From announcement:
Featuring the fine art and photography of St. Andrew’s parishioners and artists from the Oregon Hill neighborhood. Join us for the opening reception Friday, October 20th from 6:00-8:00 pm. The art will be available for viewing Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00-4:00 pm from October 21-November 12. Free. Donations accepted with gratitude. For more information visit standrewsoregonhill.org or contact Celal Kamran.
Wayne Hancock singing about reefer!
Innov Gnawa (If you liked them, there is an excellent new album out by gnawa master Maalem Mahmoud Gania called Colours of the Night that you should check out).
Wild Horses
The Green Fields of America (playing IN the Kanawha Canal where hundreds of Irish and African laborers worked and died)
Accordians!
Betsayda Machado y La Parranda El Clavo (The main band led a procession down to the stage to start of their set)
Spanish flamenco was spellbinding (despite a rather noisy and disruptive audience)
The San Francisco Taiko was exuberant and fun.
The female-led go-go group Be’la Dona got the crowd going…
Soul singer Don Bryant singing “I Can’t Stand The Rain”
Thankfully, I have only saw a few parking problems in the neighborhood. And police were patrolling. On the other hand, I have heard some anecdotes from neighbors about some traffic problems that still need to be corrected.
Ready to do it again today, Richmond?
Start of Folk Festival:
Irish music and dancing:
Broom dancing (I imagine this probably happened in some Oregon Hill kitchens):
Funana music and the Great Bitori:
A bluesy end to the first night:
More Richmond Folk Festival on the way today and tomorrow!
John Murden recently took this photo while visiting Belle Island.
From email announcement:
Community Movie Night
Friday, October 13
7:00 pm
Pleasants Park
As always, free refreshments served:
grilled hot dogs, sides, dessert, and beverage
From FaceBook event page:
To celebrate Artober, we will be exhibiting the Veterans’ Impact Project Monument at The Virginia War Memorial.
This sculpture was created in partnership with artist James Robertson.
Please join us for the opening reception on Thursday, October 12th from 5-7pm. The monument will remain on display until October 27th.
About the Project:
In what is likely America’s 1st crowd-sourced veterans monument, The Veterans’ Impact Project honored over 170 veterans through a participatory process where community members and veterans operated a custom-built Roman Ballista to fire symbols of military service into a large clay panel. Those impressions were cast on site to create a large-scale relief sculpture with Principal Artist for the project, James Robertson. The resulting 5’x17’ sculpture is one of the largest in Richmond.
There will be restricted parking in Oregon Hill this year for the this year’s 13th Annual Richmond Folk Festival.
Councilperson Parker Agelasto announced this at last night’s City Council meeting and OHNA President Jennifer Hancock confirmed that they are going over plans now.
Some portions of the neighborhood will be password protected for residents and some barricaded streets will be in effect.
While many neighbors are thankful and relieved to hear this, it is somewhat curious. With the roundabout construction, the route through or into the neighborhood is going to be congested anyway. There have been a few complaints from Southside residents about the lack of a Folk Festival bus shuttle to/from Southside. While the schedule is definitely rich in fantastic talent that should not be missed, there are no huge, blockbuster, headliner names. The Tredegar Civil War Center construction will also take up a lot of space that was previously used for the Festival.
In other words, while folks should look forward to attending the Richmond Folk Festival and expect to hear some great music, and certainly encourage others do so also, it seems like it will be purposely smaller this year. It’s a good year to use mass transit or ride bicycles to the Festival.
This Wednesday is a “Red Wednesday”, which means trash and recycling pickup. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.
If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.
Also, congratulations to Suffolk, VA for their recent, successful recycling drive.
