Artspace Moved to Stratford Hills for the Parking. This Fall Shows What That Bought.

Between now and the end of November, a volunteer-run gallery at 2833-A Hathaway Road has scheduled a free string quartet concert, a closing night with a silent auction, a biennial opening, a violin and harp concert and a holiday reception. All five are evening events. Artspace planned this kind of season when it gave up a long run in a Manchester arts building for a storefront in the Stratford Hills Shopping Center.

The fall calendar explains the move. Artspace didn't come to Hathaway Road for the scenery. It came for a parking lot and for a room that could hold a concert after dark. This fall, those evenings fill its calendar.

Why a gallery left Manchester for a shopping center

Artspace spent 2004 to 2020 at Plant Zero in Manchester, and its own history says it opened at the Stratford Hills location in December 2021.

In Richmond Magazine's 2021 fall arts preview, the gallery listed its reasons for leaving. Plant Zero limited what it could program. Parking there went from paid to gone once construction took the spaces. Other arts uses nearby had been leaving too. The Stratford Hills site offered easy parking and room for more kinds of performances and evening viewings.

That same preview described a front gallery with movable walls and a back room for classes, workshops, lectures and screenings. Artspace still describes its exhibition area as a space that can be divided and set up for different artists or collaborations. The flexible walls are useful this fall, since the main exhibition is built around artists showing in pairs.

The evening calendar the old space couldn't hold

Here is what's on Artspace's fall 2026 schedule from today, October 7, through the end of November.

The Duets listing on RVA Mag's events calendar has the October 23 opening, the November 20 concert and the November 27 reception. Artspace usually holds artist openings on Fourth Fridays from 6 to 9 p.m., and October 23 is the fourth Friday of the month. November 27 is the day after Thanksgiving, which works if you have family in town and want to get everyone out of the house.

Full Moon Cabaret 4 is the fundraiser running now. Artists donate 12-by-12-inch works, and each one sells anonymously for $50. Tickets to the September 25 reception, with musical guests, were $35. The public sale since September 26 has been free to walk into, so for the rest of the run, the price of one small original is $15 more than that reception ticket. After the auction closes at 7:30 p.m. on October 16, whatever hasn't sold stays available until 4 p.m. on October 17.

What Duets asks of its members

Duets is the 2026 Artspace Member Biennial, on view at Hathaway Road from October 23 through December 19. Each Artspace artist member picks a guest artist from their own life, such as a friend, family member or colleague, and the two show side by side. The rule is that the guest can't currently be affiliated with Artspace. The first pair on the exhibition page is Dandridge Davis and Johanna Carrington. Davis's piece is titled "Tubing on the Cow Pasture."

Michael A. Pierce, Artspace's vice president for membership, curated the show. The announcement says it includes painting, ceramics, textile sculpture, photography, assemblage and artist books. In the announcement, Pierce described it like this:

"Art is rarely born in a vacuum; it sometimes thrives on connection, conversation, and the unexpected sparks that fly when two creative minds meet."

There is also a printed catalog designed by Robert Meganck, with print sponsorship from Worth Higgins & Associates. A smaller satellite version of Duets opened October 2 at Corporate & Museum Frame on Broad Street downtown. Artspace's pages list its closing date as December 18 in one place and December 19 in another. For people who live in Stratford Hills, the satellite is mostly a sign of how the gallery is reaching out this year. Most of the work is on Hathaway Road.

The pairing format is the reason this biennial has a guest list. Each member brings in someone from outside, so the opening on October 23 should draw people who have never been to the gallery.

Who keeps the lights on

Artspace calls itself a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) led by its artist members, with help from community members and volunteers. The current member roster shows 53 artist members, five associate artist members and eight members on leave.

The artist membership page lays out what members commit to. Regular dues are $35 a month. Each member staffs the gallery for 36 hours a year, serves on a committee and attends at least nine monthly meetings a year. Members in good standing vote on how new members are accepted and how many members the gallery has, and they can show work in members' exhibitions.

Some quick math puts the staffing pledge in context. At 36 hours each, 53 artist members add up to about 1,900 volunteer hours a year. Keeping the gallery open five afternoons a week, noon to 4, takes roughly 1,040. Members pledge almost twice the daytime hours the gallery needs, which helps explain how a volunteer-run gallery can also fill so many evenings.

Admission is free. Artspace's About page lists hours of noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and says it's closed Monday and Tuesday. Another Artspace page shows Tuesday afternoons as open, so check before planning a Tuesday visit.

An October 15 evening, start to finish

The free Rosette concert is the next evening event on the calendar, and the rest of the shopping center makes it easy to build a whole evening around it.

1. Late afternoon, Furbish Thrift. The thrift shop raises money for animal charities and is in the same shopping center. It's open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday counts, so you have until 6.
2. 6:30 p.m., Artspace doors open. Use the half hour before the music to look at the Full Moon Cabaret wall. Two days later, those $50 pieces come down.
3. 7 p.m., Rosette plays Kevin Puts. The program is "So Hot Right Now," and admission is free.
4. After, Galley at 2805 Hathaway Road. On weeknights, Galley is open until 10 p.m. On weekends it opens at 10 a.m. and also closes at 10.

If your free time is in the morning, you can head to the river first. Friends of James River Park has Wetlands invasive-species removal sessions at 3401 Landria Drive on October 14 and 21, both from 9 a.m. to noon. The group's Rooted & Wild fundraiser follows on November 5 and 6, with yoga, a family event, a sunrise hike, art activities and a main event on the evening of November 6.

Back at the shopping center, the Duets opening comes eight days after the Rosette concert, on Friday, October 23. The doors open at 6, and the parking lot that brought Artspace here is right out front.

Kelly is a Richmond broker who came here in 2000 to study interior design at VCU, and she pays attention to the places that give a neighborhood its character, like a member-run gallery in a shopping center. If you live in Stratford Hills and are wondering how places like Hathaway Road figure into what your home is worth, Kelly Blanchard is glad to talk it through, with no pressure. Ask for a free home valuation whenever the timing feels right.