We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rodrick Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rodrick below.
Rodrick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?
The first dollar I earned as a creative was from a project I did for a close friend in high school. He worked on a ranch, and knew a client who wanted a picture created of a dairy cow. My friend commissioned me to create a dry pastel portrait of a brown dairy cow on a large black piece of pastel card. I was so satisfied with the piece and the fifty dollars I earned from it. To this day, my mother talks about the cow drawing and how she wanted to keep it for herself.
Rodrick, 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’m a fourth-year undergraduate student at Harvard University and an artist, primarily an oil painter, from Mississippi. Most of my paintings are portraits of varying kinds, some more surreal and others more realistic. Regarding my specific identity, I’m a Black military veteran, so much of my art surrounds themes like the problematic nature of the military industrial complex, surveillance, living in carceral states, and other political issues. I’m currently working on my senior thesis series “Floating World”, which is inspired by Japanese media, experiences myself and others have had in the military, and mental health topics. I’m most proud of the way I’ve bridged seemingly disparate topics through my aesthetic practice.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
This is a great question. I’m primarily a traditional artist who produces physical pieces, so I initially found the idea of NFTs somewhat confusing. This changed in the summer of 2023, when I received an invite to sell NFTs on the platform SuperRare. Rather than selling JPEGs only, I used the transaction initiated by the sale of an NFT as a kind of digital “certificate of authenticity” and shipped the physical pieces to my collectors. I found it to be a great way to sell physical artwork. The infrastructure around the sales themselves, like NFT/SuperRare bots on twitter announcing sales in posts, was a great added touch. I’m not sure how much staying power NFTs will have in the future, but I love selling physical pieces as NFTs.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding thing about being an artist is the way I can uniquely communicate with the world through artwork. As an artist who routinely posts new pieces to social media platforms like Instagram, it’s always interesting to read and hear others’ interpretations of my work. Learning about others’ perspectives of your work is a great way to glean how humans think and process information. Perhaps it is a form of “process art” in and of itself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rodpaints.com/
- Instagram: rodrickpaints
- Twitter: rodpaints
