing RVA Rap, Take Two

I'm throwing the obligatory embedded video above for the six of you who have not seen the almost-viral RiverCityVA804 video, which has gone from 300 to 15,000 views on YouTube over the past 24 hours. (Viral is a slower process in Richmond.)

Richmond.com's Karri Pfeifer has the scoop on the home grown rap video celebrating some of the aspects of Richmond culture that get the young, working hipsters appropriately excited about living and working here. It turns out that it was developed to get the young, working hipsters excited.

Mission accomplished. Well, for 15,000 of them.

It all started with YRichmond, a local "talent and retention program powered by C3 to attract and retain top talent in the Richmond area," said Katie Coleman, recruiting manager for First Market Bank and committee member at YRichmond.

"Jim Ukrop, Chairman of First Market Bank, approached me with the idea of adding to this internship program by creating some sort of advertisement for recruiters, such as myself, to take with us on campuses and advertise the city of Richmond," Coleman said.

Members of the YRichmond steering committee came up with the idea of doing a video; Coleman took it to fellow YRichmonder Dana Bolfing from Park Group, who drafted her coworkers Nathan Burns and Stuart Holt to help with the project.

The only thing missing? Some on-air talent and that’s where Sam Abouhasira and Blaine Lay, two financial services advisors from First Market Bank branches, come in. That’s right, those guys are not actors, they’re not singers, they’re not dancers. They’re financial service advisors, which sounds like a job that doesn’t usually involve a lot of singing or dancing.

And it doesn’t.

"I [don’t] officially [have any training] but I do some of that in my own in my own time … I write some poetry and rhymes," Abouhasira said.

It was a 12 hour filming project with a bit of time in the editing booth tacked on. It's gotten a lot of attention, and may well attract a handful of new recruits to Richmond's young professional class. It sure beats the "Easy To Love" slogan.

"We Long for a Bold Urban Vision"

There was one line that caught my attention in Nicolai Ouroussoff's NYTimes piece on reinventing America's urban landscape.

The line? "We long for a bold urban vision." Too bad our city's leaders aren't yearning with us.

Ouroussoff argues that the time is now to not only restore, but to renew and reinvent, America's cities. He smartly notes that what is required is no more ambitious or absurd than the Work Projects Administration of the 1930s or Eisenhower's 1956 mandate for a national highway system. He points to New Orleans, Los Angeles, The Bronx and Buffalo as examples to study.

Given that the administration has already made sustainability a priority, that money could be redirected to other projects, like efforts that reinforce density rather than encourage urban sprawl. It could be used to replace crumbling expressways with the kind of local roads and parks that bind communities together rather than tear them apart.

I am also a fan of a National Infrastructure Bank, an idea that was first proposed by the financiers Felix Rohatyn and Everett Ehrlich.

The bank would function something like a domestic World Bank, financing large-scale undertakings like subways, airports and harbor improvements. Presumably it would be able to funnel money into the more sustainable, forward-looking projects. It could also establish a review process similar to the one created by the government’s General Services Administration in the mid-1990s, which attracted some of the country’s best talents to design federal courthouses and office buildings. Lavishing similar attention on bridges, pump stations, trains, public housing and schools would not only be a significant step in rebuilding a sense of civic pride; it would also prove that our society values the public infrastructure that binds us together as much as it values, say, sheltering the rich.

A half-century ago American engineering was the envy of the rest of the world. Cities like New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans were considered models for a brilliant new future. Europe, with its suffocating traditions and historical baggage, was dismissed as a decadent, aging culture.

It is no small paradox that many people in the world now see us in similar terms.

Richmond's Endearing Rap Promo

You know, cynic that I sometimes am, I really wanted to hate it. But it's just too endearing in the way it captures the lifestyle of one segment of Richmond's more essential populations -- the younger, quasi-professional set who make the downtown hum at all hours of the day.

Yes, I'm talking about "RiverCityVA804 The Video." A good-natured riff on the old SNL "Lazy Sunday/Chronicles of Narnia" bit.

Watch it above, or go see it on YouTube.

"The Future of Richmond's Past" -- Stuck in the Present

What a difference a couple of generations can make.

When the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War rolled around in 1962, much of the nation was fully embroiled in one of the most significant -- and long-overdue -- turning points in our collective history as a nation. The Civil Rights movement marked an era where the promises behind the Civil War and the subsequent freedom of four million black slaves and freemen began to materialize.

That didn't stop a slice of the population from having a very different sort of celebration.

The anniversary party they threw was a contentious, self-congratulatory one -- largely organized by and for a generation of whites deeply rooted in their own narrowly focused narrative of states' rights and military heroism.

Fast-forward 47 years to a gathering of about 150 Richmonders at the University of Richmond's Jepson Theatre. "The Future of Richmond's Past," UR President Ed Ayers told the group, was the first of several such community meetings planned as a lead-in to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

But this anniversary promises to be one where multiple perspectives are shared, where a variety of narratives are told, and where the Confederate flag-waving will be kept to a minimum. That speaks volumes about the journey the Richmond region has traveled over the past five decades.

The presence of three African-American women at the table during the introductory panel discussion also spoke volumes. Or the fact that at least three of the eight institutions represented in the conversation were lead by people born north of the Mason-Dixon line. Including a Canadian-born African-American.

"I knew about Richmond's past before I knew about its present," Ayers said in his opening remarks. Ayers could have been speaking of many of Richmond's old guard, the traditionalists who continue to resist change not only out of habit, but also because they genuinely have no context with which to imagine a future different from the past.

Perhaps these community discussions -- which are bringing together the new presidents of three Richmond universities, a host of public officials, representatives of Richmond's faith communities and historical institutions, and everyday residents -- will begin to give voice to those across the region who not only imagine, but are actively building, a different future.

Unfortunately, the first portion of the program didn't lend itself to much collaborative engagement or visionary conversation. One by one, the representatives of eight of the region's brightest historical gems spoke. For six, eight, ten minutes. In what began to feel like a forced march through institutional missions, community partnerships and Civil War related programs.

I almost wept with joy when Bill Martin of the Valentine Richmond History Center said, "For the next ten years, we won't be doing the Civil War." Instead, he said, the Valentine will tell the story of the history that paved the way for that conflagration -- like the War of 1812 -- and the long struggle toward civil rights that followed it. "Richmond has the opportunity to have that further conversation," he said.

Tactically, each organization had interesting things to share. I learned volumes about the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar's educational outreach, and how the Richmond Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau is helping develop a 14-state mapping project that hits all the historical sites along historic US Route 1 from Canada to Key West. I was glad to hear the energy in the voice of the new director of the Black History Museum, and chuckled (not as loud as many in the room, mind you) when the new director of the Virginia Historical Society opened his remarks by saying, "I promise not to try to sell you a snuggie or a shamwow."

But for anyone looking for the opening of the conversation to be a bang, a home run, an invitation to join the region on a spectacular journey to a different sort of tomorrow, well... not today. Today was about today.

Everyone recognized the need for something different. No one proffered a strong vision for addressing it.

"The city has been really good about telling the story of things we're proud of," said Rachel Flynn, director of community development for the City of Richmond. "Part of the Shockoe [Bottom development proposal] effort is whether we can tell the story of things that are painful."

"Until we began to embrace the contradictions, and celebrate and enjoy the angst of the contradictions" of Richmond's history, we won't move forward, the Valentine's Martin said.

Part of me was delighted to hear more people articulate those basic truths. We need more people engaged in these conversations, and different voices at different tables sharing the story of their Richmond. Dialogue and shared engagement are a powerful catalyst for change.

And yet another part of me wonders when we'll move from articulation to action.

"If you just sell history, you will not survive," the visitors bureau's Jack Berry told the crowd. If we keep talking about our future, all we'll have is history.

Here's hoping the next conversation shifts gears into creating a community vision, or putting energy behind real effort to change the region's future. Right now (and with apologies to U2), we're feeling a bit stuck in a present that we can't get out of.

A New Communities Model for Richmond?

A while back, Suzanne Morse of the Pew Center for Civic Engagement posted a brief tidbit about a LISC-initiated project taking place in two Rhode Island communities.  The New Communities model:

has five major tenets: 1) expand investment in housing and other real estate; 2) increase family income and wealth; 3) stimulate economic activity locally and regionally; 4) improve access to education of all varieties; and 5) foster livable safe, and environmentally sound environments.

Maybe after Mayor Jones finishes reorganizing and shifting boxes in City Hall, he can ask his new community and economic development guru to explore ways to implement a more comprehensive approach to sustainable communities in Richmond.

The LISC website has more on one of the Rhode Island projects taking place in the curiously named town of Woonsocket. Some great ideas that could go a long way in some of our own city's struggling neighborhoods.

Carnival of 5 Fires Lands on Halloween

Appropriately enough for one of Richmond's more spectacular collections of street-level performance art, this year's Festival of 5 Fires -- an annual production of Gallery 5 -- falls on Halloween weekend. Talk about adding fire to fire:

Gallery5’s most highly attended and extravagant event of the year, will be held this October, for the entire Halloween weekend. Featuring fire performers, burlesque, puppeteers, magicians, side-show freaks, vaudeville performers, and internationally- known visual artists, this three night event will rattle the senses and be the event to talk about for the entire year. The past three years of The Carnival of 5 Fires have received statewide press and record-breaking attendance. Audiences traveled from states away to witness the creative debauchery set forth by this jam-packed weekend of quality entertainment. This wide array of carnival-themed theatrical, dance and musical performances have been brought in from some of our East Coast cities most bizarre and innovative circles. Each evening’s line-up is full of the most provocative, whimsical, freakish, and hair-raising arts, and promises to be the masquerade of a life-time.

Go find out more about the event of the season.