Artist: Jack Rickard
Title: The Garden of Earthly Delights
Edition Size: Original
Medium: Mixed
Framed Dimensions: 40" x 40"
Retail Price: $3,600.00
About the Art: Original on canvas
About the Artist:
The flickering blue flame from the gas stove gave off just
enough light to read. Kansas farms had electricity by the
1950's, and with a flip of a switch, the room could have been
illuminated; however, when the rest of the family had gone to
bed, I turned off the lights throughout the house. In the firelight,
it was easy to imagine myself as Abe Lincoln reading by his
fireplace, or perhaps Jeddiah Smith beyond the fringes of the
frontier, fingering his crumpled maps. I read The Deerslayer,
The Last of the Mohicans, and The Pathfinder, frayed pages
packed with valiant heroes, cruel villains, Indian raids, and
stories of courage, rescue, love and death. I saw Natty
Bumppo, not in "the drab hues of reality”, but as one who ran
full speed alongside Chingachgook through the dense green
pageantry of books. However, it was not just the stories that
illuminated my childhood nights. The illustrations of NC Wyeth
and Howard Pyle are what made the stories truly memorable.
In that room in front of the fire, the images came night after
night to assault my being with painted warriors and leather-clad
frontiersmen. It was a world within a world, and they passed
through mine as easily as a tomahawk through a pumpkin. I
kept reading because I loved the fire and the illustrations, and
how they carried me beyond the plains where a cold wind that
smacked of snow dulled the edges of my childish heart. The
books and pictures filled the gaping holes of my education. I
read them slowly, the firelight flickering on every page.
I can say exactly when I became a writer, but being an artist
was something that just evolved over a lifetime. As a boy, I was
interested in art, and on the farm it served as a diversion and
an outlet to pass the time when my younger brother, Roger,
and I were not playing in the creek. We enjoyed the pleasures
that Boy's Life brought to our farm with the illustrations and the
cartoons that offered entertainment in addition to our comic
books. I copied characters in pen and ink on a bed sheet from
Sunday "funnies" such as Dick Tracy, Dagwood and Blondie,
Smilin' Jack, Joe Palooka, Red Ryder, Little Beaver, and
others. Mother saved it as Mother's do, and today I still have it,
tucked away in a drawer, seventy years old and growing older.
When I become famous, my grandchildren can take it on
Antiques Roadshow and when told it is worth thousands, they
can say, "Well, I never would have guessed."
I had a hideaway in the loft of the barn, and there among the
bales of hay, I copied photographs of places I knew only
through the pages of Collier's Magazine. I sent cartoons to
Boy's Life but nothing ever became of them. World War II was
on, and it was the comic book era. I grew up infatuated with
comic book heroes, Superman, Batman, and the Flash, but
Terry and the Pirates was my favorite. I could say that Milton
Caniff gave me my first big start being an artist without either
one of us ever knowing it. During the war I copied Walt Disney
squadron insignias onto the footlockers Uncle Homer sent
home from the Pacific and painted them on anything that would
stand still, even the seat of Gerald Harding's motor scooter.
It has been a long way from the comic books, Cub Scout kites,
a junior high comic strip, high school art class, the cartoon for
uncle Bob's water truck, the Marine Corps company emblem,
designing our college mascot, holiday backyard art shows, and
illustrating book covers, to the one-man- shows in Beverly Hills,
Laguna Hills, Sedona, and Scottsdale, and it has been one
great adventure, a lifetime filled with the kind of events that
make great memoirs.
Through most of my life I had two careers - teaching history
during the week and being an artist on weekends. Somehow it
worked. With each passing year, my art career expanded. Then
I took a fifteen year hiatus to write but never entirely left the art
behind. When my neighbors from London asked if I had any
paintings at home left over from my gallery shows, I decided it
was time to resume my art career.
I like to fill my artwork with mystery and symbolism. I draw
inspiration from Native American connections, folk tales,
legends, mythology, fairy tales, fantasies, Japanese kimono
design, rock formations of Lake Powell, Kabuki drama, the
ocean, and historical photographs: images that symbolize
connections with our past as well as our future. I prefer the
enigma of the abstract, the unfinished line, suggestions instead
of definitions, an ever-changing combination of elements that
are ever evolving so viewers can discover something new
today that they didn't notice yesterday.
I choose to be a teller of tales, a singer, a philosopher, a
magician, a master of make believe, a guide to spiritual
connections that reveal mysterious worlds far beyond selfimposed
boundaries. I desire to give voyagers a new way of
seeing their world, travel to a place where they encounter their
dreams, open the inner sanctum and fly. I wander through the
Museum of Time searching for images that will do this.
Sometimes I get lucky.