By Kathy Chouteau
Sunday, June 30, wasn’t just any afternoon in Richmond. It was East Brother Beer Co.’s Art Afternoon, a time to celebrate great art, music, dancing, food, and of course, beer.
Approximately 120 people came out for the second annual happening, which was formerly known as the Summer Solstice event.
“We’re bringing in the local talent and showing that Richmond has all of these local artists that are doing great things,” said East Brother’s Steven Phillips about the Art Afternoon event. “We have glassblowers, we have people who sew, we have people who paint, there are illustrators, musicians—we’ve got a lot of talent and we want to showcase it and let it shine…we’re showing that Richmond has some beautiful color and some beautiful things going on…”
And beautiful things in an eclectic array of artistic mediums were indeed on display that day, with participating artists including Jon HW, CREEP, Laws, Fortune, Slow Burn Glass, Marianne Antic, Elisabeth Miller, Malik Seneferu, Tony Tamayo, Chris Atwood, Sew Long Marianne, Marcus Darkartsfarc, Mom & Pop Art Shop, Richard Muro Salazar and Nate Geare, who helped art direct the picture this reporter took of him.
Geare’s young son, Brixton, even got in on the action, putting colored chalk to good use—with an impressive display of pavement artwork to show for his efforts.
One stand-out piece that afternoon was a mural that was being created throughout the event by notable Richmond artist Richard Muro Salazar and a few of his friends. Situated outside on East Brother’s patio area, the early stages of the large mural featured “East Brother” painted in its iconic font along with various artistic flourishes such as a palm tree and a face.
According to Phillips, the mural will be on display for a year, until the craft brewery holds its next Art Afternoon.
Art Afternoon’s participating artists weren’t the only ones showing off their colors that day—East Brother debuted some new colors of its own. “We added some color to our shirt lineup,” said Phillips, who said they now offer the brewery’s shirts in red, green and purple, in addition to the existing asphalt gray (they will be discontinuing their lighter gray colored shirt). The new shirt colors go with East Brother’s upcoming “Freighter Series” cans, a heavy ale series.
Providing the perfect musical backdrop to the upbeat event was Grammy nominated local artist Andre Thierry and his band, which had event-goers up on their feet and dancing to their zydeco tunes. Nearby the band, the Taqueria Esperanza food truck served up crowd-pleasers with its popular fare.
Learn more about East Brother Beer Co. and its ongoing community events here.
