Paul Richard: Renegade Artist-Redefining What We Call Art

Welcome to the launch episode of Artists Unveiled, the new podcast series from Dream It Make It, a company committed to empowering artists to turn their passion into a thriving career.

On this inaugural episode, we're setting the bar high as we sit down with Paul Richard, an icon of New York City street art known for his trailblazing sidewalk drip drawings and his reputation as a "renegade artist."

In a candid conversation, Paul shares his journey from showing paintings in Boston cafes to that moment of "desperation" that led to his most unexpected and successful show: an immediate art exhibit inside a Kmart super discount store, which was covered by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Discover his philosophy of trial and error, experimentation, and a methodical work ethic, along with his vital advice for emerging creators: "Don't be your own curator", always take a chance, read the contract and change it if you want. 

If you're an artist looking to move from striving to thriving, this premiere episode is a must-listen for insight into innovative marketing and uncompromising creativity!

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Transcript

Paul Richard: There is a certain amount of desperation at that moment. And I was walking past Kmart at Astor Place, the super discount store. And I thought, you know, this would be a perfect place for an immediate art exhibit.It was probably very casual. So I walked in and I asked for the manager. I pitched it to him. Would you like to do an art exhibit in your super discount store? And he immediately said, "Yes."

Holiday: Hey everyone, welcome to Artists Unveiled. A show where we bring on exceptional creators to not just tell their story, but to give real insights on how they went from striving to thriving. My name is Holiday and I'm thrilled for this episode because today we have an icon in New York City street art. He's known for his trailblazing sidewalk drip drawings all across the city, and his innovative use of spaces and claiming them as his art. I'm very excited to welcome the one and only Paul Richard to the show!

When I first heard about you, and it was a while back—we won't date anyone, including myself—but I was invited to an art opening in the West Village, and the friend who invited me said that this person, Paul Richard, um, was known as a renegade artist. Do you have anything to say about that?

Paul Richard: Um,  I don't know. Renegade. I mean, by virtue of doing controversial things perhaps, or street art maybe guerrilla art, sort of. Renegade art. Maybe that's where it came from.

Holiday: When did your art get out into the public at large?

Paul Richard: Boston. Yeah. I was showing paintings in alternative venues. Uh, like cafes, for example… And I started actively selling pictures... And then it became a career.

Holiday: Yeah. I know things change over time, but what did you think you were gonna do when, you know, what did you think was gonna happen when you started putting art out into the world? Cause it doesn't stay that way, right? It turns into something else as you go on in life, but we're trying to, you know, give out some information to people who are maybe starting out. They have a vision or an idea of what things might be like. So at that time, and we can get to what it's turned into, but earlier in your career, what did you think it meant? What did you think it was gonna be like?

Paul Richard: Well, like the designated art project, I was going into it with a certain amount of intuition. I didn't have a tight plan or specific agenda. I was just actively painting and showing my work. So I didn't know where it was gonna go.  I didn't have any expectations per se.

Holiday: But was that indoors? When did things come out into the streets?

Paul Richard: Boston. It was just a whim. I realized that there was an enormous audience on the street, even when I was in a gallery in Boston. I thought there's an enormous audience outside.

Holiday: Didn't you do something interesting with a building in Boston? Was it a designated art piece?

Paul Richard: It was similar. I put a For Sale sign on the museum. It read: "For sale by owner, Paul Richard and my phone number." And, it was the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston's Back Bay. Beautiful building, historic, and they had great shows. I saw Mapplethorpe there. All sorts of great shows. And it seemed like a secret, this museum. Like very few people I talked to were familiar with it. So I wanted to direct attention to the museum and um, I thought a good way to do that would be to put a For Sale sign on it. Because then everybody would become sentimental about it, and um, I just thought it would be sort of controversial. Yeah.

Holiday: Kind of wake them up. Right? They didn't care before. The museum is for sale now. Now it's important 'cause it's gonna go away.

Paul Richard: So, anyway, it was touch and go. I showed up early on a Sunday morning, uh, with a 40-foot ladder. I put the sign up. I got the sign up. And, in fact, the fire department helped me because they were worried I was gonna have an accident with this 40-foot ladder. And I was wearing a suit. So they thought I owned the building. And they brought the hook and ladder out, helped me hang the sign and it was up there for a couple of days.

Holiday: So what happened  when the sign went up with your phone number on it?

Paul Richard: Well, again, it was up for a couple of days and the phone was ringing off the hook. Um, developers were calling real estate agents, people asking for the exclusive listing on the building. It was a huge amount of interest and concern, too, that the museum was for sale.

Holiday: Did anybody smack you on the hand for doing it?

Paul Richard: Um, everything went smoothly. I never got the sign back that I wanted, um, just for posterity. But um, we never did figure out who got the sign. Eventually they got it down. It was three stories up. 

Holiday: So if you have the sign out there,

Paul Richard: I asked, yeah, I asked the museum if they had the sign, and they said, "No, I think the fire department got it back down," because they helped you put it back up. They helped you put it up and I couldn't get any answers, so I went to the police station and filed a report that my painting, my sign is missing, and they called it stolen and made a couple of phone calls to the museum. 

Holiday: What did the museum have to say about all this?

Paul Richard: I think well, I never interviewed anybody there. I never asked.

Holiday: There was no discourse. Not really. No. That's kinda funny. But I found it odd that nobody knew where the sign was. You kind of charmed, you kind of get away with all this stuff. I'm not sure if anyone else could have pulled that off.

Paul Richard: Well, you find out. Try it. Give it a go.

Holiday: So how does that work, designated art? I mean, what does that mean for you or for the audience or for someone who wants to purchase something, or commerce? What does it ultimately mean?

Paul Richard: Well, I think it was designed to raise questions about who decides what art is, ultimately. So could I usurp the identity of a curator, for example? How about I decide what it is. And just by virtue of this museum label, this thing could be interpreted as art.

Holiday: You should be able to do that as an artist. That is empowering to artists. Being artists should have more control.

Paul Richard: Well, I went into it with a certain amount of intuition, and um, so I never wanted to interpret it precisely because it's open to anybody's interpretation, the passersby.

Holiday: So you journey from Boston, which is a fine city, and you come to New York, which must have been sort of like a big splash of water on your face, because New York is not Boston. How was that for you?

Paul Richard: Tough. Yeah.  I was lucky enough to um, have a friend who owned a building in Williamsburg, and uh, she was renovating the building. And we did a partial trade because I had a full wood shop for my art projects. And I moved that into her building and I was helping her with the renovations. How I got a base in New York. And um, so I was able to paint and do different projects.

Holiday: And um, when did you start doing the sidewalk art that people are so familiar with, that's sort of iconic now? People know who you are. The drip paintings. Yeah, the drip paintings.

Paul Richard: It was a while back, but again, it was the same theme. You know, the sidewalks are teeming with people. There's a huge audience. And I was trying to increase my audience as an artist. And I had supplies from the hardware store and the art supply store with me. And I thought, well, I'm going to do one of those drip portraits that I do in the studio on the sidewalk.

Holiday: I know you've mixed up your styles a lot and uh, but I feel, looking at your art, there's something that's cohesive about it. I think that, you know, there's the street artists and then there's the fine artists, and then there's Paul, and those are those two things put together, but you do a lot of experimental work. Can you explain that a little bit?

Paul Richard: Well, I like to believe that I'm experimenting a lot. I think that's part of my approach. Trial and error, experimentation. Um, sort of a methodical ethic, you know, consistency, working every day.

Holiday: Can you describe what you feel was your most significant show?

Paul Richard: Different shows were significant for different reasons.

Holiday: Well, you could pick a couple, you know.

Paul Richard: One of the shows that interested me the most was the show at Kmart at Astor Place. Um, I had a show at a gallery in Chelsea at the time, and um, according to the contract, I had to wait months to get paid. And I invested everything into the show in Chelsea. And then there was a delay to get paid for months. And um, there is a certain amount of desperation at that moment. And I was walking past Kmart at Astor Place, the super discount store. And I thought, you know, this would be a perfect place for an immediate art exhibit. Um, it was probably very casual. So I walked in and I asked for the manager. I pitched it to him. Would you like to do an art exhibit in your super discount store? And he immediately said, "Yes." The only stipulation was nothing too outrageous. And um, I got a lot of play from that.

Holiday: That was pretty innovative. A lot of your ideas and the things that you do are kind of spontaneous, but also innovative and effective. That's something that I've noticed consistently.

Paul Richard: Well, I got lucky with that show because it was sort of considered sort of quirky. So the New York Times picked it up, the Wall Street Journal, um, most of the New York publications. The Time Out New York put it in the museum section of their um, entertainment page: "Paul Richard at Kmart." Um, and uh, it felt like a little bit of a jump start. Uh, and the return was right away. Because people were paying me for the pieces. You know, I was controlling the sales, not a gallery or a director.

Holiday: Is there anything, you know, like you said, being an artist is tough. And is there anything that you tell yourself or you think someone could tell themselves on those many days that artists have when they're like, what the heck?

Paul Richard: Just keep working through all situations. Yeah.

Holiday: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. 'Cause at least you're getting something done, and then you'll have something to show for it.

Paul Richard: It's a distraction from sort of those little things that make you anxious, too.

Holiday: What's the gap in reality between what you think maybe an artist starting out thinks being an artist is and what it actually is? As far as a perception?

Paul Richard: Yeah. Um, I think most people have a sort of a hunch about what it is. I don't know, I mean, um, it's not that far removed from just a project where you extend yourself or go out of your comfort zone. Um, it's always a little harder than you think it's going to be.

Holiday: What would you say to someone who's endeavoring on this path in the earlier part of their lives?

Paul Richard: Um, well, the several elements that I mentioned earlier, um, trial and error, experimentation, and uh, sort of a methodical work ethic. And um, I think something that the artists that I'm familiar with who have made a contribution to the art world have one thing in common, and that's that they were prolific.

Holiday: What do you think are the pros and or the cons, if you do think, of the advent of social media and where it meets art?

Paul Richard: Well, the con could be just the overwhelming theme of it. Um, it's endless. It's just overwhelming in a way. It's an overstimulation. So for example, if you're looking for references for your painting, you can in seconds bring up different artists. One after another after another. Um, and, you know, it can be just too much. Uh, too many references very quickly. You know, uh, just create confusion, sort of clutter your mind.

Holiday: How about in terms of audience?

Paul Richard: Um, personally for me, if I have an audience, I scrutinize my work more. So, as the audience grows, I'm scrutinizing my work more. Um, and that's how the work progresses. It helps it progress.

Holiday: But what do you think of where art and commerce meet? Or or how one thing affects the other? And is it detract, or does it add? Is it both?

Paul Richard: Uh, both, sure. Um, it can be inspiring for an artist to sell a painting. Um, but sometimes the artist is inclined to follow the sales, sort of reproduce what he sold or do something similar.

Holiday: Is there anything that you think, or that you know, artists should look out for?

Paul Richard: Um, well, if you have a contract, read it and you can change it as you want. Um, I think, you know, that's uh, not something that somebody's gonna hold against you. In fact, somebody might appreciate that, respect it. Beyond that, um, really, sometimes you just have to take chances. If you're not sure about it, you give it a go. You know, I mean, there's this idea where you don't be your own curator. Just put it out there and see uh, see how people respond to it. Let somebody else critique it. Somebody asked me, it was an art form and somebody asked me, "What kind of art do you do?" And I said, "Art that sucks." And he became keenly interested in my work when I said that. He checked it out and researched it. He really jumped into it. So, um, again, just as an experiment, rather than talk about the medium and what sort of work I was doing, um, I described it with a single single word.

Holiday: That reminds me a little bit of an encounter I had with you when I first met you. We were in a gallery, I think it might have been your first show in New York. And you were using doors as a, to to put your medium upon, right? You were using doors. And uh, I really liked the work. I thought that the portraits were absolutely stunning and unique, and I'd never seen anything like it. But I didn't know what to say to you. We were strangers, an artist, and I was a kid in New York and I thought, well, I just asked a straightforward question. I said, "What's a girl got to do to get on a door?" And you said, "You have to be willing to be a loser."

Paul Richard: I said that?

Holiday: You did! You sure? I thought that was I, you know, I had a lot to drink, so I could have dreamed that up. But uh, I don't know, maybe I'll take authorship for that. But I thought that was so clever. And uh, I thought, oh, this person's got something to say. Okay.

Paul Richard: Yeah, sometimes it pays to be unpredictable.

Holiday: Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Artists Unveiled. Please check us out on Instagram at @dimmy.app.og. That's D-I-M-I dot A-P-P dot O-G. And on our website at https://www.google.com/search?q=godimmy.com.