A Hero

I've always liked Richard Schmid.  Richard was the luckiest among us boomers-turned-artists--lucky, because he lived in a town where a painter could actually develop ones craft.  Growing up in Chicago, when a teenager he studied with a real plein air painter (decades before plein air became la chose à faire), and later, at the American Academy of Art.  Another way to say it is that during his formative years, rather than have his head stuffed with avant-garde clap trap, Richard got the skills and knowledge to enable him to grow into a painter whose unique individuality could evolve.

But what makes Richard special, what keeps bringing me back to his work is its essence--every painting being more than itself, every subject translated with marriage of mastery of skill and fullness of spirit.