Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Robinson.
Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I came back to Richmond more than 20 years ago and founded Gallery5, a nonprofit visual and performing arts center built around the idea that art and culture should be accessible to everyone. I wanted to create a space where local artists, musicians, and enthusiasts could share their work, experiment, and connect with their community beyond the barriers of traditional arts spaces. Over the years, Gallery5 has become a longstanding part of Richmond’s creative landscape, serving as a catalyst and launching pad for countless artists, performers, and creative organizations. It’s been rewarding to watch so many people who got their start or found an early platform at Gallery5 go on to build successful careers and make their own mark on the cultural landscape.
Over time, my work expanded beyond exhibitions and events to create more opportunities for people to learn, develop skills, collaborate, and explore their creativity in new ways.
That vision led me to found Virago Alley, a nonprofit focused on education, craftsmanship, and community through a historical lens. Through Virago Alley, I also founded the Richmond Renaissance Faire, a two-day annual event that draws 20,000 people and brings together artisans, performers, educators, and history enthusiasts. The Faire has become a launching point for a broader vision that includes year-round workshops, guilds, and opportunities to explore traditional crafts and skills.
While each organization has its own identity, they all reflect my belief in making art, culture, and hands-on learning accessible to more people. Building them has meant developing infrastructure from the ground up, bringing people together around ambitious ideas, and finding creative ways to turn those ideas into reality with limited resources.
I see myself as both an artist and a builder. I love imagining what something could be, but I’m equally energized by the problem-solving, collaboration, and hands-on work required to make it happen. After more than two decades of building these organizations, I’m excited to keep growing, experimenting, and finding new ways to bring people and ideas together.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not. I started Gallery5 when I was just 22 years old, and I’m 44 now, so in many ways, I’ve grown up alongside the organization. In the beginning, I was fueled by creativity, passion, and a willingness to take risks. I poured myself into the work, often without taking a paycheck, because I believed so strongly in what we were building. But passion alone isn’t sustainable, and I had a lot to learn about nonprofit management, financial stability, and what it takes to build an organization that can last.
One of the biggest lessons has been understanding that building something meaningful takes time. You have to earn trust, establish a reputation, develop relationships, and demonstrate your impact before you can build the kind of community support and funding that allows the work to grow. You can have an incredible vision, but you also need the infrastructure and management practices to support it.
There have been plenty of challenges along the way, particularly in balancing the creative vision with the practical realities of running a nonprofit. Much of this work involves figuring things out as you go, making limited resources stretch, and finding ways to keep moving forward when the financial support doesn’t always match the scale of the vision.
I’ve learned a lot over the past two decades, not just about building organizations, but about leadership, sustainability, and my own limits. I still believe deeply in taking creative risks and pursuing ideas that might seem a little improbable. I just have a much greater appreciation now for building the foundation that allows those ideas, and the people behind them, to thrive over the long term.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My background is rooted in the visual arts, particularly painting in the Old Master style, sculpture, and illustration. I’ve always been drawn to Renaissance and medieval art and architecture, and I have a particular love for miniatures, which often find their way into my work. I’m fascinated by historical techniques, materials, and the ways people have made things throughout history.
My career has taken a few unexpected turns. In addition to founding and leading arts organizations, I spent a decade running my own custom cake studio, Sweet Fix. We specialized in elaborate, highly realistic sculpted cakes, and our work earned awards and recognition, appeared in numerous publications, and landed me and members of my team on Food Network, Disney Channel, and Netflix cake competitions. That experience gave me another outlet for combining sculpture, illustration, design, and a love of creating things that surprise people.
At Gallery5, I’ve also curated several hundred exhibitions over the years, showcasing artists across a wide range of disciplines and helping bring attention to Richmond’s creative community. Some of that work received national and international recognition, including coverage in The New York Times and The Times of London.
Today, a lot of my interests converge through Virago Alley and the Richmond Renaissance Faire. My fascination with historical art and architecture has grown into a deeper interest in traditional processes and hands-on craftsmanship. I love working with materials like wood, experimenting with making pigments, and learning the techniques behind the things people created centuries ago. For me, the process is often just as rewarding as the finished piece. There’s something meaningful about working with materials from the earth and connecting with the generations of makers who came before us.
What I’m most proud of is that I’ve been able to bring these interests together in ways that extend beyond my own creative practice. Whether I’m making art, curating an exhibition, building an organization, or creating an immersive historical experience, I’m interested in the possibilities that emerge when people have the space to experiment, learn, and make things themselves.
I think what sets me apart is that I move pretty comfortably between being an artist, an organizer, and a builder. I love the creative vision, but I’m equally interested in the materials, techniques, logistics, and problem-solving that bring an idea to life. I’m not just interested in preserving historical art and craft as something to look at. I want to understand how things were made, experiment with those processes, and create opportunities for other people to experience that same sense of discovery.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Most people probably don’t know that I’m an avid traditional archer who makes trick-shot videos on TikTok under the name RVARobinhood. I’m also a big adventurer. I love hiking, have completed several sections of the Appalachian Trail, and hope to hike the entire thing someday. At heart, I still want to grow up to be either a pirate or Indiana Jones.
I’m also borderline obsessed with archaeology, especially maritime archaeology, shipwrecks, buried treasure, and lost civilizations. I’m fascinated by ruins, abandoned places, and the slow decay of things over time. There’s something beautiful and haunting about places, objects, and memories that are being lost or slowly reclaimed by nature. That sense of impermanence, and the stories that linger in what remains, is a huge inspiration for my art.
Something else people might not know is that Virago Alley actually grew out of my interest in medicinal herbalism. During COVID, I began studying herbalism and eventually developed a small side business around it. That interest grew into a much bigger vision centered on historical practices, traditional skills, education, and community, eventually becoming the nonprofit it is today.
It’s funny to look at where that journey has led. I now run two nonprofits that I founded, both operating under the same roof at Gallery5, with Virago Alley headquartered upstairs. Between the art, the history, the archery, and the occasional elaborate adventure, I’ve never been particularly good at keeping my interests confined to one lane. Fortunately, following my curiosity has led me to build things I never could have imagined when I started out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.viragoalley.org www.gallery5arts.org
- Instagram: @rvaamanda @rvarobinhood @rvarenfaire @gallery5arts @viragoalley
