Watch local legend Noah Scalin paint his ‘visual depiction of music’ at The Broadberry, Aug 7, 8, and 9
Richmond Folk Festival fans typically have to wait until September for the unveiling of the annual commemorative poster design. But this year the poster artist is starting early. And he’s going BIG. Literally.
Nationally acclaimed Richmond artist, Noah Scalin, will paint a portion of the 15th anniversary poster design as a mural on the west-facing exterior wall of The Broadberry next week. You’re invited to watch him create it in real-time.
The artist
Scalin is no stranger to the art of working while an audience stares, so he’s not particularly nervous about painting the official 2019 Richmond Folk Festival poster as a mural while crowds gather around.
“I think it’s great to have people watching and participating,” he said. “I like having folks there seeing how art gets made so it’s not like creating is a secret process. And when they watch you do it, they get to discover that it’s not perfect – it doesn’t look right at first and you have to make changes and eventually, it starts to look good.”
Scalin is no stranger to the art of working while an audience stares, so he’s not particularly nervous about painting the official 2019 Richmond Folk Festival poster as a mural while crowds gather around.
“I think it’s great to have people watching and participating,” he said. “I like having folks there seeing how art gets made so it’s not like creating is a secret process. And when they watch you do it, they get to discover that it’s not perfect – it doesn’t look right at first and you have to make changes and eventually, it starts to look good.”
Each year, Richmond Folk Festival officials select a local artist to create the official Festival poster. The vision for the image lies solely with the artist and this year that is Scalin, a nationally-known artist who was born and raised in Richmond. He remarked that he’s thrilled to have been chosen, especially on the Festival’s 15th anniversary.
“It’s such an honor to be chosen,” Scalin said. “I’ve lived in Richmond almost all of my life and I’m a huge fan of the Richmond Folk Festival just like anyone else. Getting to design the poster -- especially on the 15th anniversary -- is a really big deal for me.”
Scalin will be painting at the Broadberry, 2729 W Broad St, each morning Aug. 7, 8, and 9, and all are invited to watch and talk with him while he works each day. The finished mural will then be adapted into the official 2019 Richmond Folk Festival poster but the original will remain on the Broadberry wall “for as long as the Broadberry wants to keep it,” he said.
Interactive concept
Scalin’s concept for the mural is an interactive one.
“I’m sort of working on this idea of a spirit or goddess of music who is presiding over our city,” he said. “She’ll have a hand outstretched so people can walk up to the art and stand in the outpouring of music and energy that is coming off of her hand.”
It’ll be a good place to take a selfie, he acknowledged, but more than that, it will give viewers a way to be a part of the artwork.
Around town
Richmonders are probably already familiar with Scalin’s art, even if they don’t know it. He painted the large colorful portrait of civil rights activist John Mitchell Jr., which can be seen from Arthur Ashe Boulevard on the outside wall of The Diamond. He also created the mural of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the “godmother of rock and roll,” which is on a wall in the GreenGate complex in Short Pump. His ‘skull-a-day’ project brought attention to the Richmonder when, in 2007, for one year, he began creating images of skulls out of a wide range of materials and techniques, rarely repeating one. Subsequently, the project grew across multiple years and resulted in his book, Skulls, featuring 150 of the original skull images.
But it’s his portraits made from articles of clothing that have more recently drawn national attention. Three years ago, time-lapse videos of Scalin creating his clothing portraits went viral, and plenty of Richmonders saw the creations happening live. At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Scalin created a portrait of a man’s face based on a photograph taken in the 1800s by Richmonder James Conway Farley, who was the first African American to achieve prominence in photography.
While crowds watched, Scalin created the portrait by starting with a pile of donated clothing. He arranged the pieces on the floor until they became a huge recreation of a face – the unmistakable, exact face in the Farley photograph. He later did the same thing at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business; while students and staff came and went in the atrium, he turned a pile of laundry into a portrait of Maggie Walker, laid out on the floor.
The videos of his work circulated across social media and while his name may not have become famous, his work did.
Scalin said that while painting for an audience isn’t really nerve-wracking, creating those clothing portraits sometimes is.
“I start with a portrait that I want to create but the pile of clothing I get is truly random,” he said. “It’s all trial and error. I’m pulling pieces out and trying one here, trying it there … the nerve-wracking part is just what I set myself up for. I always start working and then start thinking ‘maybe this is the time it isn’t going to work. Maybe this is the time I won’t have that one piece that I need.”
“That’s part of the excitement, though,” he said. “If it was a foregone conclusion that it would work, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, that would be a totally different thing.”
The painting process
For Scalin, there’s a big difference between making a face from paint and making it from clothing, stickers, or any of the other objects he uses to create portraits. For the portraits made from objects, he generally knows the image he’s creating, but isn’t exactly sure how he’s going to get there until he begins to work and the portrait begins taking shape. For the paintings, though, he’s much more exact.
“For this Richmond Folk Festival mural, I’ve already painted a small version of it in my studio,” he said. “I’ll know where I want each part of it and how it works before I start putting it on the wall at the Broadberry.”
The mural of the music goddess that Scalin will paint on the Broadberry wall won’t be the full image that will appear on the Richmond Folk Festival poster. The poster design has a single rule – each year, it must include the names of every festival artist or group. That’s more than 30 artist names that somehow must be incorporated into the design. Because all of this year’s artists haven’t been announced, even Scalin doesn’t know who they are or how the end product will look.
“I’ll have to come back and add them in later, after their names have been revealed,” he said. “I can’t put them in when I’m painting at the beginning of August because I don’t have them yet.”
Like many of his other projects, the mural will be filmed as a time-lapse video. Art and music fans who can’t get down to the Broadberry to watch Scalin paint will be able to view the process online after he’s done.
Homegrown
The thing about working in public, Scalin said, is that he often sees people he knows from his childhood. That’s especially true because he went to Open High School, an alternative public high school in Richmond that has long attracted aspiring artists.
After graduating from Open High in 1990, Scalin went to college at New York University but returned to Richmond in 2001 to start a consulting firm, Another Limited Rebellion, with his sister and business partner Mica Scalin.
“In Richmond, I find I’m often working next to old classmates and friends,” he said. “It’s one of the nice things about Richmond; you get to keep working with people you admire and respect.”
He also likes living in the shadow of the people he paints. Sister Rosetta Tharpe once had a house in Battery Park, where Scalin now lives. Not far away was the newspaper office of the Richmond Planet, run by John Mitchell Jr., who Scalin also memorialized in paint.
“I love working here,” Scalin said. “And I love being asked to design this year’s visual depiction of our music. Everything about this is wonderful.”
And getting to create the official art for the city’s largest event is especially exciting, he said, because Scalin himself is a big fan of the Richmond Folk Festival.
“I always love going to the festival,” he said. “I don’t exactly have a favorite type of folk festival music; I like looking for things I’ve never heard of and saying, ‘Oh, wow, that’s different! I don’t even know what that one is! I want to hear that!’ Whatever type of music is on the schedule that I’ve never even considered; that’s what I always go for first.”
Come out to the Broadberry, 9am-12:30pm Aug, 7, 8, and 9, and follow the FB Event Page for updates!