Testimonials From
Richmond’s Public Artists

Richmond Arts Advocates

Richmond Arts Advocates (RAA) is an ad hoc, grassroots group of artists and arts supporters working to improve the lives of artists in the City of of Richmond, California and as such it does not yet have a website. The Visual Artists of Richmond is supporting RAA by posting contact information for on the VAR website.

RAA is currently working to gain representation in the selection panel for the City’s new Arts and Culture Manager. This group composed of artists, former arts commissioners and a former arts manager has also fought to get Tiny House Village Neighborhood Public Art grant approved, and advocated for the prompt payment of other public artists.

Link to The City of Richmond’s Public Art Master Plan

A Brief History of the City of Richmond’s Public Art Program

How Do Other Cities
Do It?

Testimonials From Richmond’s Public Artists

Tiffany Conway-Cornelius

In 2023 Public Art Advisory Committee and the Richmond Arts and Culture Commission awarded artists Tiffany Conway -Cornelius and Ari Takata-Vazquez $100,000 for their project titled Living Room. The large sculpture would have been located at Kennedy Park. The artists maxed out their credit cards in order to meet the project’s up-front costs, but the contract was rescinded without explanation. Conway-Cornelius had to take a second job to pay for the credit card debt the project generated. This would have been Tiffany’s 2nd public art experience. She has said she will never again apply to public art in Richmond.

Rebeca Garcia-Gonzalez

Rebeca was the lead artist of the large restoration project of two of John Wehrle’s murals under the highway 80 underpass. In 2023 she had to convince the team of nine artists to purchase liability insurance prior to the contract being approved, at $800 each.. The artists in our crew waited for more than a year and never got to work because of the delays with our contract and other challenges. Rebeca spent an untold amount of hours calling and sending emails to the Arts and Culture manager who had promised she’d find the money to get us reimbursed. Then she told us that the City didn't have the money to do so, and that we would have to wait until we got paid. After six months of this, she used her own money to reimburse three of those artists for fear they would leave the project. She later resigned from her lead artist position once she ran out of funds. Rebeca was reimbursed in 2025.

Regina Gilligan

In 2024 Regina was awarded $5,000 through an NPA grant. Her California natives mural was going to be completed in Mendocino Park, in the Richmond Annex neighborhood. Early on she noticed a “lack of transparency regarding expectations” from the Arts and Culture Manager. Finding that the requirements greatly exceeded the risk generated by the project, she sought help from a City official in Parks and Recreation who came up with a workaround, but this solution was rejected. She was later informed that she could only paint the small mural under a general contractor’s contract, who would keep at least 10% of the contract. The nail in the coffin was that the expenses generated by the requirements ate her fee ($2,000). The manager told Regina that the funds “couldn't be released before paying the fees because the Risk Management Office wouldn’t allow it.” These unsurmountable obstacles forced Regina to withdraw her project.

Richard Muro Salazar

Jennifer Riggs

Her 2024 project was a collaboration with two non-profits and a business. They were going to create a mobile mural with youth and families from one of the non-profits. The theme was Richmond and the environment, and it was going to be displayed at three Richmond locales. There were checklists but “the deadlines changed as they went along.” Jennifer turned in all of the required paperwork plus proof of insurance on time, but the contract was never approved and she never recouped the money she spent on insurance fees. There were continual delays and Jennifer’s relationship with her community partner was severely impacted by the delays. Because she was the contact and had to keep delaying the project implementation, the partnerships soured. “Non-profit partners can't work this way.” Her contract was never approved.

John Wehrle

After years of paying out of pocket for the graffitti abatement of his public work in the city, John became the original lead artist of the large project that began in 2022, the restoration of two of his murals painted during the 1990’s under the highway 80 underpass. Risk Management had told him that the pollution insurance requirement had been waived. But then a new department head came on board and she reinstated it. We protested this, to no avail. His team researched the cost and found out was going to be $22,500 for our 9 artist team. The lead artist was then asked to write a pollution plan which was turned in. Risk Management finally waived this requirement after the project director intervened, because it would have been too costly.