Starting Maker Blog
Jan 28, 2015
My name is Rick. As a painter, I've been producing work for about 20 years. I began in oils and moved to acrylic in the late 90's. Acrylic dried faster with an easier path to a complete do-over when I wanted. Essentially the media was a better match to my natural indecisiveness. My compositions are almost always figurative. I enjoy using the human form for it's grounding capabilities. It is so tied to our innate sense of recognition, it can be pared down to a shadow, a line, or a slight disturbance in its background, and still effect us strongly. For me the lack of detail and identity is an invitation to the viewer. I rely on the figure's stability to act as counterbalance to the expressive marks and color combinations I love. My job as the painter is to reconcile these two elements - the solidity of the figure with it's active, dynamic environment.
As a maker of things, I've followed interests of design and construction into projects like kinetic garden sculpture, multilayer wall mirrors, cast paper, found object sculpture, silicone molds and candle making. Some have become fully formed product lines that sold to wholesale and retail markets, others were designed, sourced out and created only to become a one-of-a-kind item. Progress is often at a snail's pace with these ideas. In fact, after full-time work comes painting, then design & craft projects. What has usually come in fourth is marketing and general participation in art outside of my own studio.
This first post is meant to sum up the intention of the blog. As an artist and maker of things, I've found myself going around my studio presenting tasks to myself in a presentation style that I'm not accustomed to otherwise in my life. I've never been a teacher, instructor or even mentor to groups or individuals. And yet, I find the need to have an outlet on various aspects of where ideas come from, how they're applied, the processes of design and construction, all the way through to small-scale production.
That process is different for everyone. What should come through here is part of my own; confident in some aspects, cautiously exploring others, and curious about the rest. I'm looking forward to sharing some of my studio time and offering feedback on the progress of others. Here's to making things!
