RVA Street Art Festival co-founders Jon Baliles and Ed Trask announce plans for this year's event at The Diamond. (Photo by Tyler Hammel)
During the past few years, the RVA Street Art Festival has shown that almost anything can be a canvas. From the old GRTC bus depot on Cary Street to the Southern States silos in Manchester, the artists and planners have never shied away from a challenge. The fourth edition of the festival will up the ante this fall by taking on its largest canvas to date: The Diamond.
On Monday morning, festival co-founders Ed Trask and Jon Baliles talked about how a partnership with the Richmond Flying Squirrels came about.
“When we approached the Squirrels about this idea a couple months ago, we really didn't think they would go for it, but I remember calling Parney [Todd Parnell, the Flying Squirrels vice president and chief operating officer] and saying, 'I know you love crazy ideas and I've got a really crazy idea,’ “ says Baliles, who is also Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s senior policy advisor for innovation. “He took about four or five seconds to say 'I like it. It's crazy, it's big, so let's sit down and talk about it.’ ”
Representatives for the Flying Squirrels say the festival speaks to their goal of giving back to the community since coming to Richmond.
“In 2009, we stood at the stage and we announced then our arrival to the town, and we said we were going to be different and we were going to do different things here,” says Chuck Domino, Flying Squirrel’s chief executive manager. “So when I heard about this possibility, I said this fits right into what we meant when we said something different.”
Todd "Parney" Parnell, vice president and chief operating officer for the Richmond Flying Squirrels, says the team tries to be part of the community year-round, not just during baseball season. (Photo by Tyler Hammel)
“This is another great example of how a facility like this can be used 12 months out of the year, and not just for baseball,” says Parnell. “We say this all the time — we're not just a baseball team, we try to be an integral part of this community 12 months a year.”
Ed Trask, an artist whose murals can be found on many buildings around Richmond, says the goal of the festival is to facilitate positive messages and conversation, and something the size of the Diamond lends itself to that better than any of their previous locations.
“What we've found with street art is ... it's not just mural art; it's sculpture, it is installation, it's sound, it's video, it's projection,” says Trask. “We have a huge opportunity to create something very positive here using art. We can do murals on the stairs, we can do projections on the walls, we can do things that let people have this inclusive event with art, baseball and family.”
Though the Diamond will be covered in murals as part of the festival, the facility will likely be around only for a couple more years. A new stadium has been in the works for the better part of a decade, with the most recent talks aiming for it to be located in Scott’s Addition, not far from the current Diamond location. The current Diamond will be demolished after the new one is built.
Baliles says the RVA Street Art Festival organizers were aware of that going into the planning, and compared it to the GRTC bus depot, where the festival was located in 2013.
“We knew that site was only going to be around for the next year, and so it was,” says Baliles. “However, this site [the Diamond] is going to be around for the next couple of years.”
Katie Benson, a member of the RVA Street Art Festival board, says the Diamond’s impermanence is true to the spirit of street art.
“That’s the transient nature of street art — it might not be here the next day, so you enjoy it while you can,” says Benson.
The festival will see artists both local and international painting murals and designs throughout the interior and exterior of the Diamond. It will also feature sculpture work, musical performances, projection art and food trucks.
Founded in part to support children's art education, this year’s festival will also support the Flying Squirrels’ efforts to renovate baseball facilities for youth in the city, and Connor’s Heroes Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support for children with cancer and their families.
The RVA Street Art Festival is set for Sept. 22-24.
