Mayor Danny Avula has called supporting the city’s arts and culture sector a priority for his administration. Now he’s put together a local advisory group to help him do just that.

“The goal is to make sure that I and our team hear directly from the folks who are driving arts and culture in our city about ways that the city can actually be helpful for them,” Avula told Style Weekly about his new advisory group, which consists of artists, musicians, nonprofit leaders, community figures and representatives from city government.

According to the mayor’s press secretary, Mira Signer, this will be an “informal, boots-on-the-ground group that can advise the mayor on contemporary arts and culture issues, challenges and opportunities.”

The full scope of the group’s mission, including how it might direct policies for for-profit businesses as well as nonprofits, was still being determined. Avula says “there are ways that the city can be supportive of the arts community by lowering barriers and bureaucracy and making it easier to do really cool stuff.” He hopes that the advisory group can help to identify those opportunities.

“Advisory is the right word,” says Richmond Triangle Players Executive Director Philip Crosby, one of the arts leaders named to the board. “We don’t have any actual [powers]. We are there strictly in an advisory capacity.”

“Something that was expressed by almost everyone at the meeting was that we need to open up more city funding to more arts organizations.”

The 15-person body has already held one meeting, Crosby says.

“Something that was expressed by almost everyone at the meeting was that we need to open up more city funding to more arts organizations,” he adds.

He thinks of it as an investment, since the arts have proven to be a “demonstrable economic force in Richmond.” According to a 2022 study commissioned by CultureWorks, the arts and culture sector generates $329.9 million annually for the region. “When you think about the venues, like us [RTP], we do what we do, which is good, but we also pay admissions taxes, bar taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes. It would be nice to get some back.”

The mayor, meanwhile, says that the group won’t be involved in the allocation of any new city arts funding “although that may come in the future.”

In addition to Crosby, the advisory group consists of visual artist Hamilton Glass, rapper and entrepreneur Noah-O, Richmond Symphony President and CEO Lacey Huszcza, Latin Ballet Executive Director Arianna Moore, Valerie Cassel-Oliver, curator of Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Janine Bell, president and artistic director of Elegba Folklore Society, Scott Garka, president of CultureWorks,  Emily Smith, executive director of 1708 Gallery, and Enjoli Moon, founder of the Afrikana Film Festival.

The group also includes Diane Hayes, the Cultural Arts Manager at Pine Camp, Monica Kinsey, the city’s Public Art Coordinator, Dr. Sylvio Lynch, secretary of the city’s History and Culture Commission, and Christie-Jo Adams, instructional specialist in fine arts for Richmond Public Schools. Ninth district City Councilperson Nicole Jones and Kimberly Chen, Richmond city senior manager and head of authentiCITY Studio, are also included.

“This is the first time that the arts and culture [sector] has been engaged in this way with city government, and that’s incredibly promising and exciting,” says member Emily Smith, who the mayor chose, along with Glass, Bell and Garka, to sit on a special transition team he convened on arts and culture; they helped to recommend members for this advisory group.

“It should go without saying that there’s always going to be a desire for more direct funding,” she continues, “and at some point that will be a part of the conversation in the future.” Details about the group are still being ironed out, she says, such as how long members would serve. But the desire is for the body to meet on a bi-monthly basis.

During last year’s election, Style Weekly posed a series of arts and culture-related questions to the mayoral candidates. At that time, Avula said that, in his view, the arts were an important component of Richmond’s vibrancy, and that he was committed to helping it continue to thrive: “If elected, I plan to convene a diverse working group of leaders and stakeholders from the arts community to help inform and remain in dialogue with me and my administration concerning how best to support the arts.”

“I think it’s great that we have a mayor thinking of this,” Crosby says, “and I think that there was a real effort here to be representative.” He adds that Richmond mayors have traditionally met with advocacy groups aligned with local business.

“Why not the arts?”