J Kirk Richards Art J Kirk Richards Figure Painting
J. Kirk Richards is a fine arts painter especially known for his religious paintings. He has too illustrated a handful of children'due south books, recorded an anthology of songs with another in procedure, and filmed music videos. Website
You exercise a lot of things—painting, music, videos, children'due south books. How did it all commencement for you?
I recollect everything started with music. Equally a child, I was raised on music. I took piano lessons and French horn lessons for years and years, so that's where I learned discipline for ane thing, but besides an appreciation for the arts. Incidentally, my French horn lessons were at the fine arts heart at BYU, so I would get to my lesson there and walk past the paintings that were on display and just really got excited about art.
With fine art, how did you showtime?
Like many creative kids, I used to draw every bit a kid. Then as a immature teenager I saw the motion-picture show Dead Poets Society and decided that I didn't want to do music anymore. I stomped up to my parents and demanded that they permit me quit music lessons. They were actually wise and encouraged me to go along, maxim that if I felt the same way afterwards a year, they'd let me terminate music lessons. And so I did, and a year after, I felt the same way, and I ended up swapping—I convinced them to let me stop music lessons in exchange for art lessons. So, from about the age of 14, I had a private art teacher and was also taking fine art classes at school.
How soon did you lot realize you loved painting?
I've always had a dearest for it. But I wasn't really committed to it as a profession until my first year at BYU. I was a freshman there, adamant to study something more practical—in fact, I took Statistics 222H, which for an creative person has absolutely no value. Only I took a figure drawing course towards the end of my freshman year from Hagen Haltern, and I loved it, and pretty much from that point I knew that that was what I was going to need to pursue.
Did you continue taking fine art classes at BYU? Was that your major?
I did. I don't think I declared one, but I was thinking about studying something in the sciences, and so by the cease of my freshman year I was adamant to be an artist, so pretty much from the end of my freshman year on, that was my major.
Y'all served in Rome, correct? How did your mission affect your growth as an artist?
My mission totally affected my artwork—anybody who's been to Rome and Italy knows how much fine art there is, I mean, it's just overflowing with art. You get off the plane and practically every corner you turn, you're bumping into sculptures and statues. During training days, we'd go to museums like the Vatican Museum in Rome, and some of the great churches that have amazing paintings—similar Caravaggio paintings—merely even in the smaller towns, at that place was a culture of art which afflicted my painting. Also, I recollect the colors in Italy are reflected a lot in my paintings—the rust browns and a lot of the color choices I use, the muted palette and the color harmonies come from Italian architecture.
One other affair: the Italians have e'er loved the human effigy, so even in the modernistic era, when New York took over from Paris every bit the middle of the art world, and the keen American painters were doing very abstract things, all through that time, even through today, Italians have had a continual history of using the human being figure in their artwork. That's something I love about the Italians and their artwork.
When you got dorsum off your mission, you finished your degree. What happened after you graduated?
I was married two semesters before I graduated. I had sold a few paintings, and then I accepted a job to illustrate a volume, The Carpenter of Galilee and the Welcoming Door, by Kenny Kemp. That was a big projection for me—I recall there were 26 paintings in that book—and I was simultaneously doing my own paintings. I don't know how many I did that year, but it became pretty apparent to me that I liked to practise my own matter, and that it would probably pay better than illustrating a book—my training wasn't really in analogy. I knew that I just needed to paint the paintings and images that I had in my head and my heart.
What's your experience been with making ends encounter and making information technology work financially? What kind of obstacles accept you run across?
The biggest obstacle, especially initially, is merely believing that somebody's going to purchase these paintings. It's a spring of faith, not knowing where they're going. So, of course, having the funds, considering it costs a lot to brand art. And if you're going to do your own promotions, you lot've got to pay for that. We tried to go along our expenses extremely low at the beginning. It takes a little while to develop both your style and to figure out exactly where y'all desire to get, and then it'southward a good idea to not be paying a lot of unnecessary overhead at the beginning.
What'due south a typical solar day like for you?
I used to sleep in till ten o'clock, but now I have an assistant who comes at eight o'clock every morning, which is early on for me. I don't set specific hours of the day aside for anything in particular—I unremarkably try to only schedule the week and make sure I become certain things done. I'll spend anywhere from nil to eight hours a day painting; it depends on how much other piece of work I have, other projects I'grand working on.
I spend a lot of fourth dimension painting, finishing frames, installing paintings, getting images to magazines or putting them on the website. Nosotros've been doing some video and music and things that give me a break from art—interests I have that I like to larn virtually and pursue.
I oft work at home. Nosotros just purchased a studio infinite down in Redmond, which is a suburb of Salina, and once a week I go down there for a mean solar day or ii. It'south pretty big—it used to be a salt packaging facility—and some of the walls are pretty high, almost 17 feet, so I can spread out and work on big projects downwardly there without any distractions, then come dorsum hither and get things done in betwixt family obligations.
How do you balance family obligations with your art?
Sometimes information technology's hard, because my brain is always in this creative world. Information technology'southward easy for me to not pay attention to what my kids are telling me or wanting me to look at or whatsoever they're doing, but we do what most Church building members practise—family abode evening, nosotros try to consume dinner together, I often put the kids to bed, nosotros often do information technology together. Every once in a while we take the kids out on one-on-appointment dates with a parent, and I endeavor to become on dates with my wife. Actually, I do a lot with my wife. She helps with the business a lot, so nosotros are often together all twenty-four hour period, except when I get down to the studio, and she'southward an creative person, too, so I work with her and help her develop her interests.
How many projects do you do at a time?
I probably take forty paintings in progress. Some of them motility a lot faster than others—some are large, some are small. I've been consistently finishing nigh 25 paintings a yr, simply I'm trying to finish forty this year.
Are those commissioned, or are they your own thing?
People who committee me know what I'thou known for, so even commissions these days are unremarkably forth the lines of what yous'd await me to want to do in the first place, and then that's not a large issue. Just I would say almost 30 percent of what I do is commissioned work, and the residue are spec paintings that are either selling out of the studio hither or going to galleries.
What'south your piece of work procedure, taking a painting from start to terminate?
I usually start with a sketch, a trivial thumbnail in my sketchbook that kind of looks similar a putter, maybe three by 4 inches or something. I usually leap right to the painting from that; I don't do a lot of studies in betwixt. I grid out the sketch fullscale and transfer it onto the canvas or the panel, then jump right into painting. I rarely use a live person, just sometimes I'll bring my wife in, have her hold her mitt in a certain position or something, taking photos for specific information I need to put in the painting along the way. That's actually it. And then I just attempt to finish information technology off the all-time I can.
In that location are some variations to that. Sometimes I won't fifty-fifty exercise a sketch, I'll merely start with a panel and start throwing textures and color on it and build up layers and meet what happens. Other times—rarely—I exercise a more thorough procedure where I beginning with a sketch, brand the sketch bigger, try to fill in more details, so do that a couple times earlier I become to a full-size painting.
Is information technology ever easy to start painting, or is it sometimes harder to motivate yourself to stir up the passion?
If in that location's annihilation else that yous need to practise, that'due south easier than getting down to painting. Getting gear up—making sure you've got the right paints on your palette and your brushes are ready and your reference is prepare—there's a whole setup before you even commencement. And so information technology only takes a lot of energy, so when there are other things to do, it's easy to put information technology off. A lot of my best painting is done at night later on the kids go to bed and I don't take distractions, when my day isn't fragmented. I don't know that in that location's anything specific I practice, except that information technology helps me to have music going while I'm painting. And I'm so deadline-driven these days that I but have to become down to it.
Speaking of music, what music practice y'all heed to?
I was raised on classical, of class, but I dear stone music, so I unremarkably listen to some sort of rock. If I'm sitting in a chair looking at paintings, I'one thousand likely to just fall asleep in the chair, and then it does keep me awake. And it keeps my mind decorated enough to not be tormented past the visual problems I'm trying to solve, but it leaves enough room for me to be thinking about how to solve them.
Could y'all expand on that a petty more than?
For case, I like to have some areas that are realist and finished while other areas are abstract. One problem will be, how am I going to leave some things abstract but have them still make sense in the painting? How am I going to finish some things off in a realist way just not take them too far? How am I going to brand the center move through the limerick the way it needs to? Am I going to put colors here that chronicle to each other? Are my values working? Does something stick out too far? Does something non stick out far plenty? And does it stick out too far in vivid lights but not in nighttime lights? And so those are all things you lot're trying to resolve simultaneously, not to mention the structure—is her arm in the wrong place? Is her mitt way besides small? Is the gesture impossible or grotesque? Things similar that.
How did "Cherubim and a Flaming Sword" come near?
One of the things I love is a narrative as it relates to the painting—a painting that brings in a narrative in the context in which the painting is understood, or a bespeak of deviation that could fill a painting with meaning. The scriptures have always been i of my greatest sources of inspiration, and "the cherubim and a flaming sword" was a phrase that I loved. It brought feeling to me—the idea of cherubim and a flaming sword and the whole story of Adam and Eve, and these angels that were placed to baby-sit the tree of life—and I wanted to capture that feeling visually. It was kind of a combination of dazzler and power and mysticism, and these were all feelings that I wanted to put in this painting.
I have a few sketches I did which wait nothing similar the painting, then I started the painting. I was painting these leaves, three-dimensional and floating around these angels, and information technology just wasn't working. Then I went back and sanded it down and did a flat leafy pattern, which ended up working out nicely.
How did "Mother and Child" kickoff?
When I was a teenager, my instructor, Clayton Williams, had me doing these little exercises—they were basically pencil shading exercises where nosotros did these sweeping shapes that I filled in. I thought they were beautiful designs simply as little pencil studies, but I wanted to make a painting, and so I did these aforementioned sweeping designs effectually a mother and kid. That's how information technology came to be, about the aforementioned time equally the other painting.
You do a lot of religious, Judeo-Christian themed artwork. Why that every bit opposed to any else you could have washed?
I've ever loved the paintings of Carl Bloch, and there were some other artists I loved that had Christian themes. And in Rome the artwork is very much church building-related. Every once in a while somebody asks me if I do it because I believe it or if I do it for money. I certainly exercise it because I believe it and because I dear the narrative. I love the principles that Jesus Christ taught. I love the feeling of those paintings of Christ—all through time there are paintings that move me, though of form there are paintings of Christ that don't move me.
I could probably practice much meliorate financially if I would abandon the religious themes. There are lots of galleries that would bear witness my work if it wasn't religious. Almost all of the major galleries want to remain secular to some degree, and so I've had galleries say, "Yeah, I'd love to show your work if you tin requite me a bunch of paintings that aren't religious." And the relationship ordinarily ends there.
How does the gospel influence you both in your art, content and theme-wise, and equally an creative person?
Well, it's provided well-nigh of my themes, or at to the lowest degree a point of reference. It's also provided a place where I tin make those paintings that I love and exercise it for a living—a unique place, actually, in terms of existence able to paint Christ and have it provide for my family. Nosotros accept the Springville Fine art Museum, and they fifty-fifty have a prove dedicated to religious artwork every fall. The Church Museum has a contest they sponsor regularly. The Church magazines are e'er looking for great artwork to use.
I don't necessarily pigment specifically for any of these places; a lot of my work is not meant for Church building magazines, considering it's not strictly didactic. At that place's a symbolist aspect—people have to read across the literal things that I put in, like wings and halos, and see the symbol behind it in society to understand them—and the magazines are specifically designed to focus on doctrine.
The gospel has definitely provided subject matter, a point of reference, and a customs that allows me to do what I like to do.
What is information technology like painting Christ?
I answer to classical, idealized imagery of Christ. And then I effort to do that in my own paintings, which means non relying likewise much on visual reference material. A lot of artists will discover a model they similar who represents what Christ would expect like to them. I've tried to avoid that. I do use photos to go light and a little scrap of structure, only and so I try to feel my manner through the rest and put some of the characteristics that I experience are representative of Christ into the painting, in the paradigm. I likewise love the feeling of antiquity—I love the feeling that this painting represents someone who has been the Lord since the commencement of time. A lot of paintings have textures and glows to them, a spiritual quality to them, if that'due south possible in a painting.
I try not to make him wait similar he's Scandinavian or from weald America, like a fur trapper or something. I have Christ paintings I've done that I nonetheless like, and in that location are some I can hardly stand to look at. Information technology's not an easy thing. Hopefully if I keep trying, past the time I die I volition accept done something lasting.
Earlier you mentioned mysticism. How do you encounter information technology influencing your work?
A lot of people don't similar information technology. I've heard people talk about mysticism as though it were in opposition to the clarity of the gospel. But for me, not everything is crystal clear. I have a lot of questions, which I think is part of growing—Joseph Smith went out and prayed and got an answer, and he and all the prophets and the scriptures take encouraged us to practice the same thing. So it's non similar nosotros take every answer; we're encouraged to search.
That said, I but call up there is something magical—if I can say magical, which kind of goes with mystical—about the whole concept that the gospel'southward congenital on: the Atonement. We can get a glimpse, simply as much as nosotros endeavour to sympathise it, there's still something beyond our comprehension. And the ability of God—I know it exists, I don't know how exactly it works, merely I know that information technology's real. There is beauty in some of the romantic narratives surrounding the gospel, too, and I think they're not bad for paintings. Every once in a while there's a picayune flake of a grayness area between what'due south literal and what's figurative. Even in the footnotes in the scriptures you'll sometimes encounter the word "superstition."
For example, this homo was sitting at the puddle of Bethesda, waiting for the moving of the h2o, because the outset person to touch the pool after an angel supposedly touched it would be healed. Would God really send an angel to disturb this h2o every at present and and so then that ane person out of this oversupply who's waiting could exist healed? I don't know. Possibly he would, but regardless, it'due south a romantic idea, and I think it's beautiful and has merit whether or not we translate information technology literally.
Yous mentioned some of the symbolic aspects of your work. Do yous consciously decide to program them in, or do they just come up well-nigh as you lot're painting?
It works both ways. Sometimes I'll have an idea, I'll recall, "It would exist great to do this, and and then it'll represent this," just and then it's non working every bit an image, and then I have to make changes. And so I think, "Well, that'll mess upwardly my metaphor." Often it'southward a compromise and I take to substitution metaphors in order to make a good picture. And so the meaning of the painting at the end may not necessarily be what I anticipated at the kickoff.
How did you lot become started with I'll Be At that place With Belzon and your other children'south books?
My wife likes plays on words; she'south always mixing words up in her caput, and so she and her companion in the mission field—she went to Norway—always joked about this grapheme, Belzon, who would follow them around. They'd say they'd exist in that location with Belzon.
And so I started working on that volume even before I finished Ken'due south book. I liked separating the two worlds, this spiritual fine art globe and the book world. Information technology was mixed in Ken'southward book, and I wanted to split them—and to work in colors I would never use in a painting. That Belzon book is pretty much all blueish.
It took me a few years to get that book finished, considering I didn't want to take it all the way myself. I wanted to mitt it over to a publisher, and then I sent information technology out to many publishers and got quite a good response. I heard immediately back from the lady who's been doing all the Lemony Snicket books, the editor at HarperCollins, and nosotros talked for a while. She loved the images but simply wasn't quite as corking on the story.
We ended up printing it ourselves and getting it out there. We've sold quite a few copies, merely it's notwithstanding a hobby for me.
I do schoolhouse visits. I've washed some here locally and some in California and Tennessee, where the schoolhouse has me come in and read to the kids. Information technology's a lot of fun. The kids are so smart, and they selection upward on things you can inappreciably imagine, things that I didn't fifty-fifty notice or read into in my own books.
Yous've recorded some music as well. How did that your album Granted showtime?
We really started information technology hither right before we moved to Nashville, then nosotros really got into it in Nashville. I've e'er wanted to record, and I'thousand most to finish a 2nd recording project that I've been working on for maybe 5 years, Somewhere Along the Line. And yous know, this procedure continues to elude me. Only I beloved it, and I call up that some of the new songs are closer to a sound that I'm happy with. I love lyrics, and I love music, and I love the process of engineering sound. It'south a very different surface area of art, although at that place are many things that are similar or parallel. But I hope mayhap further down the road, I'll really become something magical. It's something that is still quite a learning process for me correct now.
And you've done music videos.
I love working with rhythm and flow and all of the wonderful things that you think about in poetry and song lyrics. To add visuals and to play with those aspects in a visual medium is just really amazing. With a painting, you have rhythm and motion, merely it doesn't move through fourth dimension. The great thing almost video is that information technology moves through time.
What are your favorite and to the lowest degree favorite parts of life equally an creative person?
I dear to commencement a new painting. And I love to stop it. Information technology'south all that work in the middle that I don't beloved every bit much… I love to start new creative projects, and I could exercise that all day long. There's so much work involved, and sometimes I love it, but sometimes it'due south just work that you've got to get through. I dear that people respond to the work—I honey hearing that it has really made a divergence for somebody, or that it's really struck a chord with them. I love being at abode. I dearest not having a boss—I'1000 an independent person that way.
The things that I don't like are sometimes having to let get of a painting before I've completely resolved everything. I hate non being able to beloved my finished production. My consolation there is that even Leonardo da Vinci did some pretty bad paintings, and however the Mona Lisa's arguably the nigh famous painting in the world. And then of course there'southward always financial stresses.
There's much more that I love about it than I don't similar, and that's why I'g an artist. And I wouldn't merchandise it.
With your paintings, who exercise y'all see as your audience? Mormons but, or Christians in general?
Definitely Christians. I've washed a few LDS-specific paintings, just I oasis't done a lot—partly because I like the timelessness of Christ imagery and angels and things like that. I don't want to pivot my paintings down to a representation of the late 1800s or the 20th century. I do have an audience that hopefully is LDS and not-LDS Christians and even across—you know, I hope somebody can look at the "Cherubim and a Flaming Sword," and whether they be Buddhist or Jewish or atheist, feel kind of drawn into it, and exist kind of moved and curious nearly it.
If you could have lunch with anyone, who and why?
One of my final days in the mission field, I tracted downwards Ennio Morricone. He's the composer of the soundtrack to The Mission. I left a notation with his doorman, and he wrote me back. But I can't discover that letter anywhere. ❧
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