On Thursday, Sept. 5, during a reception held at the Studio Two Three arts center, the posters for this year’s Richmond Folk and 2nd Street festivals were revealed. Those in attendance also witnessed the premiere of VPM’s new television documentary, “The Sounds of Culture: 20 Years of the Richmond Folk Festival.”
That milestone counted double for one attendee: Powhatan-based illustrator and VCU professor emeritus Robert Meganck, who was invited by Venture Richmond to design the 2024 Richmond Folk Festival poster two decades after his art graced the event’s inaugural one. “I didn’t read the end of the [invitation] before I was writing them back, ‘Yes, of course.’”
Meganck’s enthusiasm at being asked for an anniversary encore is rooted in deep appreciation for the festival. He’s not alone. Founded during a three-year National Folk Festival residency, the Richmond Folk Festival has grown into one of the commonwealth’s largest events, drawing thousands of globally minded music lovers to the downtown riverfront for three days each fall. Meganck is typically right there with them, taking advantage of a format that rotates acts of various styles — everything from salsa and Hindustani violin to bluegrass and zydeco — from one covered stage to the next. “It’s an educational experience,” Meganck notes. “I’ll just sit in the tents and whatever comes on, I’m gonna like it.”
A new artistic lineage
In a similar fashion, the opportunity to design the poster for the National Folk Festival’s first year in Richmond came to him. “The first one was kind of accidental,” he says. Meganck had a studio across the hall from the offices of Richmond Magazine, and one of the publication’s art directors popped over to ask if he wanted to design an image for an article about the event. “I didn’t know that it was going to turn into this big thing,” Meganck says.
These days, the festival’s poster is the subject of great anticipation. Its design appears on an array of merchandise, including T-shirts and beer cans containing a bespoke Hardywood Park Craft Brewery Bavarian-style lager, and landing the gig is no small feat. Former students of Meganck’s — Kelly Alder and Katie McBride — are among the artists who have earned the opportunity. Local icons like Ed Trask, Hamilton Glass and Wes Freed are part of that lineage, and past years’ posters are a staple at the Plan 9 merchandising tents.
The inaugural National Folk Festival poster won Meganck multiple awards, and while his design work and research has earned him hundreds of honors, the pressure was palpable this time around. “People recognize it, so then you always get this panicky thing going on, like, ‘Man, what am I going to do?’”
Fortunately, Meganck is as versed in the creative process as any artist you’ll find. Among the books he’s published is “The Story of the Three Little deSwiners,” which borrows the plot of “The Three Little Pigs” to spell out steps that yield success when facing a design challenge. Research is among them. “For example,” the book reads, “if you decide to build a house, you might want to look up floor plans and talk to builders about construction techniques.”
When it comes to the Richmond Folk Festival, however, Meganck had already amassed years of research. “I knew what the Folk Festival was,” he says. “I knew what it meant to me. I loved it.”
He began doodling, filling half a sketchbook with things that reminded him of his past tent-covered experiences. The instruments. The food. The people. The camaraderie that coalesces when people experience a new type of music in the same space at the same time. Flora and fauna symbolizing Virginia. He sent a dozen or so sketches to Venture Richmond Director of Events Stephen Lecky, who had a hard time choosing between the festival’s various signifiers.
“I said, ‘No problem,’ Meganck remembers, “and I put them together.”
Mutual creative pursuits
Meganck has long found ways to merge the worlds of art and music. While his main focus during his 40 years teaching at VCU was on imparting knowledge in the areas of illustration, graphic design, color theory and digital imaging, some coursework made room for students’ musical lives to peek through, thanks to assignments involving interpreting a song visually or animating lyrics. And teaching in the studio setting meant Meganck could keep current by asking students with headphones on what they were listening to while they worked.
“I was always interested,” he says. “I respect the students, and I respected their opinions. I respected that they’re going to be the future, and I’m really interested in what they like and what they listen to.”
Meganck returned the favor around the time of his retirement from VCU by publishing a book titled “Lessons from Life and Rock & Roll,” which placed 12 nuggets of wisdom intended for his students — aphorisms like “You don’t need to be a one-man band” and “There are no frets on an air guitar” — alongside rock iconography and relevant lyrics. Lesson seven, for example, repurposes famous words from the Rolling Stones — “You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes you might find / You get what you need” — to make the point that “roadblocks get us to seek alternate paths.”
Meganck showed how true that advice can ring at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a steady flow of children’s book jobs came to a sudden halt. Faced with free time and no less drive to create — “It’s not like you can just turn off the tap, you know?” — Meganck began creating a new set of images inspired by song lyrics that held special meaning.
The catalyst was the passing of one of his favorite musicians, John Prine, who died after developing COVID symptoms in April 2020. Meganck saw Prine perform four times and owns every album the wry and big-hearted Illinois-born singer-songwriter released. While listening to one of Prine’s most acclaimed songs, “Hello in There,” Meganck realized the poignant portrait of aging communicated something essential about the pandemic lockdown.
“This is what’s happening today,” he remembers thinking. “‘Me and Loretta, we don’t talk much anymore,’ [and] ‘All the news just repeats itself.’ That’s what was happening.”
Meganck typed out the words, started doodling on top of them and discovered the practice offered relief from the pandemic’s flood of bad news. He settled into a steady pace, sharing a song a week for the next 200 weeks ranging from Led Zeppelin to Bob Marley to a tune from Beyoncé’s country opus, “Cowboy Carter.” The series developed an online following and landed plenty of press coverage, culminating in a 2023 exhibition at the Artspace gallery in Stratford Hills.
“I had a lot of people come,” he says. “What people really wanted to talk about was not the art … They wanted to talk to me about the song. ‘I remember, that song …’ They’re telling me stories about [them] and they were buying [prints], but they weren’t buying them for the art. They were buying them for the memories.”
Drawing on musical memories
Meganck grew up in Detroit, and his early musical memories formed as the sounds of Motown soul legends drifted his way courtesy of radio station CKLW. “I carried in my pocket this antenna,” he remembers, “I would just walk around with this transistor radio on all the time. I’d put it on my pillow at night and sleep.” Songs by Motown signees Stevie Wonder, the Marvelettes and Martha and the Vandellas are featured in the “See What I Hear” series.
With its skillfully angled lines of text, which co-function as information and contour, the 2024 Richmond Folk Festival poster will feel familiar to fans of this rich new portfolio. Though this time around, the type documents a varied lineup of artists ranging from the Tuareg guitar of Bombino to the Javanese sindhen of Peni Candra Rini. Meganck revels each year in the variety he encounters at the festival. “They’re really, really broad on the definition of folk,” he says. “You can’t go to that festival and not be exposed to something you have never known existed … Everybody should take advantage of that.”
Meganck’s own concert-going history is the stuff of dreams. Jimi. Janis. The Who performing “Tommy.” Lately he’s been enjoying shows at the Broadberry and the Tin Pan — venues that set the stage for an intimate connection between performer and audience. That synergy, and the everyday miracle that is live music, continue to capture Meganck’s imagination.
“I’ve never been to a live concert I haven’t enjoyed,” he affirms. “Everything else seems to disappear. You’re not talking politics. You don’t care where this person is from, or what their views are on this or that. You’re all together at the same time, listening to that music and standing up, dancing, cheering together. It forms this union and this bond.”
If you enjoy this year’s Folk Festival and decide to take home a framable memento, you’ll have options. In addition to the standard poster, a limited run of screen prints courtesy of Richmond’s own Triple Stamp Press will be available while supplies last. Meganck had to retool his design upon learning that a screen printing was a possibility; it had been years since he’d worked within that transfer technique, with its limitations around line width and number of colors. But he so enjoyed diving back in that he’s starting a new series of screen-printed pieces encapsulating musical genres, as opposed to specific songs. “I’m going to do one for blues, I’m going to do one for jazz, I’m going to do one for bluegrass… I’m working on that now.”
In the meantime, once attendees have started donning this year’s Folk Festival merch and swigging from beer cans sporting his work, Meganck will have assumed the status of visual lodestar for an event that’s turned celebrating varied genres into a local tradition. In this sense, the 2024 poster isn’t just advertisement; it’s evidence of the alignment between the festival’s soul and Meganck’s own.
“Music is universal,” he says. “We can all listen to a song and appreciate that music, and it’ll draw us together.”
The Richmond Folk Festival takes place from Friday, Sept. 27 to Sunday, Sept. 29. The 2024 poster will be available for purchase on site, including a limited screen-printed version. To view and purchase prints from Robert Meganck’s “See What I Hear” series, visit meganck.com.
