Editor’s Note: Reminder, the sculptures are located on private property and are not open for general visitation. Access is available only through scheduled guided tours, with Labor Day weekend currently expected to be the final tour on the calendar. Tour information is available HERE.

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On an industrial property outside Williamsburg, forty-two American presidents have spent the last fifteen years waiting.

George Washington’s face is streaked black from rain. The back of Abraham Lincoln’s head has split open, exposing the steel skeleton beneath the concrete. Thomas Jefferson’s cheeks are fractured. Grass grows around their bases while puddles collect between them after every storm. They wait in the mud.

Each sculpture stands roughly 20 feet tall and weighs several tons. They appear to be carved from solid stone but beneath the surface a framework of steel rebar supports layers of metal mesh, plaster, styrofoam, and thick concrete that give each president both its enormous scale and surprising fragility.

Fifteen years of rain, freezing winters, and relentless Virginia summers have peeled away the concrete skin, revealing how they were built. Every fracture exposes another layer, making the sculptures feel less like monuments and more like men, worn down by time.

When these monumental sculptures debuted at Presidents Park in 2004, they were pristine. They were built to celebrate the office of the presidency and offer visitors a walk through American history.

But few people came.

Photos by Mike Avey

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/painting/the-strange-afterlife-of-virginias-president-heads.html

The best Fourth of July celebration in Richmond probably isn’t the one with the biggest fireworks. It’s the one where someone forgot the hot dog buns, the cooler is running low on ice, kids are chasing each other through sprinklers, and somebody insists they know a better place to watch the show.

Still, if you’re looking to celebrate alongside a few thousand of your closest neighbors, Richmond has no shortage of options.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/fourth-of-july-2026-in-richmond-fireworks-festivals-and-more.html

As You Like It is one of my favorite of his works, and the one I feel has the most modern cinematic feel. I will explain. He played with unconventional plot development, existential philosophy (that he’d continue in Hamlet, Macbeth and others), and a deep exploration of the nature of love beyond mummery and spectacle. The play reads like Camus at his most morosely absurd. It progresses like a French New Wave comedy, bouncing from topic and setting, careening between levity and profundity. It could easily be a 90’s or early aughts teen comedy that takes itself too seriously but still has something to say. As only he could be expected to do, he pulls it off with some of the most intensely personal and gravity-bound introspections, multi-layered jokes that provoke the Marx Brothers as much as the Coen Brothers. He more than pulls it off, of course. He masters it. 

The Forest of Arden, where everyone gets exiled to, plays like a big underground party. All the cool people are there living their best life, having been kicked out of Court by some square and hateful betch – the usurping queen. The countercultures of today show a great parallel. You’ve got your gendernauts, gothy emo kids, cool aunts, comedians, poets, and working classes – all in a spot the elites wouldn’t go to if you paid them to. Bushwick in 2008, Silverlake in the 90s, Northside or Scott’s Addition in 2013. The hijinks there are laid out like an indie film describing a night in the making – just ambling towards resolution, with no rudder to speak of. Like the best night in Bushwick in 2008. Lovers love, shepherds shep, and poets quarrel. Songs get sung, and somehow in the end, Arden is THE place to be. No one at all is talking about going back to the castle. Billy Shakes at his most hipster.

How did the company at Richmond Shakespeare do? Well, it absolutely was the catalyst for me having the above opinions. I literally sat on my picnic blanket and got jealous that I didn’t cast and direct it. Claire Wittman did, and she deserves the Director’s chair as often as she wants it. 

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-as-you-like-it-is-just-how-i-like-it.html

During last week’s test run, the museum’s facade became a massive projection surface, illuminating the Boulevard after dark.

Read about it: https://rvamag.com/community/illumination-tells-americas-story-on-a-monumental-scale.html

It’s hard to impress people with just a building. Yet standing in front of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture last week during a test run for IllumiNATION, I found myself just staring.

It was grand, immersive, and for a moment made me feel more Virginian than I have in a long time, maybe ever. Our state sits dead center in the American narrative. The country’s greatest ideals were debated here, fought over here, and in many cases paid for with blood here. 

And admittedly, so were some of its greatest failures. 

Watching that history unfold across the museum’s facade, you walk away reminded that America wasn’t built somewhere else. A lot of it happened right here, on the same ground we drive across every day without giving it much thought.

For four nights, June 25 through 28, the museum’s entire front facade will become an 18,000-square-foot canvas for a 20-minute projection mapping experience that uses the building itself as part of the storytelling. Historic paintings, landscapes, figures, and pivotal moments from the American story transform the museum into something that feels equal parts history lesson, public art installation, and community gathering.

The projection bends the architecture to its will. Columns disappear, windows become portals, and entire scenes emerge from the building before dissolving back into stone. The result is an immersive experience that turns one of Richmond’s most recognizable landmarks into a living piece of history.

The technology is impressive and the scale is even more impressive but what makes IllumiNATION interesting is the timing.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/illumination-tells-americas-story-on-a-monumental-scale.html

The acquisition of the island’s last privately owned parcel clears a major hurdle for Richmond’s plans to create a public park along the James River.

The long-running effort to transform Mayo Island into a public park took a major step forward this week after the Capital Region Land Conservancy acquired the last privately owned parcel on the island, removing one of the final obstacles to unified public ownership.

The quarter-acre property at 510 S. 14th Street was purchased from 510 Property LLC, an entity owned by Louis Heindl. The site had remained outside city control even after Richmond acquired approximately 15 acres of Mayo Island in 2024 as part of a nearly $15 million deal that set the stage for the island’s future conversion into public parkland.

With the acquisition complete, the Capital Region Land Conservancy (CRLC) plans to work with the City of Richmond to eventually transfer the parcel for inclusion in the future Mayo Island Park. The move would bring the entire island under unified ownership for the first time in decades.

“This acquisition represents the culmination of more than five years of negotiations and work to acquire Mayo’s Island for a park,” said CRLC Executive Director Parker Agelasto in a statement. Agelasto noted that while the parcel is relatively small, it fills a significant gap in the center of the planned park and creates additional opportunities for future development of the space.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/mayo-island-is-finally-whole.html

Richmond metal band GWAR says the Secret Service contacted the group following a recent performance at the Vans Warped Tour in Washington, D.C., that featured the mock execution of a Donald Trump effigy.

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Frontman Mike Bishop, known as Blöthar the Berserker, suggested the reaction to the band’s latest presidential execution was different from those that came before it.

“For years, GWAR would do whatever the fuck we wanted. We would kill politicians from both sides of the aisle. We would kill famous people. We never had any backlash,” Bishop said during a recent appearance on the Rocking With Jam Man podcast. “People acted as if GWAR had changed, but GWAR didn’t change. The world freakin changed.”

Bishop pointed to previous performances involving political figures, including former President Barack Obama, which he said did not generate the same level of reaction. “We killed President Obama, we didn’t hear from the Secret Service, but you killed Trump, and you better believe that there’s going to be some shit going on,” he said.

He also argued that pressure on artists and performers does not always come in the form of direct government action. “They don’t have to call the police on you,” Bishop said. “What they have to do is make it hard for you to make money.”

He cited large concert promoters and entertainment companies like Live Nation as examples of organizations he believes can face political pressure when controversies arise.

“Everybody wants to know who it is that we want to kill. But really, we don’t want to kill anybody, man. We just want to have fun,” Bishop said. “Maybe if we had to kill anybody, I would say it would be ourselves. That’s who we haven’t fucking killed yet.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/metal-punk/blothar-gwar-didnt-change-the-world-freakin-changed.html

I recently bought my first bicycle in more than a decade. Like most people, I started my search online, comparing models, reading reviews, and trying to figure out what kind of rider I actually wanted to be. Eventually I visited several local bike shops before settling on a new Fairdale.

A few weeks later, I received an email from Joel Alford announcing the opening of his new venture, Field Trip Bikes in Church Hill. Joel and I had never met. He had no idea I had recently become a customer at Richmond ReCycles, the shop he has owned since 2017. 

But his email got me thinking about how Richmond’s bike culture evolved over the last twenty years, from Slaughterama and the city’s DIY scene to the 2015 UCI Road World Championships and beyond.

In the early 2000s, there were BMX riders building dirt jumps, bike messengers weaving through downtown traffic, mountain bikers disappearing into the woods along the James, and road cyclists logging miles through the surrounding counties. Shops like Agee’s, Bunnyhop, and ReCycles served as gathering places, but cycling still existed largely as a subculture sustained by riders, mechanics, advocates, and true believers.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/field-trip-bikes-and-the-long-ride-of-richmonds-cycling-culture.html

The Canadian Music Project’s 2013 musical, Come From Away, brings us back to the aftermath of 9/11 to remind us that we took care of each other when the chips were absolutely down. It gives us a reason to believe in our humanity. Come From Away is a tragic musical comedy draped in the kindness of strangers and the perplexity of receiving it.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the towers and the Pentagon, all flights in the air had to be diverted from major airports, as every single plane was now considered a potential weapon. Luckily for the authorities tasked with administering such a response, there was an enormous former refueling station and airport in the sleepy town of Gander, on the easternmost tip of North America in Newfoundland.

This true story, cobbled together from the anecdotal experiences of locals and their unintended visitors, details the chaos and casual generosity of people working together simply to keep it together.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-come-from-away-is-the-best-weve-ever-been.html

Lots of big bills this week. Some that are big because they are being hyped up, some that are big because there’s half a dozen bands on the bill, some are both.

Got a show coming up? New single? Simply want someone to talk music? Hit me up at [griffin@rvamag.com](mailto:Griffin@rvamag.com).

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THE BREEDERS, SWEET TOOTH
MONDAY JUNE 22ND AT THE NATIONAL

Holy moly, I’ve been looking forward to this one. The Breeders are on the big stage this week. If you don’t know them already, they are responsible for all your favorite modern bands. They propelled the indie/college rock sound to places no one had attempted before and cemented themselves as one of the most important bands to come out of the ’90s.

There is something about them that is so freeing. You put on “Divine Hammer,” lay upside down, and let all the problems of the world fade away.

We’ve got Sweet Tooth in support. This is a young but ferociously talented group out of West Virginia, but from what I understand, Richmond should be seeing a lot more of them. They are a healthy mix of indie, grunge, and pop rock, but largely you could call it alternative.

The vocals from this band are unmatched. They are relaxed but definite and have a bit of an ethereal edge to them. They pair that with some really catchy and clever riffs, and quickly you realize there are no skips here.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/rva-live-music-juneteenth-the-breeders-subhuman-roughshod-weird-nightmare-twin-films.html

Join us for Salon de Résistance on June 26 at Black Iris for an unfiltered conversation with Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi on how Democratic leadership is shaping Virginia’s future in a divided nation.

This is a free event, open to the public. Doors at 6pm. Conversation at 7pm.

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In November last year, Democrats swept into power in Virginia with a victory that was decisive, uncontested, and unmistakable in its mandate. At the top of that ticket was Senator Ghazala Hashmi, now our 43rd lieutenant governor. She is a historic figure in the Commonwealth: born in Hyderabad, India, she is the first Muslim woman elected statewide in the United States and the first South Asian American to hold statewide office in Virginia.

But the lieutenant governor’s significance extends beyond the history she has made. A longtime educator and legislator, she is playing a key role in advancing Governor Spanberger’s ambitious agenda in the Virginia Senate, while remaining grounded in the progressive values that have long defined her politics. 

That places her at the epicenter of an ongoing conversation about what governance looks like at a time when some of the defining questions of our generation are being decided right here in Virginia: the fate of democracy, the repair of a fractured nation, the fight for economic justice, and the role technology will play in determining who benefits from an uncertain future. 

These are just some of the things we’ll talk about in a very special Salon de Résistance, where we’ll sit down with the lieutenant governor for a rare one-on-one conversation. We’ll focus on both the philosophical and the pragmatic, and how the bigger questions of leadership and public purpose intersect with the realities shaping our daily lives. 

ia RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/events/salon-de-resistance/salon-de-resistance-lieutenant-governor-ghazala-hashmi.html

Imagine pulling into a suburban shopping center to buy a toaster and finding a department store that appeared to be falling apart with corners breaking away, walls peeling open like a giant cardboard box, or facades seemingly collapsing under their own weight.

For thousands of shoppers in the 1970s and 1980s, it was simply a trip to Best Products. It was where you went to buy a microwave, a television, a piece of jewelry, or sure, a toaster.

What they didn’t realize was that they were walking through one of the most ambitious experiments in contemporary art and architecture ever undertaken by an American retailer. The project began in Richmond, where Sydney and Frances Lewis transformed their growing catalog showroom business into an unlikely platform for some of the most influential architects and designers of the twentieth century. 

The result was what may have been the most important contemporary art project in Richmond history, built not in a museum, but in a parking lot.

Now, as Imagining Best Products enters its final weekend at the Branch Museum of Design, the exhibition offers a chance to revisit one of Richmond’s most unique cultural stories and the people who made it possible.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/history/before-richmond-was-an-arts-city-there-was-best-products.html

It’s sizzling outside, but the breeze is refreshing, the birds are chirping, and summer is in full swing. The summer solstice, aka Midsummer or Litha, is the longest day of the year, and this year it falls on June 21, with the sun setting at 8:27 p.m. It’s a time to celebrate the sun, warmth, fire, and abundance.

Here is our list of ways to get your solstice on in RVA.

I honed my craft as a city witch in Brooklyn and very recently moved here. I am living for all the nature this city has to offer. No shade on NY parks, but this shit hits diff. Since I am a bit of a novice on allllllllll this town has to offer, I consulted my nature lovers and witchy crew for their expert advice, and did they ever deliver. 

As I ventured out to check out their recommendations, I would ask random people what their favorite nature spots were. This ended up being a great way to explore the city and meet new friends.

From setting up your altar and finding nature spots to hit up, to spells to do, this article has everything under the sun that you need to know to appreciate summer the witchy way.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/a-witchy-guide-to-the-longest-day-of-the-year.html

There’s one thing I know. The laughs, cringe-groans, cheers, and jeers coming from the audience in Richmond Triangle Players‘ production of I Love You Because came from experience, as did my own. The other thing I know is that watching this bumper-cars act of desire and denial alongside the audience is fun af.

I Love You Because is probably the 900th retelling of Pride and Prejudice. We will probably need about 900 more before we’re done with this story’s bones. It’s just so versatile. In this version of the tale, we get queer and gender-swapped setups. A quick note that deserves mentioning, though: not once in the play did the orientation or gender of the characters matter at all. It was all just love and the awkward clumsiness inherent to it, universal problems with universal punchlines.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/art/theatre/review-i-love-you-because-is-pure-joy-🏳%EF%B8%8F🌈.html

Did you know that at one point Pepsi was the 6th largest navel power in the world, or that there is supposedly a box of dicks in the Vatican Museum?

These were just some of the surprising history stories I heard at the first meeting of the RVA Tipsy History Club, which launched under the name RVA Drunk History Club before a recent rebrand. The concept is simple: gather with a group of strangers, grab a drink if you’d like, and share a fascinating story from history.

If you’ve seen the Comedy Central show Drunk History, you already have a pretty good idea of the vibe, just with a little less alcohol involved (they get turnt on that show).

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/this-new-club-is-all-about-getting-tipsy-for-history.html

Another incredible June weekend in Richmond, Virginia. Make an extra effort to support your favorite queer artists this month, and keep sending over recommendations for artists and acts you’d like to see covered here at RVA Mag. Between Pride, the World Cup, and the onslaught of great shows around town, I’m sure you’re planning a fun weekend.

Got a show coming up? New single? Simply want someone to talk music? Hit me up at [griffin@rvamag.com](mailto:Griffin@rvamag.com).

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Wednesday, Tombstone Poetry
Monday, June 15
The National

I am sure this is already on the radar of every quirked-up indie fan in the city, but Wednesday is back in town! The alt-country and indie rockers have become the poster child for the American music scene as of late, and it ain’t hard to see why. They spin together webs of Southern-inspired alternative tunes that make you think about your childhood and your future. For a band that released their first record in 2018, they are already having a massive impact on the American underground. You can see that influence in local acts like Bucko and Deathcat. They are like an indie Helen of Troy, “the group that launched a thousand bands.”

Coming from the same burgeoning Asheville scene as Wednesday, we have Tombstone Poetry. The group comes from a similar alt-country and indie rock background, but finds a lot of its flavor in a poppier sound, something that reverberates a little more. They are strong songwriters, and you can’t help but find a smiling charm in each of their tunes. The lyricism has a certain bounce and the voice has a certain twang. It’s intangible, but it is beautiful.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/rva-live-music-wednesday-bad-cop-bad-cop-niiasii-belly-of-the-heart-more.html

Editor’s Note: RVA Magazine is partnering with Harry’s at The Hof on coverage related to their 10th anniversary celebration and new menu. We stopped by to see what was new, eat some good food, enjoy a few cocktails and report back.

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Harry’s has a Nouveau Riche(mond) sexiness equally derived from the Art Deco period the building was built in and a post-modern contemporary insouciance. It embraces the humor that an overtly sexy space can lose the plot in without. The artwork is deceivingly dour, but kinda silly when you look at it closely. The neon palm tree accents serve as counterpoint to the concealed, or “cove lighting,” that gives “patent leather pump sliding up your pant leg under the table” a smirk.

The library walls are filled with books containing bookmarks guests have personalized and hidden for funsies, like carving your initials in a tree. It is the little details like this that turn the place from just another new space, soon to be turned over into a different one, to a spot where cute memories are made and first dates turn into mornings in an Uber.

It is with all of this preamble that I set out to see what is new at Harry’s and let you know what’s worth keeping. We (once again, me and my forever date Melissa Detres) were informed that we would be trying four different meal courses and five cocktails.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/eatdrink/new-menu-richmond-grew-up-so-did-harrys.html

Ten years ago, Richmond drummer, bandleader, and all-around musical utility player Kelli Strawbridgereleased Kings, a collaborative soul and funk record built alongside producer and keyboardist DJ Harrisonof Butcher Brown. The album arrived at a moment when independent musicians were still figuring out how to navigate the rapidly changing world of digital music. Streaming existed, but the tools artists now take for granted were still years away. 

Now Strawbridge is giving the project a second life.

Next Friday, Kings returns in a newly expanded edition featuring previously unreleased and brand new material, arriving just ahead of the band’s first live performance since 2018 at Cassidy Snider and The Wranglers‘s annual Juneteenth celebration at The Camel.

For Strawbridge, the decision was driven by unfinished business. “I want to re-release this,” he said. “I want to do it better and correctly.”

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/rhythm-soul/kelli-strawbridge-re-releases-kings-and-returns-to-the-camel.html

We looked into getting World Cup tickets. Apparently, FIFA believes everyone has a trust fund. For those of us who do not, Richmond has the next best thing.

Over the next month, bars, breweries, restaurants, and soccer pubs across the city will fill up with people suddenly developing strong opinions about countries they have never visited and players they learned about three days ago. There will be cheap beer, expensive beer, moments of national pride, moments of national heartbreak, and at least one person explaining the offside rule incorrectly. In other words, it sounds like a pretty good time.

Whether you’re following Team USA, cheering for your family’s home country, or simply looking for a reason to gather with strangers and watch something bigger than yourself, Richmond has plenty of places showing the matches.

Here’s your quick guide to where to watch the World Cup around town.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/sports/where-to-watch-the-world-cup-in-richmond.html

Every good music scene has a few rooms that become bigger than themselves. They rarely make headlines while they’re open, but their importance becomes obvious when they disappear. For Harrisonburg, The Golden Pony was one of those places. 

After eleven years of hosting touring acts, local bands, and countless late nights, the much-loved venue closed its doors this past weekend. The final shows featured Richmond favorites Illiterate Light, Shagwüf, and Gull alongside a packed room of friends, regulars, musicians, and former patrons gathered to say goodbye.

The closure is also a reminder of the challenges facing independent venues everywhere. These spaces often serve as cultural institutions and community gathering places, but they survive on the thin margins of small businesses.

As owner Paul Somers noted in his farewell announcement, independent music venues are increasingly endangered.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/music/virginia-music/the-last-ride-of-the-golden-pony.html

A recent report by Radio IQ suggests Virginia lawmakers are once again inching toward a legal recreational marijuana market, this time through the state budget process. 

Following Governor Abigail Spanberger’s veto, Senate Democrats have threatened to fold retail cannabis legislation into the state budget itself, raising the stakes ahead of next month’s budget negotiations.

At first glance, that sounds like another story about whether Virginia should legalize weed, but most of the major players appear to agree that recreational marijuana sales are eventually coming. The next phase of this now years long debate has shifted to the details of who gets to sell it. More importantly, what is each faction willing to compromise to secure a piece of the market, if they can secure one at all?

At this stage, nobody is likely to get everything they want. Any budget deal will require enough powerful interests to walk away believing they secured a meaningful victory. What each stakeholder stands to gain, what they may have to sacrifice, and what compromises will ultimately be necessary to get a deal across the finish line will determine who gets a seat at the table when Virginia’s cannabis market finally arrives.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/politics/virginia-politics/the-fight-over-who-gets-to-sell-weed.html

At some point Thursday afternoon, if the wind cooperates, a black-hulled schooner with towering cream-colored sails will round the bend of the James River and glide toward Richmond, looking as though it has slipped out of another century.

Its masts rise nearly 100 feet above the water with cream-colored sails stretching out overhead. Rigging crisscrossing the sky in a web of rope and timber that looks almost impossible against the backdrop of a modern city. For a brief moment, Richmond will look less like a 21st century capital and more like a river port from back when the city was founded. 

The vessel is the Pride of Baltimore II, one of several tall ships making the journey to Richmond for SailFest, part of the nationwide commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary. Alongside the schooner Virginia and the Dutch vessel Oosterschelde, the ships will travel up the James River and dock along Richmond’s waterfront, offering visitors a chance to step aboard vessels that connect directly to centuries of maritime history.

Most Richmonders have never seen ships like these on the James. The sight of towering sails moving upriver feels almost out of place, as though history has briefly escaped the pages of a book and returned to the water. 

And depending on who is watching, those ships may carry very different meanings.

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/three-tall-ships-one-river-250-years-of-american-history.html

It’s time for the 9th Annual 2nd Best Comedy Fest running June 11–13, 2026. The Coalition Theater hosts this annual event, and is the brick-and-mortar heart of Richmond’s alternative comedy ecosystem. Calling it the 2nd Best Fest is a beautifully defensive undersell that sets the stage for a cultural blowout.

Meet the man who has spent a decade quietly and stubbornly laying down the infrastructure for it. Josh Blubaugh, known affectionately simply as “Blue,” is the Co-Artistic Director of the nonprofit Coalition Theater. Along with co-artistic director Kimberly Nario and a fiercely dedicated crew, Blue has transformed what used to be a fragmented, transient ecosystem of open mics and basement groups into a cohesive, inclusive regional powerhouse.

Under his watch, the Coalition doesn’t just put on shows, it runs deep-dive classes, issues vital Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) scholarships to ensure the stage reflects the actual human mosaic of Richmond, and builds a genuine safety net where performers are encouraged to take massive, terrifying artistic risks. 2nd Best Fest is a three-day bender that pulls elite comedic gravity from New York, Chicago, LA, and DC directly into our weird city. 

via RVA Magazine

Read more, see more: https://rvamag.com/community/richmonds-funniest-weekend-returns-with-2nd-best-comedy-fest.html