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If you see a problem, you should create a solution. That is what Silly solved when he Founded the All City Art Club. The All City Art Club’s mission is to introduce street art to underserved communities without the goal of tourism or gentrification. All City Art Club is bridging the gap between community and citizens.

In this episode, Silly shares what it was like starting in a new city, mastering his craft, and how he juxtaposes anime and Japanese culture to influence his creativity.

BLKOUT Walls, The Largest Black-led Mural Festival In The United States, Illuminates Downtown and East Oakland with Curated and Extraordinary, Larger Than Life Murals

BUSINESS WIRE

Yahoo Finance

The second annual Black led/produced mural festival BLKOUT Walls, will reinvigorate the streets of Downtown and East Oakland. World-renowned, global, national and local multi-cultural artists will amplify BIPOC voices by painting over twenty, one-of-a-kind, murals.

BLKOUT Walls was conceived by Sydney G. James, Thomas "Detour" Evans, and Max Sansing. The highly-successful inaugural festival launched in Detroit, Michigan in August 2021 and brought 40 new murals to the North End community of Detroit. This festival was created as a direct response to the founders’ shared history of participating in inequitable mural festivals throughout the country. The trio set out to create an annual festival to offer diversity to the community and economic support to participating artists.

Richmond Muralist Wants People to ‘Find Themselves’ in Her Work

By Nia Norris

Next City

For Richmond-based artist Austin “Auz” Miles, the impact of her work is right there in the communities where she paints. It’s little girls walking by one of her murals and seeing themselves in the images, or people telling her that driving by a mural every day puts a smile on their faces.

Recently, Miles worked with Kristal Brown, a Virginia Commonwealth University doctoral student whose Brown Girl Narratives project looked at the experiences of Black women in Richmond. Miles was invited to create a mural on Hull Street in Richmond’s Southside. The mural incorporated portraits of Black women, with quotes and phrases from Brown’s interviews with the women who participated.

Best of Richmond: Best Mural

Readers’ Pick 2021

Style Weekly

First Place:

Richmond SPCA Mural by Nils Westergard

2519 Hermitage Road

Second Place: All City Art Club 
Third Place: Hamilton Glass 
Honorable Mention (TIE): crudcity, Mending Walls, Marcus David Peters Circle

Street Art for Slow Streets in Bellemeade

By ShaCoria Shelton

Sports Backers

We’ve all probably said or heard someone else share a common observation in city neighborhood: “People drive too fast through here.” And unfortunately, we know that fast vehicle speeds mixed with students and families walking to neighborhood assets is a recipe for disaster. But what to do in the interim as neighborhoods await more permanent infrastructure designed to calm traffic and slow speeds? Enter the street mural: brightly colored art painted on streets to draw driver’s attention to the street, encouraging them to pay attention and slow down.

Operation Home Base aims to give community safe place for positive play

By Marc Davis

NBC12 - WWBT

Two Richmond organizations are teaming up to improve their community with a brand new outdoor basketball court.

Feed the Streets RVA and the Team Loaded Foundation are renovating the court behind Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood. Adidas also chipped in to help with the project. The court features new glass backboards and poles, a fresh blacktop surface and street art on the floor.

Black Space Matters: Episode 4 with Silly Genius of All City Art Club

with Duron Chavis

The Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University

In Episode 4 of “Black Space Matters,” urban farmer, Duron Chavis, speaks with Silly Genius—a Richmond-based artist and founder of grassroots initiative, All City Art Club, on bringing art to the Southside as a social justice effort to highlight Black narratives.

PHOTOS: Mending Walls RVA, encouraging connection and empathy

By Alexa Welch Edlund

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Charles Berger and PT Carroll painted “New Growth” as part of the Mending Malls RVA project. It makes up the right two sections of a building at 2907 West Marshall Street.

Art, With A Side Of Food Justice, At Institute for Contemporary Art At Virginia Commonwealth University

By Chadd Scott

Forbes

“It's not just about the garden, it's also about this moment where (there’s) all this political upheaval–resistance and rebellion happening,” [Duron Chavis] said. “So we entered this idea of Black Space Matters, the need for communities of color, specifically Black and brown people, to be able to have space that is responsive to their community's needs and so the development of this space is a fusion of art, a practical, functional, utility, and then also it reaches into environmental stewardship as we address the whole idea of urban heat island effect, the need for green spaces to address storm water management, it has layers.”

Black Lives Matter Renews Interest in Richmond's Black Culture and History

By Cierra Parks

VPM

“Say Their Names,” by Silly Genius and Nils Westergard, at 3311 W. Broad St. The mural was created as part of the Mending Walls project, a collaboration between Richmond artists and businesses who volunteer a wall to be transformed into a mural that provokes conversation. 

‘Black Space Matters’ exhibit changes asphalt lot to garden

By India Espy-Jones

The Washington Post

A local activist transformed a vacant lot outside the Institute for Contemporary Art in Richmond to highlight issues of food security and the importance of Black and brown community spaces.

The “Commonwealth” exhibit at Virginia Commonwealth University’s ICA features work from 10 artists including an outdoor installation created by activist and community farmer Duron Chavis who builds gardens throughout Richmond. The full exhibit seeks to examine how common resources influence the wealth and well-being of communities.

Preview: Upcoming ICA exhibit to explore concept of commonwealth

By Claire Darcy

The Commonwealth Times

“History is unfolding in real time, and we as a group are being very mindful of how those current events affected the way we’re thinking through the project,” [Noah] Simblist said.

One of these changes was the “Resiliency Garden” by artist and food justice activist Duron Chavis, which was not originally planned to be part of the museum’s exhibit. It came into motion in the wake of COVID-19 and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement to highlight the ties between systemic racism and food insecurity.

Mending Walls RVA - Telling History and Engaging Difficult Conversations through Art

By Terry Menefee Gau

VPM

As a result of the recent protests over the killing of George Floyd and inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, local artist Hamilton Glass saw an opportunity - not just for bold new art in RVA’s public spaces, but also for deep, authentic, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about race, social justice, and equity in Richmond.

With the support of The Community Foundation and The Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC), Glass reached out to fellow artists to collaborate on a new art initiative called Mending Walls RVA, in order to create collaborative murals throughout the city by pairing two artists from different backgrounds. 

Making Connections

By Catherine Brown

Richmond Magazine

On Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, Hamilton and a diverse group of Richmond artists kicked things off by spray-painting stencils of the message “We need to talk ...” on the plywood of boarded-up storefronts throughout the city.  

Mending Walls’ initial spray-painting event was a compelling and meaningful introduction to an endeavor focused on creating a new space for dialogue. “We’re all a bit in love with the micro and macro dynamic of that phrase,” says participating artist Alfonso Perez. “It works as a phrase someone might say to a friend or partner, but it functions on a macro level in terms of important conversations around race.” 

Best Local Mural

Reader’s Pick 2020

Style Weekly

Founded by artist T. Sparks (Silly Genius) in summer of 2017, the All City Art Club collaborative says its mission is to “introduce street art to underserved communities without the goal of tourism or gentrification.” The organizers, as stated on their website, firmly believe that residents “should not be pushed out of their own communities in order to make a community beautiful.” Amen to that.

The Mending Walls Project

News Report

CBS6 - WTVR

Mural portraying local Hip Hop artist “Radio B” being painted on West Broad Street.

Face their names: Richmond artists unite to memorialize a movement on the city's walls.

By Sabrina Moreno

Richmond Times-Dispatch

His list of names, scrawled onto a sheet of paper, felt heavy in the hot sun. He spray painted another one on the 100-foot brick wall on Broad Street and shook the can once more.

Hiss. Rattle. Hiss.

RICHMOND Street Art

with Chelsea Higgs-Wise

Race Capitol on WRIR 97.3fm - Richmond Independent Radio

Tune into WRIR as we chat with three crew members from All City Art Club about history, community, and art here in the former capital of the confederacy. Hear how the Richmond Mural Project bringing in Art Whino to paint our walls has hurt our hometown artists. Is this gentrified art?

A VIBE: STREET PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE RICHMOND MURAL DEDICATION CELEBRATION ON HULL STREET

By Cheats Movement

#WESEEIT: A Cheats Movement Blog

RICHMOND – This weekend, I made a pit stop to the Richmond Mural Dedication on Hull Street. Hip Hop Henry and Devin Michael were spinning the sounds. Silly Genius and PT Carroll completed the art. The family was out in full force: Cheats Movement, Booze & Grooves, Nighttime Maneuvers, Wax Build Up, Creative Kickback, Race Capitol, Comics and Brews, Ainigriv Adorn, Music Heals, Style and Spirit, Black Minds Matter. #WESEEIT

Property, poverty, and aerosol: Street art’s impact on Richmond

By Lauren Francis

SCALAWAG Magazine

“It’s a ghost town. It’s broad daylight and it looks like a ghost town,” says Silly over a bucking engine. “You slap up a few murals and it looks alive again.” The Ford’s leather seats stick to us, the overcast offering no mercy in Richmond’s late August. Boarded-up homes punctuate a litter of tire shops and churches down Hull Street announce the coming of Christ—apostles available by email between empty lots. Silly Genius, whose given name is Tyrell Sparks, hovers over the steering wheel with a commanding studiousness of the area, uninterrupted by the potholes; he peeks around corners for walls he’s watched for years. “It looks alive and the people feel alive. It might take a little while before the money comes around, but you'll feel better about being here.”

BLACK ARTISTS CREATE THEIR OWN CREATIVE SPACE IN MANCHESTER

by Chelsea Higgs-Wise

RVA MAG

Black artists in Richmond are used to facing extraordinary challenges. When 6th District City Councilwoman Ellen Robertson proposed using city funds for public art to balance the budget, a measure that passed by a majority council despite opposition from Mayor Levar Stoney, it shocked Richmond’s white art community. For black artists, it was just another day of being undervalued and silenced.

One of these artists, who goes by the name Silly Genius, said the “lack of support does not feel new.” He links the sprouting of the RVA brand with new challenges to black artists in Richmond; starting with First Friday, which began in Jackson Ward as a civic boost for black residents and businesses owners.

RVA Street Art Festival puts a new shine on the Diamond

by Bill Lohhman

Richmond Times-Dispatch

T. Sparks, known as Silly Genius, spray painted a wall during the RVA Street Festival at The Diamond on Sunday. Artists were invited to brighten up some of the grey walls at the ballpark during the three-day festival.