We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Richard Keen III a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Richard thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
It is no secret that I am at my happiest and most fulfilled when I am in my studio painting, drawing, or making sculptures. Anyone who knows me would tell you I’m less fun to be around if I haven’t had that time to explore and actively create my art. That said, I don’t have to wonder, I do have a “regular job.”
I got my first job when I was still a kid, where I rode my bike to a local drug store to stock shelves, then working for my family’s catering business through high school. Showing up, working hard, doing it right or doing it over… these were all values instilled in me from an early age, and although I didn’t always love it at the time, I’m grateful for those experiences. Since then I’ve always worked a “day job” to make ends meet. I’ve waited tables, been a teacher, a laborer, and for the past 20 years my business partner and I have worked setting and tending moorings in Casco Bay, Maine. I’ll be the first to admit that when the weather is bitter, or there’s a shark sighting where I’m supposed to dive, I don’t love it. But the reality is, this work not only supports my family and grants me a lot of independence, it also affords me visual and sensory information that informs and expands my work as an artist. Rudders, hulls, keels, coastline… these are all elements that show up in my work thanks to my day job.
I think there is a sort of perception out there in the general public, and also to some extent in the gallery world, that artists are all either fantastically successful and wealthy, or dreamers who are poetically poor, the “starving artist” trope, which can sometimes lead to people dismissing artists with jobs as less committed, or not as serious. I reject that. Lots of artists have held down day jobs – in fact there is a really great exhibit called ‘Day Job’ done by the Blanton Museum of Art that showcases exactly that. Artists are dishwashers, nannies, furniture makers, and also lawyers and CEOs of major companies. I am proud to be a part of that tradition. It takes a lot of dedication and focus to manage both worlds and my art is not “less” because I also enjoy being able to keep the lights on and go out to eat.
Make no mistake, however; my day job is super physical, and I look forward to a time when my art sales and commissions will allow me to hang up my dive gear.
Richard , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I fell in love with making art at a really young age. As a boy I would get really lost in the process of drawing or painting – even sculpture. I really loved cartoons too. Art was how I made sense of the world. These early works usually became gifts for my parents, but by the time I was a junior in high school, which amazingly had four art teachers, I was spending most of my time in the art department and I knew that somehow, art was my future.
My parents were supportive, but also are very “practical minded” people who didn’t see art as a way to a stable future. It took me a while, and a few explorations in setting, to figure out my path. I tried a compromise career working in graphic design, but it wasn’t where my heart was so I moved along and earned my BFA, and then later my Master of Arts which allowed me the space and structure to really explore my artistic language, while also demanding I gain mastery of technique and materials.
I work in many different styles, often at the same time. Some of the work is really abstracted and hard-edged, like the “Form Singularity” series. Those pieces tend to have tight lines and overlapping geometries forming patterns. Other bodies of work, like the series relating to islands or the town where I live, are more clearly tied to landscapes and tree formations. A selection of my recent and ongoing abstracted landscapes will be going out to the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, IN this coming January, 2024, for a solo show there. To me, it is all part of the same conversation – my conversation with the spaces around me, and the voids created in between objects. It is endlessly interesting to me and it often happens that by walking away from one piece to go work on a completely different piece, I solve the puzzle I was stuck on with the earlier work. All of them, together, are forever pushing me forward.
I love to work in different sizes too. I’ll spend weeks obsessing on a series in a fairly small format, like the collection about to be shown in my upcoming solo exhibition at The Garage Center in Queens, New York; then go and stretch a large canvas over nearly an entire wall in my studio to work on. In fact, I am currently finishing up a fairly large 18 panel mural right now for a really exciting public art project. Maine has a fantastic program called ”Percent for Art,” run by the Maine Arts Commission, that designates funding for art within new public buildings. This current mural is my third for inclusion in a new high school in Maine through this program, and I’m really honored to be doing this work.
Having taught art in public high school here for about five years before leaving to join my business partner in the boat mooring company we own, it gives me a special satisfaction to bring my art into these spaces. It means something to me when I install a work and know it will be a part of the visual landscape for generations or newly forming adults as they start to make sense of their own worlds.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I moved to Maine in 1999, and since then I have been making art that I feel breaks down the typical notions of what “Maine Art” art is, has been, or might be. This is not a small thing. Maine has a long, and storied, relationship with the art world. For a small state, a staggering amount of art has been created here. It can be inspiring, but it can also be stifling.
Most, if not all, of my work has been influenced by the same landscape, seascape and working waterfronts as more traditional work. However, it is fair to say that my approach and results are not typical. For example, my “Form Singularity “ series in painting and sculpture are inspired by seascapes and boat components, yet it is the most abstract and minimal body of work that I produce. A lot of my own experience is, quite literally, inverted perspective since a lot of my time staring at boats is looking up, from underneath.
Recently, several shaped paintings from this series were included in a group show at the Paintings Center in New York City called “Perspective Redefined.” This show really made me more aware of how my work addresses the term ‘perspective’ in art. On May 5th, work from my “Form Singularity” series will be installed in a solo show at The Garage Art Center in Queens, NY, called “Around the Edges ”, it will run from May 6th – June 4th 2023. Later in August, 2023, several paintings from this series will be in a group show in York, ME in an exhibition called “In- Dialogue”, pairing Maine artists whose work relates to one another.
My more traditional landscape paintings, from my “Sea Geometry” and “Abstract Topography” series, prompted Carl Little to write in Art New England, “These are not your grandfather’s marine paintings.” Infused with bright colors and traditional mark making, they push against un-natural edges and geometric patterns that I tend to be attracted to.
For my own sanity, I am forever looking for ways to propel my work into a broader art conversation without being tethered to one way of working as an artist. I’ve also been extremely fortunate to have been awarded several public art projects through the Maine Arts Commission. These commissions have been enlightening and helping to pave a way for me to share my work with the public versus staying within the boundaries of galleries and museum shows.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
When so many people around the world are dealing with war, climate change fallout, personal tragedies, or cross-cultural reckonings… to simply say “buy more original art” rings a bit hollow. However, I genuinely believe art and artists can and do make people’s lives more meaningful. Therefore, yes: buy more art, go to more galleries and museums, visit artist studios, go to fairs, ask questions and find out what moves you. Living with original art makes the world a better place in so many different ways.
When you think about what might be spent on an elegant dinner for two, or for a family of four to take a weekend out of town, art’s a bargain. Art lasts a lot longer than a dinner, becomes a part of the family landscape, can be handed down for generations – and appreciates in value too!
I have friends who buy original art for their children, and teach their children how to look for original art to buy for themselves. I truly believe it makes for a more individual experience in life and helps artists continue following their passion and purpose.
Not that you won’t remember those experiences eating a meal or going to a concert etc., but purchasing an original work of art will last so much longer. You’ll be able to share your art purchase with your family and friends for years, pass on to your children, display it in your workplace, or pass it on as a gift to a museum or institution when you’re ready.
Another way to support artists and creatives is to ask them questions, engage them in ongoing conversations, introduce them to your friends, share their art in person, help them out and share their work on social media and pass along their names at parties or at work if you think you know someone who might like their artwork. Basically, help make them accessible. They have also been known to appreciate a plate of homemade cookies now and again, or a bourbon cake.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://richardkeenstudio.com/section/321145.html
- Instagram: @richardkeenstudio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.keen.79
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-keen-98057934/
Image Credits
All photos taken by artist and his wife Heather Martin