Spotlight: Building a Home with The ARTS Community Center
Photo: The ARTS Community Center
Home has many different meanings. It is often the place you live, but sometimes you find it elsewhere, in a feeling, brought out by a special pocket of community. The ARTS Community Center in Chesterfiled, VA, co-founded by Amiri & Cindy Richardson-Keys, is a space rooted in family and creativity to be yourself.
Read on for Amiri & Cindy’s words:
CultureWorks: Who are you and what is your relationship to The ARTS Community Center?
Amiri & Cindy Richardson-Keys: We are Amiri and Cindy Richardson-Keys, husband and wife duo, and we own and operate The ARTS Community Center located here in Chesterfield, Virginia. We have been doing this type of community work for many years. We have six children, and a lot of the inspiration to do this type of work came from our kiddos who we wanted to make sure had equal opportunity to participate in all kinds of programming around the arts.
CW: For someone who knows nothing about The ARTS Community center, what is it and how did it get started?
C: The ARTS Community Center officially started in 2014 when I had the vision to start a small preschool program at home. Because it grew so rapidly, we put out a call saying we were going to do a summer camp. Amiri had been laid-off, and that gave us the chance to get into what we both love to do. My thing is really growing people, especially children, and exposing them to all kinds of amazing opportunities. Amiri is a very talented artist, and I just took both of our visions, put it together, and created The ARTS to be a safe space in Chesterfield County, specifically for children and especially children of color, to come together and be the best version of themselves and all they do.
We had twenty-five kids sign up to come to our home for this amazing summer camp experience. We had no idea what would come of it, we thought we were just doing something cool with a lot of kids that we knew in our community. There was a closing program at the summer camp, and one young man stood up, without being prompted, and said "Mr. Amiri, Ms. Cindy, we're praying for you all to get a bus and a building because this program needs to grow and more kids need to be able to come."
The very next year, we received the bus, and we did all the legal paperwork to make it an official program as "The ARTS," and the year after that, we moved into our building! The community fundraised for us and they helped us through everything to prepare the building so that we were in the actual ARTS Community Center space. "The ARTS" is an acronym for "Artists Revealed Through Service," and that really is who we are; it's the services, the community, and our togetherness that allows us to be great.
CW: How have you felt The ARTS connect with the Chesterfield community as you've grown over the years?
A: Our oldest is 21, so we've been in Chesterfield for the last 16 years since he was five, and we also service the actual elementary school, Crenshaw, that he started at when we moved out here. Since we now have the space, we've been able to expand out and build relationships with other school systems within Chesterfield.
The presence of The ARTS has done very well in its relationship with our community, not just with the school system, but also with recreational organizations. We have built a network that has made us stronger. By not only offering a summer camp and art classes, but also offering our space as an event space, we've been able to meet more people within our community that are able to utilize our space, and they find out that we do more and become a part of The ARTS Community family, as well. We've met a lot of people in our community that we know The ARTS has brought out their creativity. They now have a space where they can share those talents, those passions, those gifts with other families and younger people that may have the same interests. One of our mantras is "creating a circle of community," and we literally do that every day and we've done that since we started.
CW: Do you have a favorite program or event that happens at the community center?
A: I think summer camp would be the biggest event here in the center because that opens it up to a wide range of Greater Richmond. We have kids that come from Henrico and Hanover to participate in the summer camp.
C: We have kids that come from out-of-state! We have family who comes from New York every year to do summer camp with this. There are several families that have done that over the years with us, so summer camp is probably a favorite, and that is because we have such a big community outreach with that too.
Photo: The ARTS Community Center
CW: Have you collaborated with another artist or organization that was meaningful for you?
A: We have done a mural at Carver Elementary in Richmond.
C: We have partnered with The Richmond Night Market and the ARTisan Cafe. We have a big partnership with Chesterfield County Schools right now, specifically with Providence Middle School which is great.
CW: Has there been a moment or experience with The ARTS Community Center that made you feel like all your hard work was really worth it?
A: Oh man, there's a bunch of stories or testimonies that we could give. Just speaking of summer camp, one thing that is dear to my heart is when parents respond back through the platform that we use, and they send pictures of their kids asleep in the car after summer camp. The reward of doing this even though we're tired at the end the day because we open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 6:00 p.m., and we’ve been hanging out with younger people, trying to keep up with their energy. Then, to see that they are asleep before they reach home, that's the reward. I know that they left it all here at The ARTS, and they had fun.
When people come in and walk through the doors, they automatically get this positive feeling, a warm feeling, as if you were to walk into someone's home. There is a level of care and love that is put into the space, as far as the artwork, and the way we treat people and each other. So, those things are always wonderful to hear without trying to force someone to see it.
C: I think that's the answer that I would have leaned with too, Amiri. This space just lends itself to that. It's such a safe space. Immediately people feel comfortable. We've had people come in and say, “I just need to take my shoes off and sit in the middle of your floor for a few moments.” It's home to them. It's all the feels. Especially, for people of color, because being in Chesterfield County, there are not enough safe spaces that have been made available to children AND adults where they can just be themselves in whatever that looks like. You're openly appreciated for whatever you bring to the table.
Photo: The ARTS Community Center
CW: Where do you look for inspiration and how do you stay inspired?
C: We're inspired by the children that come in and say, "I've never been somewhere like this before. This is so cool." We are inspired when those same children looked at us and said, "Hey, we're getting too old for the elementary and middle school programs, could you do something for high schoolers?" They gave us the inspiration to start a new program just for them. So, here we are, offering college tours, SAT/ACT prep, and how to write your college essay- with the same children that started out with us years ago as five-year-olds! It's those things for us, that people keep showing up, they keep coming back, they keep growing and stretching us, and asking us for more of what we can offer as an art program.
CW: What does arts and culture mean to you, and why does it matter?
A: It's certainly important to offer a space that gives exposure to arts and culture to everyone, not just a particular demographic. We offer that to our own community as a whole. We make sure that there is culture in it for those who are black and brown within the Chesterfield community. As Cindy said earlier, it is a safe space where they can have exposure to the arts and not feel judged for their choice of indulging in the arts. I wish I had something like this when I was younger because I've always been interested in art. Growing up in the community I grew up in as a young man, it wasn't the cool thing to draw or play an instrument. You had to play basketball or football, and that wasn't even my sport; soccer was my sport!
So, this space offers that culture and the exposure to all genres of the arts, not just visual or music, but we do theater, drama, poetry, culinary; we do it all. I think it's imperative that each child and each family has the opportunity to be exposed to what the arts have to offer. Within that, you find a sense of joy, and you find your own creativity because we all have it somewhere within us even though it may not look the same.
CW: Are there any last thoughts you'd like to share?
A: I'd like to give a shout-out to our community and families that have supported us throughout this journey since the conception of The ARTS Community Center and all that it has grown to be, and all that it will continue to grow and evolve into. We also have six amazing kids that have taken this journey with their parents without knowing necessarily what the outcome was going to be. I'm pretty sure that can be daunting; however, the journey has given them some autonomy and purpose. Here we are today now being able to offer classes, opportunities, and exposure to other families.
To learn more about The ARTS Community Center: https://www.theartsrva.com/
To register your child for The ARTS summer camp: https://www.theartsrva.com/registration-forms-handbook