Richard Grahn
Evanston, Illinois
Just another eclectic artist defying the limits of his imagination.
MessageEducation
AA Fine Arts - Butte Community College - Oroville, CA
Additional Studies (Art and Music) - California State University Chico (CSUC) - Chico, CA
Art Related Experience
Sculpture Lab Technician - CSUC
Metal Finisher and Patina Specialist - Phoenix Day Company - San Francisco, CA
Patina Specialist - Henry Bonhard Bronze - Florida
Furniture Design, Construction, and Interior Design - Robert Hutchinson Designs - San Francisco, CA
Antique Furniture Refinishing - Rossi Antiques - San Francisco, CA
Patina Specialist - Artworks Bronze Foundry - Berkeley, CA
Photographer - Green County Spotlight - Monticello, WI
Exhibitions
Mixed Media - Solo Exhibition - Student Art Gallery - CSUC c. 1985
Painting - Minutes of the First Board Meeting - Juried Student art exhibit - CSUC - c. 1986
Mixed Media - Table for Two - Downtown Gallery? - Chico, CA - c. 1986
Wall Sculptures - Solo Exhibition - Company - San Francisco, CA - c. 1995
Statement
With no TV for entertainment growing up, there was a lot of time for ingenuity and exploration. Fortunately, I had an 80-acre hayfield, an ocean, and woods to keep me occupied. It was in that environment—growing up with people who built things for a living—that I learned to "manipulate objects in space." Building forts in the trees, igloos in the snowbanks, mowing the hayfield into a baseball diamond; these were my forms of entertainment. I learned to occupy my time with constructive (in my mind anyway) activities.
I've always been an arranger it seems. Whether it was sorting my stuffed animals by color or laying out a city of sandcastles, organization seemed to come natural. Things just had to be a certain way, and it was usually not what anyone was expecting. These are the traits that have found their way into the present where they mingle with my artistic endeavors.
I spent my college days, and many years thereafter, cranking out art, sculpture mostly. I worked in and around the interior design industry for about a decade where I picked up a slew of techniques and further insights into design, color theory, and manufacturing techniques.
At the dawn of home computing, I dove in headfirst. My reason was to create music. With my little Macintosh Classic II and a Juno II synthesizer, I set out to be a composer. I still have a 4-track cassette of some of that music and it's easy to see where my musical mayhem began. Over the last five years or so, I created well over 150 pieces of music (many improvisations and some fully composed). When I'm tired of working at the computer, I turn to the keyboard. Or I paint.
Once I had the computer though, my insatiable curiosity drove me to explore its inner workings, precisely, its programming. I bought some database software and some books and set out to teach myself how to program databases. Before you knew it, I was on a near-20-year deep dive into technology and slowly my artistic interests waned (to almost nothing). Soon, I was making good money programming, and that had my full attention.
It took recovery from a life-threatening illness to yank me back to the reality that I was put on this planet to create art. As I recovered, I vowed to myself that I would spend the rest of my life as an artist, musician, photographer, and poet. I have not wavered in that conviction since.
A family member gave me a set of canvases for Christmas last year. They sat around for a couple of months until, one day, I pulled them out and began doodling with them. It had been decades since I last painted but the bug hit me instantly. I've been accelerating into a painting routine ever since.
I find myself graduating slowly to larger canvas sizes. From what started with 11" x 14", I'm now up to 5' x 3' with larger sizes still floating around in my head. The only limitation right now is where to put the finished work. The answer is simple, on your wall! I hope you enjoy this collection; it's growing as I still have more to post and, obviously, more to create, so be sure and check back. I'll also be posting information on exhibits as they start showing up on the calendar. Thanks for reading.
Richard
Other places to find me on the web:
grahnart.com/print-on-demand - Here you'll find my photographic/graphic design work available in print on demand format.
grahnArt Music on YouTube - Here you'll find a collection of videos featuring my music and artwork. If you want an ad-free experience, venture over to grahnartmusic.com and check out the Music and Video pages.
All works are copyrighted (1986-2023) by the artist (Richard Grahn). All rights reserved.