Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Rickards.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I always had an interest in art, even when I was young, but it wasn’t until I met Julia in my mid twenties, that I felt a purpose to make it more than an occasional hobby. Two years after we were married with her help and family support we decided to try professional painting on and see how it would fit.
I began painting, mostly wildlife and angling scenes and promoted those paintings mostly through Sportsmans trade shows. We had four young children by then so leaving them at home with Julia while I was on the road was an enormous challenge. Julia also did most of our picture are framing between shows so that I could quickly come home spend a dinner and night with our family, load up the trailer and head out again. This is the time where I met most of my collectors and learned the most about what people liked in my paintings and why they would hang them in their homes.
Around the year 2000 we opened up our first gallery, Clearwater gallery in downtown sisters. Although it was a lot of work at times, it felt right to be nesting our business in our hometown.
Finally, in the year 2012, we moved our gallery location one street over one block to Hood Avenue and combined our gallery with what we thought at the time to be a small wine bar. We had just returned from a client vacation in Italy and had wonderful inspiration on how a small space could feel cozy and not cramped. Julia was inspired by a smaller creative menu with fresh ingredients as opposed to trying to offer too much. Our four children, three now in college were well on their way to being amazing people of their own. A staff of around ten people, half of whom were family, invested all their love and sweat, until, within two years our staff was more than fourty people and our small wine bar had both full lunch and dinner service five days a week.
We have continued to keep both the Open Door wine bar and the Rickards Gallery, one cohesive and inviting space to offer the best experience possible. Our venue now supports private events, weddings, music festivals, and, as always art shows.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think some of the biggest challenges were working 12 shows in three months. Leaving my family for weeks at a time for several years we only had one car and I took it with me leaving Julia and her kids with no car at all, just the support from friends and family.
Other times it was difficult to plan for our income that was made mostly in January February and March to last the whole year.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
For most of my 37 years painting, professionally, I have painted in acrylic on canvas. Most of my work has been wildlife, landscape, western and angling subject matter. However, in the last 15 years or so, I have been working in oil and pencil purely to rediscover the talent of working in multiple mediums. For the past 12 years, I’ve been working on a figurative show which will debut this coming October. It will feature around 60 works of art comprised of 14 different models. This has been a true challenge for me, to effort the elegance of the human body in a way that both men and women would find beautiful and timeless.
The challenge has been to not just paint a woman from a man’s perspective, but to unveil a connection that women can relate to, as well.
I think if there’s something that people mention most often about me that sets me apart from other artists is my ability to capture so many different subject, matters in three or four different mediums.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I think early on success for me was the fact that someone was willing to spend money on my artwork, then hang it in their homeand not just offer pleasant compliments, “ you’re such a good artist” and so on.
Pricing:
- I priced by what I feel something is worth and not just by square inch.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://danrickards.com
