About Art 180 180
ART 180 creates and provides art-related programs for young people living in challenging circumstances, encouraging personal and community change through self-expression. Our group is based in Richmond, Virginia.
Our Mission
ART 180 gives young people the chance to express themselves through art, and to share their stories with others.
Our Vision
Our work with young people will turn lives and communities around 180 degrees.
Our Operating Model
ART 180 partners with other nonprofit organizations to serve children living in challenging circumstances in Richmond, Virginia. Through our programs, youth discover ways they can positively engage in and influence their surroundings.
Professional artists and volunteers work with youth after school for 12 weekly sessions. Each program grows from the needs and interests of the group of young people being served.
The young artists are asked to explore crucial personal statements that reinforce their sense of identity and purpose, such as: What is a hero? What do I want people to know about me? How can I make my community a better place? Programs culminate with some kind of public presentation of artwork. These have included billboards, art exhibits, poetry readings, CDs and DVDs.
By merging the private creative experience with a public showcase, ART 180 offers youth a safe way to talk about what matters most to them, while offering the community a compelling way to hear it.
Our Motivation
To quote Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate, "If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can't imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America's alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart-and then to discover that one is not alone in one's feelings."Our Staff
Marlene Paul, Co-Founder and Executive Director
Like all of us, Marlene was born an artist. Today, her “medium” is ART 180. The Richmond native’s formal education began at Crestview Elementary, site of ART 180's “I Am” project. She graduated from James Madison University, where she studied art until she remembered she was better at writing and switched to communication/journalism. Like a good girl, she put her degree to use and got hired to communicate, with jobs in writing, editing, public relations, and publications management. She worked for an odd mix of employers on her path to a more meaningful career, including a professional association for CPAs, a theme park's PR department, a startup magazine published by Southern Living, and an advertising agency called WORK. She also wrote newspaper and magazine articles as a freelancer for more than 10 years. Finally…FINALLY, she co-founded ART 180 in 1998. In 2006 she was recognized by the American Business Women's Association as a Star in the Arts, in 2008 she was named a YWCA Outstanding Woman of the Year, and in 2010 she was awarded a Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts by Richmond Magazine.She lives in the woodsy ‘hood of Woodland Heights (hands-down the best neighborhood in the city) with a brown-eyed girl named Maya, a Turkish artist named Sahin, feline dependents named Lucky and Li’l P, and an aloe vera plant. She prides herself in knowing RVA like the back of her hand, supports public radio, and is never one to miss a farmers market or festival. And she is addicted to Nate’s Tacos!
David Holland, Development Manager
David is a Richmond native who spent much of his youth doodling, reading anything he could get his hands on, and writing poetry. He has a brother studying art in California, an aunt who trained as an opera singer, and an on-again-off-again relationship with The Artist's Way—art is a big part of his life. He spent his college years at Amherst studying economics+, and grad school at the University of London's multicultural mecca, SOAS, studying art history. David worked for several years on exciting projects in mysterious fields like "cultural policy," "creative industries" and "creativity and innovation" for a London-based consulting firm—work that took him across the UK and Europe and further afield to South Africa. He later spent some time at a large foundation before going on to consult for large and small arts nonprofits. He's also served on the board of an arts education nonprofit in the historically disadvantaged ward of Brixton and has what he calls a "rather dense article" being published in the Routledge International Handbook of Creative Learning. No stranger to phrases like strategic planning, corporate partnership and development strategy (and the ever-recurring question, "How can we get funding?"), David is back on home turf and excited to reconnect with Richmond and bring his experience and determination to ART 180.
Betsy Kelly, Program Manager
Betsy thinks that “without art, life would be pretty dull”—a feeling Chris Bolling, one of the young people in ART 180's programs, recently helped her put into words. Growing up in Long Beach, California, she loved to wander the neighborhoods there and in nearby Los Angeles in search of graffiti art and public treasures like the Watts Towers. When she moved north to study English at Stanford University, she gained a greater understanding of how people learn through art in its many forms, and developed a passion for grassroots activism. In 1994, Betsy joined the staff of Free at Last, a fledgling nonprofit in East Palo Alto that in her seven years there became a model for community-based responses to the cycle of substance abuse. Betsy next earned an M.A. in print journalism from the University of Southern California, leading her to continue her wandering as a reporter for newspapers in California, Virginia and South Africa. When she landed in Richmond in 2004, Betsy worked for the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement and the nonprofit Initiatives of Change before heeding the voice in her head reminding her that she, like the rest of the world, needs art! Betsy is now the program manager at ART 180, where she loves getting to know the young people and artists of Richmond, and rediscovering nearly every day the sense of wonder, connection and possibility that art can give.
Michael Guedri, Program and Volunteer Coordinator
A Richmond native, Michael has always been motivated by the intersection of community and art. Since second grade, he has been an incorrigible cartoonist and a constant doodler. In 2004, while working at Ellwood’s Thompson Natural Market, Michael met some ART 180 volunteers, who were there bagging groceries and earning a percentage of sales. Soon afterward he showed up at a program in his Oregon Hill neighborhood, and the next thing he knew he was leading a program there. A circuitous route led him to Austin, Texas, and back to Virginia Commonwealth University where he studied Art Education. In 2009, Michael joined the ART 180 staff as Program and Volunteer Coordinator and has been smiling ever since. He looks forward to talking with you about ways YOU can volunteer with ART 180.
Sue Wimett, Accounting Assistant
Sue is an Ohio girl who found her way to Richmond by way of Georgia. She studied accounting and finance at Dalton College and liberal arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. After 11 years with Massey Energy (formerly A.T. Massey Coal Company), she joined SunTrust Bank and became vice president-treasury management sales. When her job moved to Atlanta, Sue decided to leave banking and took early retirement. She spent a year volunteering and immersing herself in hobbies such as bicycling, gardening and baking before deciding to return to the workforce part time and share her diverse skills with a nonprofit organization. In 2005, ART 180 became that lucky nonprofit. When not here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sue is cycling, following sports, baking the most amazing cookies you’ve ever tasted, visiting her mama in Akron, Ohio, taking in live music with husband Allen, going to baseball spring training, or planning her next Key West getaway.
Karen Wolfe, Administrative Assistant
Den Mother. Little Miss Sunshine. Mistress of the Label Maker. These are just a few of the nicknames Karen has acquired since she joined ART 180 in 2008. After graduating Summa Cum Laude from VCU with a BFA in painting and printmaking and a minor in art history, this Jane-of-all-trades costumed on Hollywood films, started (and ended) her own handmade business, founded a community garden, built a cob house in Puerto Rico, and met her true love. We come to her for organizational tips when our desks are over-flowing, and astrological advice when Mercury is in retrograde. She’s been color-coding her sock draw since the tender age of 10 and—you’ll hear it here first—had a childhood crush on Mr. Clean…the cartoon.Our Board of Trustees:
President: Sue Ann (SAM) Messmer
Community Volunteer
Vice President: Tristana Nesvig Trani
Strategic Planner, Virginia Commonwealth UniversitySecretary: Katie Gilstrap
Partner, Lift CaregivingTreasurer: Audrey Givens
Senior Accountant, Tax and Financial Services, LLCExecutive Director: Marlene Paul
Co-founder, ART 180Charlie Agee
Director, Corporate Contributions, AltriaScott Blackwell
Director of Human Resources, Willams MullenCharlie Connell
Managing Partner, PUNCHStuart Horsley
Vice President, U.S. Trust (Bank of America Private Wealth Management)
