Welcome to my
monthly interview feature! I’m so excited to be interviewing all the fabulous
artists, illustrators and designers I’ve meet over the years (both personally
and virtually!) and sharing their artwork and experiences here on Bird Meets
Worm. Look for a new interview on the first Tuesday of every month.
This
month I am super excited to be catching up with my fabulous artist friend, Paul
Richmond! We first met as art students in the Illustration program at CCAD back
in the day and now Paul is an internationally recognized visual
artist and activist whose career has included exhibitions in galleries
throughout the United States as well as publication in numerous art journals
and anthologies. (Seriously, can you say “super star”?!) His work is collected
by individuals around the globe. Influenced by his own struggles and
experiences, he seeks to challenge social constructs that exist around
sexuality and gender through his work. In his role as the Associate Art
Director for Dreamspinner Press and their young adult imprint, Harmony Ink
Press, he has created over three hundred novel cover illustrations. He is a
co-founder of the You Will Rise Project,
an organization that empowers those who have experienced bullying to speak out
creatively through the language, visual, and performing arts. He greatly
inspires me and I’m sure you will be, too, after you discover his powerful
artwork. You can view more of his artwork here!
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| Truth, humor & a whole lot of heart makes Pauly's work so powerful! |
Q:
You have been long been recognized for your work as a visual artist and social
activist, addressing issues of sexual identity & gender roles in your
artwork and the politics surrounding them. In the wake of the recent election,
what issues do you plan to tackle in your own work? And what advice would you
give to other artists looking to use their work as a vehicle for social change?
A: Oh man, the election! My
advice is to paint nonstop for the next four years because we're all going to
need to be high on paint fumes to get through this! I had some great influences
early in my training who used painting to address socio-political issues. I
absorbed that and to this day, my favorite thing about being an artist is
communicating ideas. Like you, my background is in illustration and I'm a
natural storyteller. This election came at an interesting time for me because
my husband and I relocated a few months ago from Ohio to California.
Everything’s new and interesting and occasionally a bit scary - we didn’t know
anyone here and I had never been to this part of California until the day we
arrived to move in to our new place. On election day, any last tangible thread
of “comfort zone” I may have been clinging to got swept out from under me.
Suddenly, not only did I feel like I was in a new state, it didn’t even feel
like the same country. I've been doing a series for the past few years
called War Paint - expressive figurative pieces that investigated the
construction of identity. Models coated themselves with paint; the colors and
marks of which were meant to be suggestive of their psychological states.
Building on that idea, my next phase will be to play more with context and
environment; showing figures in spaces. They might be exploring new territory,
floating aimlessly, clinging desperately to something that feels safe —
basically all the things I’ve been experiencing myself. A lot of us woke up the
day after the election in a country that didn’t feel like home any more, and I
want to dissect all of that in my next body of work. I don’t like to give
advice because what works for me might not work for someone else. But I will
say that I’ve never found moping for an extended period of time to be very
effective. When something terrible happens, I have to do something. And usually
that “something” is start painting.
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| Gorgeous! Simply stunning! |
Q:
You are a co-founder of the You Will Rise
Project, an organization empowering youth to use the arts as a means of
speaking out against bullying. Tell us a bit about how & why you took on
this powerful project and how can folks interested in speaking out against
bullying can get involved?
A: I have such empathy for
young people who are bullied because I was once in their shoes. I hated the
social aspects of school because I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, making
me a perfect target. As a gay boy who didn’t know he was gay (despite my closet
full of assorted diva compilations on cassette tape), and growing up in a
pretty conservative part of the Midwest, I stuck out like a sore thumb. A
super-tall-for-my-age, awkward sore thumb with bad skin. Thankfully I had
already established an identity as an artist thanks to an amazing teacher named
Linda Regula who became my painting mentor when I was four. Creating art was
not only something I could take pride in thanks to her thoughtful guidance, but
it was also an outlet for coping with the harassment I experienced on a daily
basis. Linda and I have remained good friends through the years. I was chatting
with her one day about all the tragic cases of teen suicide we kept seeing in
the news, many of which were connected to incidents of bullying. I told her
that I felt her classes were one of the reasons I never became one of those
statistics, and in that conversation, we dreamed up the idea for You Will Rise
as a way to empower others who are being bullied to find their creative voices
and speak out. We publish artwork from young people all around the world on our website and lead workshops and
organize community exhibitions and art installations all focused on this
important theme. It’s been such a powerful, eye-opening, gut-wrenching project
to work on, and we’ve received some incredible feedback from participants about
the positive changes it has helped them create in their lives. Above all, it
just reinforces for me the importance of art in our schools, communities, and
in our society as a whole. If you’d like to hear more about the story of Linda
and me, a filmmaker named Doug Swift created a wonderful short film last year
about us called The Mentor and the Artist. I’m so proud of the way he wove
together our stories. You can watch it here.
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| Oopsie!!! (wink, wink!) |
Q: One of my absolutely
favorite series you created is your Cheesecake
Boys series, inspired by 1950s pin-up girls! Dish with us about how this
series came about from inspiration to sketches to finished artwork.
A: I have always been a super-fan of the pinup girls
from the 40’s and 50’s — all those accident-prone ladies constantly
experiencing wardrobe malfunctions wherever they went. They were so hilariously
innocent and naughty at the same time. I always wondered why there were no male
equivalents. Men in pinup art from that era, the beefcakes, were always just
muscle bound dudes posing on a mountain or in the gym. They were always in
control of the situation, which said a lot to me about expectations of gender
roles and sexuality. So of course I wanted to turn the tables! :) My Cheesecake
Boys series is totally an exercise in campy, cheesy fun. They are dudes who
can’t seem to keep their clothes on and always get caught at just the right
moment making that classic “oopsie” face. I like to have models pose for
photo references and then I sketch them out and start painting - very similar
to how some of the pinup greats like Elvgren and Frahm worked back then. And
I’ve had the chance to work with some fun models for the series too, like Jack
Mackenroth, Perez Hilton, Mike Ruiz, Davey Wavey, and more. Currently, I am
offering a free Cheesecake Boy coloring page every Friday on my website. People
are all about adult coloring books now, and I thought this would be a fun way
to play up the “adult” part! It has been SO fun to see all the different
colored versions of the Cheesecake Boys floating around social media. Anyone who wants to join in the fun is welcome to check it out here!
Q:
During your career you’ve had your artwork stolen and sold illegally time and
time again, especially by individuals overseas. Give us the scoop on how you’ve
met this challenge and what advice you would give to fellow artists about how
to protect their intellectual property.
A: It’s a difficult challenge
that so many artists face, and there’s not really an easy solution. My
experience with it happened when someone sent me a link to some ebay listings
and said they looked like my work. Indeed they were mine - some of them were sitting
right next to me in my studio! Even worse, they were being attributed to
someone else. What I learned is that because international copyright laws are
pretty much nonexistent, sellers in other countries - especially in China - are
really fronts for these pretty large-scale “fake art factories.” They grab
images from artists’ websites, list them as originals on ebay, and then when
someone makes a purchase, an assembly line of talented and tragically underpaid
artists will re-create it. I learned all about it and even got a free sample
(of my own work!) by conducting an unofficial “investigation.” If you want to hear all about that, I shared the story in a YouTube video here.
Sadly, ebay is very lax about enforcing their
policies. Most of these sellers have thousands of listings, which generate a
lot of revenue, so they are in no hurry to shut them down. Even when you make a
big fuss about it like I did, usually the most that will happen is that they
pull the individual listings but allow the seller to maintain their store. So
they just re-list them a few days later with slightly different names. Legal
action is way too costly and time consuming for an independent artist like
myself, so the most I could do was use it as an opportunity to raise awareness
about the issue and have a few chuckles along the way. To this day, you can
find knock-offs on my stuff on ebay from a variety of different sellers. Some
artists put large watermarks on all the images of their work that get posted
online. I considered it, but a lot of my art sales are through the web. I
personally don’t like the idea of obstructing the view of the piece even though
I certainly understand why other artists do it. For me, the benefits of online
exposure FAR outweigh the negatives, and someone who is going to buy a cheap
knockoff is probably not going to be interested in collecting my original work
anyway. At least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t obsess over it
constantly!
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| Aren't we the cutest?! Love me some Pauly! |
Q: Tell
us all about your MOST favorite illustration/painting/series/or book cover
project: one from your past and one from your present.
A: The
one from my past that I’ll pick is The Dollypop Guild because it involves you,
Jane! I was invited to participate in a group show called DollyPOP honoring one
of my heroes, Dolly Parton, at the World of Wonder Gallery in LA. I’ve admired
Dolly since I was a kid and saw The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Incidentally that movie also made me want to grow up and be a whore, but to my
credit, I thought it just meant wearing fancy clothes and singing a lot.
Anyway, my contribution to the show was a Dolly-ized take on The Wizard of Oz,
complete with a little boy in his mom’s red heels embarking on the yellow brick
road to Dollywood, with Dolly herself as Glinda descending in a big pink
sparkly bubble. Pretty much my childhood dream come true! You were so kind to
invite me to stay with you when I came out to LA for the opening, and even surprised
me with tickets to the musical 9 to 5
which was debuting there at the time. That was such a fun trip! And I still love
and admire Dolly to this day!
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| Sweet, heart-felt & fabulous! Could it be anything else when Dolly's involved?! |
More recently, a project
that was one of my favs was a set of commissions from James Franco. I painted
two large pieces that were incorporated into the set of a film he was making
last year called The Long Home. One of our college friends, Kristen Adams, was
doing production design and made it all happen. I delivered them to him on the
set and my friend Aaron and I even got to be extras in a scene they were
filming that night with James, Josh Hutcherson, and Courtney Love. Quite an
experience! And I can’t wait to see the finished movie, which comes out
sometime in 2017.
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| I know I already said it, but seriously, can you say SUPER STAR?! |
Q:
Describe your most perfect Sunday.
A: I think my perfect Sunday
is the opposite of most people’s. I have a really hard time sitting still. I'm
always the happiest when I’m concocting some kind of crazy scheme. The details
aren’t important - it could be an adventure with my husband, some kind of kooky
video collaboration with friends for my YouTube channel, dreaming up a new art
project, etc. I usually have twenty things in the works at all times, which is
how I’ve always been and I’m sure always will be. There’s so much I want to see
and do! Even on a day when I could sleep in, I usually get up really early and
don’t stop until I crash at night. My friends always joke that they have to
take me in small doses because they are tired when they leave and their faces
hurt from laughing — which I take as the highest compliment! :)
It’s
always a pleasure, Pauly! Thank you SO much for giving Bird Meets Worm a boost
with your talent, positive energy and fabulous sense of humor! XO
