After 27 years at the helm of ART 180, the youth arts organization she co-founded, Marlene Paul passes the baton. (Photo by Ash Daniel)
The dreamlike tree of life on a wall at the corner of Hull Street and Cowardin Avenue is a depiction of youthful enthusiasm and aspiration. Titled “The Colors of the World” in 2010, the two-story mural represents the first large project of the early days of ART 180.
Marlene Paul and Kathleen Lane co-founded the nonprofit ART 180 in 1997. They conceived of an organization dedicated to inspiring creative expression in youths living amid challenging circumstances. The participants would delve into varied disciplines including music, dance, writing and painting.
Students from then-George Wythe and Huguenot high schools collaborated on the mural design. Artist Curtis Gutierrez, a muralist, oversaw the after-school project team, which was delivered to the site in the now shuttered “To the Bottom and Back” bus. “Curtis worked his magic with that mural,” Paul remembers. “[It] helped that he’s a dad. He got them all working together.”
Beneath the outspread branches is the curve of a water-filled basin representing both the James River and a fountain that previouly stood on the corner. The once-dreamlike colors are faded through years of exposure to nature and the busy intersection’s traffic. Paul lives nearby, and she occasionally passes by the mural. “When I see it, what comes to me is more than memory,” she reflects. “It’s an emotional, visceral sensation.” The mural symbolizes challenges overcome, the significance of community, the passage of time and the many changes for the organization and herself. Paul has pictures of her daughter Maya, then not yet 4 years old, among the older kids and the scaffolding.
The concept for ART 180 began with a Legend — served up at the Manchester brewpub. Paul was a Richmonder who traveled the state seeking media coverage for what was then the Virginia Division of Litter Control and Recycling. She and Lane, a WORK advertising colleague, met over a beer to talk through an idea to use art to promote creativity in at-risk children and turn their lives around.
“There was a longing, a restlessness — an itch — to do something more meaningful with my time professionally. Surely there had to be more out there,” Paul says. “Once I allowed that to surface and it ultimately manifested, then the idea developed its own identity, even early on. Then, keeping up with it became the driver.”
Along the way, ART 180 grew from a startup into an integral part of the city’s cultural and educational life. “Well, we’ve stopped being described as ‘scrappy,’” Paul remarks wryly with a laugh. “That’s the ultimate sign of maturity — the adjectives you move through. I think we’ve moved into ‘respected,’ which is good, right? That’s maturity in the best sense of the word.”
Resident teaching artists Xolani Sivunda and Nastassja Swift stand alongside Marlene Paul at the unveiling of the public artwork “Umama, and so she sows” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. (Photo by Eric Tomlin)
The tree of life initiative, part of ART 180’s Intercultural Mural Project, taught Paul and the team about nonprofits partnering with government and the value of media and community. The mural’s impetus came from the city’s desire to visually reflect the changing composition of South Richmond’s population. The effort combined three Richmond departments, including the division of Parks and Recreation’s Hispanic Liaison Office. Bilingual educator Rachel Mehl helped coordinate the efforts of Spanish-speaking students from Mexico, El Salvador and the Philippines.
Once designed, the mural was supposed to be installed at the public library on Hull Street, but it demurred due to renovations. Following a column about the project in the Richmond Times-Dispatch by Michael Paul Williams, local musician Daniel Deckelman offered the wall of his Snake Oil Recording Studio. The psychedelic colors went up and media coverage followed.
Provoking media coverage has been something of a norm for ART 180. In April 2012, permission was received to install a selection of self-portraits and text from an exhibition titled “What Do You Stand For?” on the Monument Avenue median during Easter on Parade and the Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10K. Taking the artwork as signage, someone complained, asking, “Would you like to see Nazi propaganda on Monument Avenue?”
Even today, the rhetorical flourish causes Paul to shake her head in disbelief. “You wouldn’t think that something so innocent as self-portraits of 11- and 12-year-olds could become controversial,” she says, “but it was not so innocent to some people because of who those children were. The theme of the project was about what matters to you, and the community responded.”
The city revoked the permit, but Venture Richmond, then sponsors of the Easter parade, and homeowners worked together on a compromise. The city granted permission for residents to stand the works in front of their houses until the original permit expired.
In retrospect, Paul views the event as a foreshadowing of 2020’s tumult. The exhibit by youngsters, most of them nonwhite, in no way imagined removal of the street’s statuary. However, the art irritated a barely concealed social nerve, although the reaction and condemnation were ultimately overshadowed by acceptance. Paul says, “I don’t think public art is always about provocation, but in this case, it made people think, and that’s the power art can possess.”
Paul leaves the position of founding executive director by choice. “I didn’t want to cling on,” she explains, “and … I didn’t want someone else to make that decision for me.” The restlessness that inspired ART 180 is now urging her to move on to the next phase, whatever that may be. Her farewell coincides with the 19th annual Block Party on Friday, May 2, in Jackson Ward.
