Richard’s father would restructure the new John Deere combine and many other farming equipment pieces on the grain farm to function even better. Richard’s mother created beautiful floral gardens and glorious floral centerpieces from her garden for others to enjoy at her church and friends’ special occasions. She joined a local small-town art club and learned to paint as a hobby.

Two early life events that Richard recalls utilizing his innovation and observation are: making from wood scraps a rear bicycle seat on his little bike so that his little sister could ride with him; and running into the house one spring morning after counting the blossoms in the garden, to declare to his mother that they would have 922 strawberries to pick. Growing up and working on the family grain farm gave Richard continual venues to observe, create and innovate in. Colors, shapes, and designs from the earthworm coming up out of the mud to the sky filled with clouds and stars, stirred his imagination.

But to consider art as a venue of self-expression and creativity for himself was very slim. On his first day of a college art class, he was asked to make a drawing but found himself totally at a loss and quit that class. However, the high-end 35mm camera that he purchased opened the door to see the art of photography. He attended many weeklong photography workshops from Nova Scotia, Vermont, to California with the Ansel Adams Yosemite Valley workshop being the highlight. Art had dug vision and passion into Richard. Pursuing the fine art and craft of photography was foremost in his pursuit as time and funds would allow. But before retiring from commercial photography in 2016, Richard began pushing into painting with full attention to developing his oeuvre.

Painting on canvas as large as 8’x20’ has been a pleasure and fascination. One series that was enjoyable was where he opened a prepared canvas for other people to leave their walking and dancing footprints on the canvas with paint on their feet. These range in size from 5’x7’ to 7’x15’ canvases of high school art students, mothers and daughters, farmers market attendees, and children from a summer bible school. His more recent series, “40 for 2020”, includes canvas 3’x5’ to 5’x10’ regarding life during the pandemic years, depicting how strange days threw unexpected events onto the walls and windows of life as we knew it. But his most coveted piece is a canvas 5’x20’ where he had his mother and father walk arm in arm between two highly significant tractor tracks on pre-coated wet paint symbolizing life together building family and life. Richard is part of a Chicago-based artist community ‘Art Next Level’ guided by Sergio and Dr. Yanina Gomez. It is a worldwide art community supporting each other as artists, growing in