Beyond Paint & Sip: How Wine & Design Builds Community Through Art

Richmond thrives on creativity, and few places capture that energy quite like Wine & Design. More than just a paint-and-sip studio, Wine & Design RVA blends art, community, and collaboration to create experiences that reflect the city’s unique spirit. From team-building workshops and DIY crafts to philanthropic partnerships that give back through their Paint It Forward program, the studio continues to shape meaningful connections through art. We sat down with the team to learn how they’re bringing Richmond’s culture to life—one brushstroke, craft, and gathering at a time.

CultureWorks: Richmond’s creative spirit is unique. how does wine & design tap into the city’s energy and culture through your classes and events?

Wine & Design: Richmond's creative spirit is unique. It's definitely it's own brand but still has space for molding. Wine and design taps into the city's energy and culture through our ability to design and craft pieces as a team that are unique to just that. Our studio has a huge catalog via our franchise but through the beautiful skill sets that myself and our local artist poses we dream up and make pieces that are unique to Richmond culture to our Richmond guests for our experiences and events.

CultureWorks: What types of gatherings—birthdays, date nights, team-building, etc.—bring people through your doors most often?

Wine & Design: Currently transitioning from summer to fall, what's coming through the door most often is team building. The workforce landscape in the workplace has continued to change after the pandemic and the workplace be it, in office or remote looks different and local employers are doing their due diligence to bring their teams together and foster some time outside of the normal day to day to connect and we are one of the top choices for collaborating on those exact events. We do team building well, if I might say so myself.

CultureWorks: Your offerings range from canvas painting to DIY projects like chunky blankets and resin crafts. What inspired you to expand beyond traditional paint-and-sip?

Wine & Design: We did expand, part of that was the franchise as a whole and the other part was my background as a maker and educator. One of my core values is community and building it, that means meeting people where they are a lot of times and everyone isn't a painter. Some people craft paper, yarn, thread... Fashion and textiles, my other loves, you get it, I'm sure.

CultureWorks: Tell us about your Paint It Forward program—how does it harness creativity to support local causes and nonprofits?

Wine & Design: Paint it Forward, I can't take credit for in the broadest sense, it was part of the reason though, I chose Wine and Design, it was part of the brand. I believe in that part, I believe in community. Paint it Forward is the opportunity we give other organizations to partner with us to meet some of their needs, fundraising. Paint it Forward events are held to raise funds for charitable organizations or even a specific cause in our community. You can come to us or we can come to you.

CultureWorks: What have been some of the most impactful or memorable outcomes of these philanthropic collaborations?

Wine & Design: Some of the most impactful outcomes of these philanthropic collaborations are always the building of community. Before Wine and Design I was dedicated to my pop up boutique. We were embedded in the market scene in and surrounding Richmond, I have had the pleasure of seating them next to each other and bringing the community efforts that were so important to me in that arena to Wine and Design RVA and the community has grown. We have been able to touch some of the schools in our area, an assisted living community, and a community continuing education program.

CultureWorks: What’s next for the Richmond studio—any new event themes, partnerships, or community goals on the horizon? The Richmond/ RVA studio is rolling out

Wine & Design: The Richmond studio is working on boosting kids programming for in-studio experiences through our Art Buzz Kids programs. We just hosted a fun singles event called Pitch- A- Friend and we are looking forward to doing more of those. We are also working on lining ourselves up to offer art for therapy experiences. Lastly, we hope to offer some introduction to different medium classes this fall.