About

Short Bio

I am a retired illustrator, art director and designer living in Florence, Alabama.

Statement

I am a contemporary realist, continuing in the tradition of artists like Gustave Courbet, Johannes Vermeer, Jean-François Millet, along with Edward Hopper and the early 20th century Ashcan School, just to name a few.

Biography

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Rick’s last stop before retirement was as an illustrator and package designer for The Lumistella Company, better known as the Elf on the Shelf, where he is credited in their animated film on Netflix, “Santa’s Reindeer Rescue” as a storyboard and concept artist. He spent four years illustrating elves and friends on various materials and packaging including the cover illustrations and design for the Advent Calendars from 2020 to 2023.

Before that Rick was Department Head for the Art Direction and Advertising program at Miami Ad School Atlanta where he instructed young creative people in a post graduate program, many of whom have gone onto lucrative careers. The courses he concentrated on and loved best were all geared around concept development.

For over 30 years of his career Rick was an award winning art director and spent 17 of those years as a Vice President with McCann-Erickson World Group. During that time Rick created ads and oversaw print and broadcast shoots for the Coca-Cola Company all around the globe in Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Barbados, Bahamas, New York, Los Angles, Miami, and many other cities.

While working as an art director on the Duck Head Apparel account in Nashville, Tennessee Rick ran the figure drawing classes at the Cheekwood Fine Arts Center. It was also during this period that Rick’s painting, “Aunt Ruth’s Farm” was selected as Best in Category and Best in Show in the Athens Paper Art Exhibition which included over two hundred artists and almost four hundred entries from around the Southeastern United States.

In his early years before working in advertising Rick was an airbrush artist. Inspired by the beach artists in Florida he started the very first airbrush t-shirt operation in an American theme park at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1977. He then went down to work as an artist with Big Daddy Rat at the Rat’s Hole in Daytona Beach before finally deciding to go back and finish school at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta, Georgia where he studied illustration and art direction.

Most recently, Rick’s paintings, “Idris,” and “Afternoon Scroll” were juried into the 2023 Arts Alive gallery exhibition at the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts in Florence, Alabama where “Afternoon Scroll” received an Award of Merit.